Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 28 June 2007

28 June 2007

If history is cyclical, and everything repeats itself, then Gordon Brown will barely last five minutes before shattering his reputation forever by unquestioningly following the Americans into an ill-advised military adventure in the Middle East, and Grimsby Town Football Club will shortly have another row with BBC Radio Humberside about the rights to broadcast commentary on their matches. Oh look - they are already. Clearly bored with not having alienated any influential local media for a few weeks, Mariners bosses have decided enough is enough and launched a re-run of last season's dust-up with the Beeb, which should keep them going until they can pick a fight with the weather presenters off Look North or work out how to slash Geoff Ford's car tyres without being spotted. A statement on the official website says: "Unfortunately the club has been unable to negotiate any radio deal for 2007/08 that includes all away game commentaries, and as such immediately took measures to make sure that there would be a way for Grimsby Town fans to keep up-to-date with all the match action", for which read "we're trying to coin it in out of the hopeless Mariners World service by deliberately pricing out the BBC so that we'll have the fans over a barrel with their sorry cheeks spread wide".

It remains to be seen whether the BBC will stick to its guns, but for sheer determination Radio Humberside bosses will be hard pressed to match the Grimsby Telegraph. Undeterred by the failure of two previous petitions to have John McDermott awarded an MBE or one of the other queeny bauble- type things, the local paper has set up a third such campaign. Fans are already flocking to add their names, claims the paper - despite its report not actually giving a working link to the online petition - and some have sent comments to the Telegraph in support of the former Mariners right-back. "Macca would be a far more deserving recipient than Salman Rushdie," opines Steve of Grimsby, before going on to endorse the school of criticism that post-structuralist readings of Midnight's Children reveal a quintessential ideological aporia in its counter-colonialist subtexts.

Mark Wilson has emailed the Diary to comment on yesterday's story about Ashley Sestanovich's award of £10,000 in unpaid wages. "If you substitute the words 'convicted criminal' for 'wanker', Crawley's statement could just about sum up most supporters' view of Sestanovitch's time at Grimsby," he writes. Indeed - but it was Grays Athletic, Mark, not Crawley. You're getting one convicted criminal mixed up with another.