Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 20 July 2007

20 July 2007

Hey up maties. Your Guest Diarist has got a bloody fantastic map to show you. It will be especially useful if you plan to follow the Mariners to their pre-season friendly game at Farsley Celtic tomorrow. Cod Almighty mapmeister Si Wilson produced it, and it will be duly entered in to the map of the season tournament awards to be held at McMenemy's at the end of the season (dress code: strictly cartographic). If you are approaching this match from Southport (having been despatched there en route to Gainsborough a couple of days ago), however, it may be more beneficial to use the Grimsby Town official website to help you plan the next leg of your round-England tour.

The new all-sparkling official site has just awoken, stretched and noticed that Stevland Angus has left the party. Whither we know not, nor whether we will ever see his like again. The article also tells us that Fenton had a thigh strain and faces a fitness test today while Gary Jones has a hamstring problem and is very doubtful for tomorrows game.

Mr Diary told you a few days ago about Lord Buckley being voted best-ever Walsall player as part of a PFA centenary poll, and at the time we wondered if the letter to our club had been accidentally stored in the bills-I-can't-be-bothered-to-open pile on the hall table. Well, the Telewag has found it, apparently, and published the shortlist from which we can pick. The Telegraph, in anticipation no doubt of fans' comments about the slightly weirdly drawn-up list of names, has published a comment to its own article to the effect that it had nowt to do with the shortlisting of these choices and that the list was drawn up by the club in conjunction with the PFA.

The ten players selected are a combination of obvious choices by way of playing loads of games for Town, nice chaps but not necessarily great players, bad reputations and other assorted folk lore passed on by someone's grandad, I reckon. The most controversial omission is probably Clive Mendonca. To vote you must be able to text and have a phone not powered by Virgin mobile. Oh, and a deep and committed sense of loyal trust in the whole thing because there is no mention of what it will cost you. In the absence of any voters the top man at Ofcom will be approached to impersonate one and give a casting vote to decide who wins. And you need the patience to wait until tomorrow when the line opens. I'll leave that one with yer I think.

Would-be Town midfield maestro Mr Bolland has admitted to the Telegraph that Town were a bit crap in their last friendly. After saying they had a decent first five minutes he went on like this: "The gaffer told us that it was well short of the standards we need to be setting. We have got to improve as the games are going to get harder as the pre-season goes on. It was my first 90 minutes I have completed so, from that point of view, I am happy. It was a good workout against a decent team, but we need to improve our ball retention." So let's hope we get a better match tomorrow and don't get drowned out again today. See yer.