Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 9 July 2009

9 July 2009

It is the mark of a forward-thinking football club that it scours the world for potential signings. It's easy enough for an English club to look round the English leagues and, if the resources and networks are in place, to consider players from other developed countries. But sometimes you need to go the extra mile, and if that means giving a trial to a footballer from a less developed country led by a corrupt, extremist dictatorship, so be it. So it is that the Mariners are taking a look at Italian goalkeeper Kevin Strukelj. Who? Why, the son of former AS Roma midfielder Mark Strukelj, of course! He seems to have had a spell in the Australian league, which is not an encouraging sign (I mean have you actually seen the state of Robbie Fowler?), but as always one must remain open-minded.

So much for Town minting it from Rob Jones' £1m-plus move to Nottingham Forest. The former Mariners defender, on whom Town retained a sell-on clause following his switch to Hibernian has, after all, secured a move to the second tier of English football - but it is with a strange lack of surprise that the Diary reports Jones' transfer to, yep, Scunthorpe. As the plucky little Irons' bid to assemble a GTFC tribute act continues apace, their coastal mentors stand to benefit to the tune of 15 per cent of any fee above the £150,000 paid by Hibs in 2006. The price is one of those undisclosed numbers, but the Telewag reckons it's at least £350,000 down and could end up closer to a million. So that's 350 take away 150 makes 200, divided by 100 times 15, equals 30, possibly rising to... hang on? Scunny? A million quid? WHAT? Although I suppose they've got all that money from selling on their last star player discovered by Grimsby. Do you think we could start charging them commission as well?

Lots of people have bought season tickets, apparently.

Just before I leave you for the week, with a guest diarist or indeed Guest Diary waiting in the wings to step on to this page tomorrow, there are more emails to the Diary to contend with. "I saw a pub in dirty Dirty Leeds the other day called the George," writes Simon Wilson, "which is obviously a reference to Radio Humberside sidekick and previous Town boss Mr Kerr. I've also seen a Black Bull recently. If only it was the Black and White Bull in honour of Ronnie B." If only! "As for the excellent Fighting Cock in Bradford, I'd leave that to you or your readers to decide which player deserves that honour. There have been many cocks at Town over there years, but not that many who seem to have fight." True enough, Si. One or two of them have often had a fight, mind you.

"Nice to see the internet isn't being wasted on pointless things," writes Alan Richardson, staying with the Town-related pubs theme and offering three more of his own. "How about the Master Mariner (somewhere in Cambridge apparently)? Never had the pleasure and not likely to as it looks to be everything that a good pub isn't - 1960s housing estate and no doubt Sky Sports News on permanently. However, these look a little better - the Old Mariner at Woodbridge in Suffolk and the Three Mariners, also in Suffolk. Not really likely to visit either (unless we draw Ipswich in the Cup), but they don't half look better than the Master Mariner, especially the Old Mariner as it often has the rather splendid Black Sheep as a guest ale." Superb! The pub's named after GTFC and the beer's named after Tom Newey.