Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 27 February 2003

27 February 2003

You say yes, I say no, you say John Oster has a year and a half left to run on his contract, I say it expires this summer. If The Beatles were here today and decided to write a song about Grimsby Town FC chairman Peter Furneaux, that's how it might go. The Mariners supremo is quoted by BBC Humber Sport today as expressing the belief that our cherished loan wunderkind has "still got 18 months of his contract to run at Sunderland," whereas every source of information the Diary can lay its grubby paws on insists, cross its heart and hope to die, that the new contract Oster was given by the Black Cats last summer was just one year in duration. Somebody's got it wrong - and we wanna know who.

Any old how, Mr Furneaux's main purpose in talking to Auntie Hull is to express pleasant surprise that Town fans have already started discussing ways to raise the 75 big ones that the Grimsby Telegraph reckons Sunderland would accept for little John. Like the Diary, though, PF is quick to point out that the biggest stumbling block is likely to be the player's own wishes. "Also," adds the chairman wryly, "there is a remote possibility that Grimsby may not be in the first division next season." You have to love that Grimsby humour.

Meandering midfielder Mads Mortensen may have come a step closer to earning a contract with the Town after scoring half of the reserves' goals in last night's 5-2 defeat at Darlington. The Charlton man's strike was matched by a contribution from Chris Thompson; but the Keeganesque second string were never in the match after going 4-0 down within 20 minutes. The line-up cited by Town's official site, tragically, carries no mention of Mortensen's fellow trialist, the extravagantly monickered Kalam Mooniaruck - nor of Kevin George, Robert Dickinson, our old chum Wayne Gill, or any of the other 56 scrillion trialists to have flashed a bit of leg at GTFC of late. Saying that, there was somebody called Heggarty in there, who the Diary vaguely recalls came out of non-league in Nottinghamshire or something. Whatever.

Marnix Kolder, the Diary's Essex correspondent, has been doing a bit of digging, meanwhile, and ended up disinterring a 300-year-old corpse. According to a website he has discovered, Mads Mortensen sadly passed away on 11 April 1706. "It appears we're looking to extend our signing policy to include the undead," laments Marnix. Perhaps so, mate, but remember that even your average 300-year-old corpse would boast greater mobility than Danny Butterfield.

In recent months Town's official site has got the traditionalists among us a bit worked up by airing such suggestions as replacing Town's kit with chocolate and blue quarters and playing Robbie Williams hits when Town score a goal - and the latest heated debate to warm up your typing fingers concerns a redesign of the club badge, which two or three daft kids think might help get us into the second group stage of the Champions League. Email oldgit@gtfc.co.uk with your outrage, if you can be arsed.

Rightio - the Diary is off to celebrate its 10th anniversary (since it got together with Mrs Diary, not since it went online) by drinking loads of beer for three days, as a result of which I will be unavailable to write this page tomorrow. Prospective temporary diarists are requested to email codalmightydiary@yahoo.co.uk with CV, photograph, and covering letter explaining in 100 words why you would just totally kick ass. Toodle-oo!