Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 26 February 2003

26 February 2003

Graham Rodger has requested a personal hearing as the FA investigates his role in the touchline melée that, depending on your point of view, marred or enlivened the Stoke game on 8 February. Following a vicious, Livingstonian aerial assault on Chris Thompson by Potters defender Wayne Thomas, staff from both dug-outs became involved in a bit of a set-to, as a result of which Town's assistant manager is being charged by the governing body with bringing the game into disrepute. Curiously, though, the FA has failed to lay the same charge against either Thomas or referee Clive Wilkes, who failed to punish him appropriately. If he is found guilty at the hearing on 25 March, Rodger could be forced to sit in the stands for several games; but the entirely fair and even-handed football authorities are expected to take into account the fact that this would hit a player-managed team especially hard - and ban Rodger from the dug-out for the rest of the season.

Today's John Oster news is that fans are already discussing a whip-round to raise the £75,000 that the Grimsby Telegraph believes will secure the young winger's services beyond his current month's loan. BBC Humber Sport cites the case of Bob Tindall, a Town fan whose father-in-law was instrumental in helping to raise the £10,000 that secured Joe Waters' services in one of many similar fans' whip-rounds in GTFC history. Bob points out that "for the two games at Wembley there was a total of 50,000-plus fans went" - and believes the part-time army could be the key to keeping little John. For its part, the Diary is waiting to see whether little John actually wants to stay before putting its hand in its less than copiously stocked wallet.

A further theory as to the destiny of erstwhile Grimsby trialist and plastic bag photographer Wayne Gill arrives in the Diary's inbox from Anthony Wood of Doncaster, who points out another website in returning to the hypothesis that the Oldham midfielder's recent lack of first-team football is owing to his second job as a software developer. "He obviously knows little about software," adds Anthony, though, "as he was throwing his support behind Bill Gates!"

And finally, an email from a Mr N Picker, who writes: "Many thanks for the link to the Lilleshall Scouts website in yesterday's entry. I have to say though, that my puerile enjoyment of the amusing word 'beavers' therein was rather spoilt by the site's overexuberant use of the apostrophe when mentioning plurals of days of the week. "Scouts meet on Thursday is"? "Cubs meet on something belonging to Tuesday"? Well! There'll be no sewing on of 'Grammar And Punctuation' badges for that website manager. But hey, I suppose I should be telling them that, not you, shouldn't I."