Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 March 2003

19 March 2003

Today's lovely spring sunlight is all the brighter for Town fans, whose team now look down on the first division relegation zone from the lofty heights of 21st place. A last-gasp volleyed goal from John Oster at Rotherham last night was enough to give Town all three points - and for the Mariners to unseat Brighton from the safety position after the Seagulls' 2-1 defeat at Sheffield United, who the Diary won't hear a word against. Also worthy of mention in this context is a hamstring injury to Brighton's decent player Bobby Zamora, who hobbled off the Bramall Lane pitch after 48 minutes. Hey, at this stage of the season we'll take anything we can get.

The pioneers of avant-garde copy-editing at BBC Humber Sport have gone quite mental with the excitement of Town's elevation above the drop zone, quoting Paul Groves on the Rotherham match: "But in the second half, certainly for the 15 minutes we had bother with the ball there, what we did, I think, we killed off their spirit, they had to change it and when they changed it. We was out all day long down that right hand side." Remember - that's your licence fee.

More good news blows gently this way from a southerly bearing, having originated in the larynx of Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp, who has given his blessing for Richard Hughes to stay with Town for the rest of the season. The young midfielder has made a broadly favourable impression in his loan spell so far, and must now decide whether to stay with the Mariners until May or return to Fratton Park and wait for Neil Warnock to sign him.

Still less certain, as ever, is the situation of John Oster, which would appear to depend upon the wishes and whims of new Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy. Groves has been on the blower to McCarthy, who, with the indecision that has become endemic in the mobile phone era, said: "Err, oooh, I dunno, ring us again later, yeah?" Rest assured, though, that the Diary will bring you all the updates just as quickly as we can nick them.

Diary readers, meanwhile, are just crazy for the verse thing, if your responses to Diary Poetry Week are anything to go by. The admirable contributions received already this week have been supplemented today by several new stanzas - one from Miles Moss about Alan Pouton's mysterious appearance in the squad for last night's match; a collection of haiku from various poets in praise of Paul Groves and sausage rolls; and two more from the prolific pen of Alistair Wilkinson, one about losing and one about winning. Everybody have a read, won't you, and please keep emailing them in to codalmightydiary@yahoo.co.uk. It's fun, this.