Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 29 April 2003

29 April 2003

Terry Cooke follows his agent's instructions and finally does the public self-pity thing today with a heart-rending interview in the Telegraph. "It's been a very frustrating season for me. I've been working hard and in training and keeping my head down and my mouth shut," says the former Wigan winger, choking back the tears. "But nobody's offered me anything and at this stage it looks like I'll be a free agent in the summer." The Diary thought Cooke's selection at Reading last Saturday meant Paul Groves still had an open mind on whether to retain the player, but there you go. Or there he goes, anyway.

The streets of Cleethorpes will be positively thronged with nervous Brightonians this Sunday as the south coast club has already shifted its entire ticket allocation for the final match of the season, reports BBC Humber Sport. Two thousand two hundred away fans will make the long haul to Blundell Park to see whether their side can leapfrog Stoke into 21st place and secure a second season in Division One. Town are odds-on to let Brighton win, but the visitors' fate will also depend on the Potteries side losing to Reading; and the Diary is probably not alone among Town fans in wishing the Seagulls the very best of British. Luck, that is, not weather. They probably get enough sunshine already.

Nottingham Forest's Jack Lester will be doing his falling over at a new club next season after the former Mariners forward emerged as the only one of six out-of-contract players at the City Ground who will not be offered a new deal. Although Town's official site strongly suggested earlier this season that Mr Groves would be keen on bringing the Doncaster-born frontman back to Blundell Park, the player is being linked instead with a move to first division Coventry - who, if recent press reports are anything to go by, are about £20m more skint than Town; but they have a big ground, so they can sign more players. Isn't that how it works?

Always ready with an explanation, Diary reader Mark Wilson has emailed with a reading of Michael Keane's body art. "I would suggest that Keane's tattoo reads 'Place weight of avoiding relegation here'. Grovesey has one and Andy Todd had a matching one last year." I'll buy that for a Euro; after all, it would also shed some light on why the player-manager was so quick to disrobe at the end of the Walsall match. "Roll on away games in Bedfordshire and west London!" adds Hertfordshire-based Mark, rather selfishly; not that the Diary is bitter about losing several of his own local away games or anything, you understand.