Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 27 May 2003
27 May 2003
This week the Diary's medical problems are not the sort of thing you want to hear about, quite frankly - particularly at lunchtime - and after the concomitant three-day hiatus in Diary activity you will doubtless be eager for a round-up of the weekend's GTFC news, such as it is. So let us proceed.
Firstly, Paul Groves is talking to Preston about signing Michael Keane on a permanent basis and could be set to make a similar move for Keane's recent fellow Town loanee, Portsmouth's Richard Hughes. Secondly, our shambolic excuse for a club is in utter chaos and the directors must be shot at dawn. Well, that appears to be the compliant reaction of some fans to the Grimsby Telegraph's latest efforts at rabble-rousing. Clearly disconsolate following the breakdown of John McDermott's move to Hull, the paper is now claiming that Town's contract offers to him and Stacy Coldicott have been "slashed" in a "massive U-turn"; and despite the Telegraph's misrepresentation of the Macca/Tigers episode and cheaply provocative coverage of the John Oster saga last season, some readers are still choosing to take it at its word. Like John Lydon, it could be wrong, it could be right; but right now the Diary is still too enervated from the emotional drain of relegation for unconfirmed silly-season scare stories to manipulate me into any indignation.
Suggestions over the weekend that Phil Jevons was joining Premiership Leicester City seemed more absolutely-bloody-stupid-season than silly-season; and sure enough, they've been put down to that catch-all culprit, the computer error - or more specifically, a slip-up at troubled football internet firm Premium TV that listed the Scouse slacker in the Foxes' squad. Diligently seizing an opportunity, though, Town's crack marketing team has swung into action. "The Official SMS Service and the Official Grimsby Town Website will bring you any real news FIRST," asserts the Official Grimsby Town Website impartially.
Dates have been announced for Town's pre-season larging-it tour. The squad will fly to Ibiza on Sunday 6 July before taking on Spanish third division sides SD Portmany and San Rafael on the following Tuesday and Thursday respectively, and then soak up a couple of days' worth of harmful ultraviolet radiation prior to their return home on the Saturday. Presumably because the Mariners' two opponents play each other in a third game, the official site describes the competition as a "round tournament", but the geometrically precise Diary suspects that such a competition would require an infinite number of participants, and that proceedings in Ibiza would be more accurately characterised as triangular. Meanwhile Town visit Unibond League Lincoln United on Tuesday 15 July, in the dear old Lincolnshire Cup, and Middlesbrough's trip to Blundell Park, which was originally scheduled for Friday 1 August, is now, ominously, "TBA". You don't suppose they've thought about paddling in the estuary and got cold feet?
Also over the weekend, the Diary received text messages from three people informing me that one of the participants in the new series of tedious lowbrow 'reality TV' extravaganza Big Brother is the estranged wife of Stacy Coldicott. We will refrain from compounding the prurient sins of Channel 4 by detailing here the reasons for the couple's difficulties; but if any BB-addicted Diary reader would like to email me updates of Steph Coldicott's progress on the show, then I'm sure we can find the space to share them.
Back to the Diary's old-fashioned email inbox now, and - surprise, surprise - Lee Cobby has been putting his bank holiday weekend to good use. "Early this morning, I was thinking about Alan Green's 5 Live commentary during Grimsby's League Cup victory over Leicester," he writes. As you do. "At one point he decried Jack Lester for having the same name as our opposition...well, thought I - what fun to have an entire team made up of players with names which are other teams! After reading the below, I'm sure you'll agree." Uh-huh. "I left out Santos, by the way. Even though Santos is both a player and a team in Brazil, I thought it too obscure to include." Don't patronise me, Cobby! Well, if you must...here it is then.
Birmingham (Bournemouth); Charlton (Bolton); Oldham (Barnsley); Brighton (Rangers)
Villa (FC Nuremburg); Blackburn (Chester); Preston (Queen of the South)
Carlisle (Bristol Rovers); Lester (free/Coventry); Bradford (Albion Rovers)
John Arrand is another whose knowledge of those vids is nothing short of encyclopaedic, and has set the Diary's troubled mind at rest by identifying the player referred to by the mysterious nonsequitur - "Well if he's that badly injured, he should get off the pitch!" - that introduced a match on one tape. "I believe the player involved was Bournemouth's John Bailey - well known among Town fans for scoring the opening goal in the Auto Windscreens Shield final, while the much-maligned Tony Gallimore stood and watched, before then doing quite a gay but clearly ironic celebratory dance in the corner." Did anyone else see this? John (Arrand, not Bailey) continues: "Personally I think the editing in those videos is part of their appeal: '...bit like you, John'...'Werr...bit like me... well, once or twice mayb...WHHOOOOOOAAAA!!'" Well, there's something we can do this week, then - send your favourite Roly and John nuggets to codalmightydiary@yahoo.co.uk. The Diary's is still the simple yet magically Grimbarian "McDermott won't keep that in...oh! He does do!"