Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 27 June 2003

27 June 2003

Paul Groves will be hoping to concentrate on the management side of his job next season if his intentions in the transfer market are anything to go by, as the Town player-boss is in talks with two more midfielders. No names are being mentioned, as ever, but Town's official site says our esteemed leader is "confident of signing at least one of them." With the existing squad Blundell bound on Monday, Peter Furneaux's stated aim of 10 new names on the teamlist for the start of pre-season training is looking about as likely as a dangerous set piece from Tony Gallimore; but the Diary remains reasonably optimistic about next season for the time being.

Alan Buckley's assistant manager at Rochdale will be Tony Ford, the Grimsby-born MBE who in 1977 became Town's youngest ever debutant at the age of 16 and remains the only English outfield player to have made 1,000 senior appearances. Ford was previously a player and assistant boss at Spotland under Steve Parkin, with whom he left to join Barnsley in 2001 only for the duo to be sacked after less than a year as the crisis-stricken Tykes plunged down the league. "I'm really glad to be back at Spotland," says Dale's old and new number two. "I've had some good times at the club and hopefully Alan and I can bring them back." You probably don't remember a very young Diary getting your autograph at the Old Clee summer fayre in about 1980, Tony; but all the best, mate.

Sam Metcalf wants to share something he hates about Wimbledon; to wit, "the way the crowd nearly shit themselves if someone slips over a little bit. For fuck's sake...they should watch me on the way home on a Saturday night - they'd be in a right mess." The Diary can relate to that wholeheartedly, Sam; but today's Reason I Hate Wimbledon - number 2 in our series - is that it makes people moan about the weather. Now it's been a relentlessly glorious couple of months if you like a bit of sunshine. Yes it has. It hardly rained at all in May. And now there's been a drop or two and the tennis has been late starting, everybody is all "oh, typical English weather, eh, ha ha, aren't we rubbish in this country, ho ho," and come September everyone will be on about what a miserable summer it's been, entirely regardless of whether it has or not. It gets the Diary's goat. And I blame Wimbledon.

It's not just Sam's legs that are the worse for his boozing; if Paul Thundercliffe is to be believed, then his memory is going as well. "It was a Dave Gilbert screamer that settled the last Donny match," he insists. "Alexander failed to score in what would have been his fourth successive scoring match as substitute. And it wasn't Uriah Rennie, but a rather small Indian chap. And I know all this because I used to tape the Town goals off Goals on Sunday, and then watch the clips 45 times. A night." There's no wonder your eyes went dicky, lad!

Keith Collins has another juicy Donny reminiscence for us. "I remember the last home game of the '78-79 season," he writes, "and we had already been promoted from Division Four and we played Donny. We lost 3-4 and a certain Jack Lewis scored a hat-trick but not for us. I have got the highlights on video from the telly and at one point it was snowing so hard (May 5th) that the camera couldn't see across the park. Drinkell, Ford and Cumming were our scorers (I looked it up)." Crikey! The Diary can't remember the snow.

Speaking of things that get my goat, which we were, Sir Michael Shelton has emailed on the subject of Town's itchy-footed custodian. "I was wondering whether the Diary feels a bit let down by Danny Coyne," he writes perceptively. "I've not been much of a supporter of Peter Furneaux to be fair, not least because he clearly was created by leaving a grape in the sun until it shrivelled into the shape of his head, and because I was a big fan of Bill Carr." You do realise it was Carr who was blocking the sale of these shares for all that time, Sir Mickey? "But all my feelings apart, I found part one of the interview with him on Mariners World pretty revealing. Danny was a great player for Town, but if he doesn't want to play here and he's dragging his feet over making a decision I can't help feeling Town are being screwed. Town don't know if they need to find a replacement keeper or not, if he stays he's hardly showed us he's committed, and all the while Town are paying his over-the-top wages. Screwed by a Welshman. Yuck." Yeah, but at least it's not Robbie Savage.