Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 17 July 2003

17 July 2003

Georges Santos has today signed a new contract with Town, but the bad news for the Grimsby fans who last season made him their latest short-term cult hero is that the Town in question is Ipswich. The hulking, titanic defensive legend of French origin will be performing his X-rated challenges and Gallic shrugs in East Anglia next season after Blues boss Joe Royle moved to snap him up on a three-month deal, and Santos will travel with the Ipswich squad on their pre-season tour of Scandinavia (been there, done that). "With John McGreal recovering from his knee injury and Thomas Gaardsoe picking up an ankle problem, I wanted to bring in someone else to help us at the back," says Royle in a passionate and glowing testimony to his long-standing admiration of Santos' awesome skills; while Ipswich's official website displays early confusion over spelling, dithering between George, Georges and Geoge within the space of a few dozen pixels. Given that GTFC signed him almost by accident and were still relegated with him in the side, the Diary is trying to be kinda philosophical about the player's departure. The king is dead, long live Tony Crane.

One of Paul Groves' less well-kept secrets has been officially blown with the news that Aidan Davison is training at Blundell Park and will sign a two-year contract on 1 August. "He was always the number one choice," admits the Town boss to the Grimsby Telegraph. "It's good to finally get him on board." Paul's pleasure at the keeper's return is evident in a quite cute and pretty good photograph on the front page of Town's swankily redesigned official site. The long delays incurred in Davison's return to Blundell Park are understood to stem from the player's need for reassurance that Wayne Burnett is no longer residing in the North East Lincolnshire area.

A date has been fixed for the FA hearing that will give Graham Rodger a ruddy good telling off for conduct unbecoming a gentleman. Town's assistant boss, you will recall, went bananas when Stoke full-back Wayne Thomas launched a massive air strike against Chris Thompson as the two sides met at Blundell Park in February; and in the typical FA way of things, the body that couldn't govern its way out of a moist tissue has decided to hold a disciplinary tribunal almost seven months later, on 27 August. Rodger is alleged to have tried to headbutt Stoke boss Tony Pulis, despite both a nearby police officer and Pulis himself saying otherwise. "I do really feel hard done by," mopes Grezza to BBC Humber, but if punishment from the FA is the only way for Grimsby coaches to be taught that teams with big shiny home stadiums are perfectly within their rights to commit life-threatening assaults against Town players, then so be it.

A youth/reserve team featuring two trialists went down 3-1 at Brigg Town last night, Nick Hegarty/Heggarty/Hegartey finding the net for the Mariners' second/third string. The newcomers were Charlton youngster Dave Savage and a mysterious figure by the name of Uza Opara, origin and correct spelling unknown. Meanwhile the GTFC trialist who sadly never was, Wayne Gill, is being handed a chance to salvage his tattered soccer dream - by a Mr A Buckley of Rochdale, Lancs. God bless you, sir!

Finally, Steve Croudson's move to York could still be on after Marlon Beresford failed a medical - and after appearing in a friendly for the Minstermen against Sunderland last night the former Town keeper can consider himself deeply honoured to have conceded a goal scored by undoubtedly the finest footballer ever to have graced the Bootham Crescent turf, and quite possibly any turf anywhere in the civilised world - the player who threatens my heterosexuality, the one, the only, the sensational, the far too good for Division Two, the hung like a 60-foot donkey, Mr John Oster. What a guy.