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Diary - Sunday 6 July 2003

6 July 2003

I am not planning on writing an awful lot here today, as Mrs Diary and I have come down with something; hence we probably shouldn't have gone to that party last night but it was a smashing do and we are jolly glad we did. And I don't have long because we're off to an antifolk gig tonight headlined by Kimya Dawson out of The Moldy Peaches. Sorry - I'm turning this into one of those tedious blog sites here, aren't I.

So. Word is getting round that the "sought-after lower-division target man" from whom Paul Groves is awaiting an answer following transfer talks earlier this week is tall man Clive Platt, lately of Rochdale. He is well suited to the role of replacement for Steve Livingstone by dint of a pretty dismal goalscoring record; though the player was a firm favourite at Spotland until last season, when he embarked on a Coynesque "I am so out of here" strop and stopped trying, provoking great anger and furious malice from the Dale faithful. Platt apparently agreed terms with Bristol Rovers before agreeing terms with Notts County before nearly agreeing terms with Town; but as yet there is still no official word from Blundell Park that he is the fella we're after.

Meanwhile 25 Mariners are 35,000 feet above our heads as I type these words, but defeated contract rebels John McDermott and Stacy Coldicott are not among the squad en route to Ibiza for the first two workouts of this pre-season. Stace is still getting over his busted leg while Macca has got one of those calf injuries that he always gets. Still, better now than in a month's time. Little David Soames also misses out with a bruised foot. And it's going to be hot out there.

The Mariners may have nicked Marcel Cas from under the very noses of Sheffield United, but news that Jellylegs Jack Lester is Bramall-bound brings proof that ya cannae change the laws of physics nor indeed the eventual attraction of all things GTFC towards the irresistible force that is Mr Neil Warnock. Elsewhere in the Bosman market, but also in South Yorkshire, Peter 'Handysides' Handyside - who many Town fans have dreamed fondly of seeing return home to Cleethorpes - is thought to be training with Barnsley.

The ninth, final and perhaps biggest Reason I Hate Wimbledon (actually, there are one or two more, but I'll hold those over until next year's tournament) is the way the tabloids take on the mentality of 14-year-old boys, I mean even more so than usual. The way if you put a blonde wig and a tennis skirt on an ironing board they would still be trying to get photos where you could see its pants. The way Anna Kournikova is supposed to be like this total babe, when in actual fact if you shaved her head she would be indistinguishable from George Daws out of Shooting Stars. Thank you for reading Reasons I Hate Wimbledon. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

After the fun of our little Diary book group the other week, I now invite you to submit to the email address on the left - well, it's sort of above-left by now - any Grimsby references that have cropped up in your reading where you least expected it. The Diary has just finished The Woman in White, a splendidly plotted novel by Victorian dope fiend and philanderer Wilkie Collins, and was interested to find the present-day English football scene uncannily presaged in a section describing the 1851 Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace. "Foreigners in unusually large numbers had arrived already," writes Collins, "and were still arriving in England. Men were among us by hundreds...by means of appointed agents, to our shores." Elsewhere this estimable tome provides evidence that little else has changed in the past 150 years: "She had determined on removing to one of the most out-of-the-way places in England - to the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire."

Oh, and Disco Des Hamilton has signed a two-year contract with the Mariners. Whether he will be the new Shaun Cunnington or the new Terry Cooke only time will tell.

For all my intentions of brevity, this Diary has ended up being longer than a Neil Woods dribble. I really need a snooze now.