Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 14 August 2003

14 August 2003

A joint statement from GTFC and Humberside Police urges the silly boys who travelled to Doncaster on Tuesday to stay away from Blundell Park this Saturday for Town's first home game of the new season against Port Vale. Six people from Grimsby who are disappointed with life were charged with public order offences after disturbances followed Town's League Cup exit the other night; and the authorities are keen to avoid a repeat in Cleethorpes this weekend. Fans with any information that may assist police are asked to betray their dead hard working-class roots and contact Sgt Lee Dixon or PC Alan Rutter at Grimsby nick.

Now that the unpleasantness of Tony Gallimore is behind us forever, and with the early-season form of Darren Barnard and Iain Anderson providing cause for cheer, Town's left flank has displayed an uncharacteristic fortitude in the two games so far; and for once it has been on the right, where Marcel Cas and Jason Crowe are so far yet to settle in, that the side has looked weaker. Reinforcements are arriving, though, in the venerable form of John McDermott, who is back in training after missing the Plymouth and Doncaster games with sciatica. The GTFC legend has returned from treatment with the holy waters of Lilleshall just in time to reclaim the right-back slot from Marcel Cas, who is likely to face a one-match ban for his sending-off at Belle Vue the other night.

Speaking of marvellous John McD, the Diary has discovered another inaccuracy on the licence fee-hungry BBC Humber website. A page of Town statistics and records and things concludes by correctly naming the club's current captain as its record appearance holder but propagates the dangerous lie that Macca's Grimsby career spanned the years 1953 to 1969. Immediately above, the old pub quiz fact that "Grimsby play in Cleethorpes" - which, incidentally, a random Irishman tested me on in the pub the other day - is misphrased thus: "The club is famous for being the only team in England who are not named after the town in which they play." The Diary, as you know, harbours no ill will for the general population of Yorkshire; but the good people of Hull should clearly avoid refereeing and web editing in favour of shagging goats.

Finally, so as to avoid receiving irate emails from the trainspotter tendency among you, I might as well point out that Paul Robinson, the one who used to be on loan with Town, not the Leeds keeper, ha ha, scored his second goal of the season for Hartlepool last night as the east coast's new big boys put their second division counterparts Sheffield Wednesday out of the League Cup on penalties. Sources close to Robinson confirm, however, that the player is "still not as good as Alan Shearer".