Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 30 September 2003

30 September 2003

'Ello, princess! The Law of Sod is invoked again as the news breaks that Marcel Cas will miss two weeks of football with the knee injury sustained at Sheffield Wednesday last weekend. Having stood out as Town's best player in the last couple of weeks, Cas left the field on Saturday after provoking half an hour of terror in the home defence - forcing the tactical substitution of Wednesday's Jon Beswetherick after just 15 minutes. The Mariners are, of course, still missing Cas's fellow winger Iain Anderson with some nasty leg hoo-hah that similarly resulted from a tremendous start to the season that saw Anderson score three times in four games. The Grimsby Telegraph prognosticates a place for Jason Crowe as Cas's replacement at Blackpool tonight but after some heart-warming performances since breaking into the team this month Graham Hockless will be hoping for another chance on the left wing, in which case Stooey Campbell will shift to Cas's position on the right.

Blackpool will have to manage as best they can without injured defensive trio Tommy Jaszczun, Gareth Evans and Mike Flynn, which is probably still quite well. Like Blundell Park, Bloomfield Road has presumably had its share of disciplinary problems this season, as the Grimsby Telegraph observes that the Seasiders "have been playing a 5-3-1 formation" this season.

"Someone's having a laugh, aren't they? First Ryan and now HIM. It's just not cricket." This, lest you be wondering, is Markie's Refwatch, and tonight's man in the middle has achieved a certain notoriety in some parts. "If you're wondering what I'm on about," continues Mr Stilton, "think Pringle's leg, think Molenaar diving to the ground clutching his face as the breeze caused by Livvo's lower arm wafted over his cheek. Think Clattenburg." Ah yes - the man who made the Diary swear in front of his mum. "So, the stats then. Not that they matter with Clattenburg. Thirty-four yellows and one red in eight games so far this season and 135 yellows and eight reds in 35 games last season. He doesn't send people off normally. And by that I mean he doesn't send people off in the normal way. Thus you get red cards when you play Bradford, but if you end a player's career you don't even get a talking to."

So appalling, in fact, is Mr Clattenburg's refereeing that Mark extends to an unprecendented second paragraph. "Maybe it is the Bradford factor?" he goes on. "Ryan was actually OK, if a little erratic, on Saturday, but he was godawful when we played Bradford. Maybe referees tend to find brown paper bags full of money whenever they visit Bradford and that makes them more favourable towards the West Yorkshire cheaters (who aren't Leeds)." At which point my solicitor would like to point out that views expressed here by individual contributors are not necessarily those of the Diary. "Anyway, I'm rambling. Mr Butcher thought Clattenburg was merely 'a bit fussy' against Sheff Utd last year and even gave him a score of 6.32. Blimey. Of course, after the Bradford match, Tony spat: 'I would be happy if we never saw this individual ever again. Perhaps we should send someone to terminate his command. He's out there under no decent, civilised control. His methods are unsound. Terminate with extreme prejudice.'"

Craig Oman has been moved to email after the Diary was reluctantly moved to criticise Tony Crane yesterday. "Just thought I'd quote you what The Times says about him in its report: 'In Tony Crane, Grimsby have one of the best defenders in the lower leagues, a real old fashioned centre back - all lead feet and menacing scowls. Wednesday's longs ball forward were inevitably attracted to his head.' Well, I guess they got the lead feet right!" Now I'm getting a little disturbed here, what with Paul Groves saying: "Craney was very keen to come back and put in a good performance to show people and he did himself no harm at all." So disturbed, in fact, that I would like to seek the views of Diary readers in clarification - not, as you know, a measure I tend to undertake lightly. codalmightydiary@yahoo.co.uk is the mouth; your views on Mr Crane the aloo chana vindaloo.

It falls, as ever, to Mr Miles Moss to conclude proceedings on a lighter note. "Funny how Mark Wilson decided to remove a vowel from the word 'shit' in order to make it less offensive, replacing it with an asterisk," is his observation on yesterday's Diary, "but does he realise that said asterisk aptly looks like a cat's arsehole?"