Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 16 September 2003

16 September 2003

The barney between GTFC and the Grimsby Telegraph enters a new phase, with the paper ratcheting up the pressure by running a series of supportive letters in its sports section and hiding away elsewhere the ones that back the club in its ill-conceived decision to exclude football writer Stuart Rowson from the romantic precincts of Blundell Park. Town chairman Peter Furneaux, meanwhile, hits back with an open letter to the Riby Square Thunderer refuting recent claims by Rowson that safety would be compromised by the club's cost-cutting move to ditch the ambulance that stands by at BP on match days. Seconds out...

Town's turbulent term continues with more bad publicity for the club's possibly unwilling sponsor Jarvis, which faces fresh scrutiny after it emerged that a derailment at Kings Cross station this morning took place on a section of track where the company had recently carried out work - as was the case with the Potters Bar rail crash last year, which killed seven and injured 76. No casualties resulted from this morning's incident, as the train involved was travelling at only 10mph; but travellers in some parts of the country face serious disruption to journeys. "It is very unusual for a train to derail at such a low speed," says John Bourn of the transport pressure group Rail Future. Mr Bourn was unable to comment, though, when asked by the Diary why Steve Livingstone could never stay on his feet.

Good news from the FA, though, which has at last exonerated Graham Rodger from charges of public rag-losing following a less than adequately punished assault on Town's Chris Thompson in February's game against Stoke. Phew. BBC Humber Sport reveals that Town's assistant boss stood accused of headbutting Potters Bar - sorry - Potters boss Tony Pulis after the incident but was cleared at a tribunal hearing in York yesterday. Referee C Wilkes, who some may argue brought the game into disrepute by refusing to send off Stoke's Wayne Thomas, is not believed to have been charged with anything.

And so to this evening's clash with Swindon, where the Mariners will be hoping to bounce back from some indeterminate trauma of recent days, and an interview with Paul Groves on Town's official site finds the player-manager still dazed from whatever it was that happened. In the immediate aftermath of this uncertain calamity he raised the prospect of big changes to his team, but after remembering that he doesn't have any more players Groves appears to have relented. The one certainty is that Des Hamilton, who was hoping to return in midfield after completing a three-match ban, will again be absent, having picked up one of those eternal training-ground injuries. Swindon playmaker Sammy Igoe, meanwhile, is still seeing out a three-game suspension of his own; while injured midfielder Steve Robinson also misses out. Town fans can expect to cack their kecks at the presence of Leeds starlet James Milner, however, who is expected to start in midfield.

Mark Stilton's Refwatch, as ever, has the lowdown on tonight's chief official, Mr Eddie Ilderton of Tyne & Wear. "Mr Ilderton was refereeing Conference games as recently as two seasons ago," says Markie, "but established himself as a lower league referee in 2002-03. He appears quite lenient, issuing only 64 yellow and 3 red cards in 29 matches last season. In his four matches this season he has handed out 16 yellow cards. The only time he has refereed a Town match was in January last season as we were soundly beaten 2-0 at home to Millwall. No sendings-off in that match, although Campbell received a yellow and he gave a penalty to Millwall. Mr Claridge put that away, as I'm sure you remember, to score his second goal in a game where the Pontoon berated him for being rubbish. Let's hope Mr Ilderton has improved slightly on last season, where Tony Butcher felt that he 'started all right, but slowly, slowly, fell for the cheeky cockernee charms of Mr Wise' and gave him a rating of 5.697."