Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 4 September 2003
4 September 2003
As Paul Groves' search for a striker continues to draw a blank, the GTFC management look set to make a virtue of necessity and build bridges with one-hit wonder Phil Jevons. The Scouse flop, you will remember, is on a ridiculous wage that resulted from the lethal conjunction of the ITV Digital contract and Lennie Lawrence; and further appearance-based quantities of wonga, due to the player and his former club Everton, currently preclude him from consideration for the first team. Jevons himself scuppered a close-season deal renegotiated between his agent and the club, but Town fans could once again behold grass-cutters slowly rolling their way towards the other team's keeper as today's Grimsby Telegraph reports that he is back in training with the first team. "We're trying to get him fit and what happens after that is between the manager, the agent and the player," says Mr Furneaux, who has been requested by Blundell Park medical staff to step back from personal negotiations with Jevons after emerging from a routine check-up in the summer with a trail of broken blood pressure gauges in his wake.
Former loan defender Andy Todd - as careful readers of yesterday's Diary would have deduced - has joined first division Burnley on loan; and given the state of the Turf Moor defence, few Town fans would begrudge them him. Elsewhere, more carelessly wishful thinking by supporters has led to an official denial from GTFC that Charlton striker Kevin Lisbie is to join the Mariners. Paul Groves "is today actively involved in trying to add another body to the ranks," announces the club's official website, "but it definitely is not Charlton's Kevin Lisbie." With the precedent set for the site to deal with rumours on the messageboards, visitors are already expecting to download a 45-megabyte pdf ruling out a new forward line of Matt Tees and James Beattie and a takeover bid from a consortium fronted by Lawrie McMenemy, Ivano Bonetti, Norman Lamont and that lass who was in Swing Out Sister.
If, like the Diary, you are a non-season ticket holder who sometimes struggles to buy tickets in proximity to your season-ticket-holding mates, then listen up. The Mariners are to operate "an unreserved seating policy" for this Saturday's visit by Peterborough, proclaims Town's official site, three days after the Diary phoned up to try and buy tickets in proximity to my season-ticket-holding mates. Hmmm...oh, and it's only any good if your mates hold season tickets for seats 92 onwards only in the Pontoon Stand, that being the unreserved area. The Diary appreciates the pre-Taylor Report spirit of the gesture, nonetheless; and it will work a treat if neither you nor your mates hold season tickets and none of you have bought advance matchday tickets. I think.
When the proud people of Great Grimsby are slighted by national media institutions - as happened on BBC Radio 2 earlier this week - then the seething heat of their wrath is sure to make itself felt in a manner that will make the world sit up and take notice; and sure enough, Miles Moss has emailed the Diary. "So Radio 2 had a cheap laugh at our expense, did they?" he scowls. "Not very likely that we'll win the FA Cup, is it? Well get this - Monty Python had a similar dig at Coventry City in a sketch featuring Karl Marx and Mao Tse Tung trying to win a 'beautiful lounge suite' on a glitzy game show. "Haha!" jokes Eric Idle's gameshow host at Marx's political answer to yet another footballing question, "Coventry City have never won the FA Cup!" But Coventry had the last laugh when they did win the FA Cup some twenty years later in 1987. So get your bets on for an ageing John McDermott holding aloft the FA Cup in 2023. If the 2014 meteor misses Earth, that is."
And it has fallen to Mark Wilson to make the musical connection that nobody else has wanted to make. "Whilst perusing the shelves of my local HMV," he writes, "I noticed that Ian Anderson has a new CD out. It's good to see that he's keeping busy during his injury lay-off."