Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 1 September 2003

1 September 2003

Paul Groves' recent signing spree is set for a reprise after the Town player-manager confirmed over the weekend that Laurens Ten Heuvel will not be kept on at Blundell Park when his loan expires next week. The Sheffield United frontman has failed to live up to the promise he showed in a pre-season trial (GTFC's official site rather too bluntly describing him as "Dutch flop") and with Darren Mansaram out for up to three months Groves is keen to reinforce his forward line. With the Football League very sensibly ignoring FIFA's transfer window and FIFA not quite knowing what to do about it, the search goes on; and moves were made to bolster the Mariners' firepower ahead of Saturday's defeat at Bristol City. "We're looking to bring in a striker," confirms Groves in today's Grimsby Telegraph, "and we enquired about one on Thursday and Friday but his club didn't want to release him." The club has denied reports by Radio Humberside that Cardiff's prolific Peter Thorne was the player targeted.

A quick visit to the BP casualty unit reveals that Iain Anderson will be operated upon to remedy the knee ligament damage sustained in the recent win over Luton, while Mansaram is to undergo a scan to diagnose the horrific-sounding injury he suffered in training last week. "I could smell the blood as it soaked into the pitch and hear the flesh and sinews tear and snap from Darren's bone," was how Paul Groves might have described it; I can't quite remember now.

Why not seek to erase that image from your memory by entering a national competition to find the most knowledgeable football fan in the country and proving that you have very little to live for? Well, the Diary has received a press release about just such an event, and I'm going to run the story, because it all makes me feel like a real journalist. "If you know that in 2002 Grimsby bought Steve Chettle from Barnsley," it says, "then you could be the sort to go all the way to the final and even be crowned FootballMind Champion 2004." And if you know that in 2002 Grimsby signed Steve Chettle on a Bosman with no fee involved then you could presumably land a lucrative career in PR. The competition costs two or three quid to enter but you could win a Town shirt and tickets for the FA Cup final - for full details see www.footballmind.co.uk.