Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 13 October 2003

13 October 2003

Aidan Davison, John McDermott, Tony Crane, Mike Edwards, Jason Crowe, Stuart Campbell, Nick Daws, Des Hamilton, Iain Anderson, Iffy Onuora, Michael Boulding, Greg Young, Graham Hockless and David Soames weren't the only Grimsby players who lost on Saturday, of course, as Darren Barnard played the full 90 for Wales in a 3-2 home defeat against Serbia & Montenegro. In the run-up to the game the whole world and his dog had boldly printed the name of Crewe's David Vaughan at the left-back position in their starting line-ups, and despite having since been shown up for the fools they are, the press are still at it. A conspicuous all-round performance from the Town defender, who drew an excellent save from visiting keeper Dragoslav Jevric, sees him named man of the match by the Guardian's Matt Scott - who plumbs the depths of absurdity by also citing the player's presence in the Wales team as proof of Craig Bellamy's claim that "we haven't got the resources that other nations have". So the Diary is burning candles to keep warm and Matt Scott is earning God knows what to write that Barnard had a great game but plays for Grimsby and must therefore be shit.

Maybe it's a sign of those declining educational standards we're supposed to have, or maybe it's just because they put it on the wrong side of the front page, but the entries haven't exactly been pouring in for Cod Almighty's latest competition - so I thought I'd give it a plug here. Two clean and crisp match tickets are available for the home game of choice of one lucky reader who can answer three simple questions - well, one is simple to research; another you really ought to know already; and the third isn't that hard to work out - you can even use a calculator if you like. So give it a go, why don't you?