Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 26 November 2003

26 November 2003

Move over, Martin Johnson! Just step aside, Jonny Wilkinson! GTFC stand on the cusp of greatness after a relatively experienced reserve side stumbled to a 2-1 win in last night's Lincolnshire Cup tie at Lincoln (on which Cod Almighty today carries an exclusive Tony Butcher match report). Goals either side of the interval from Phil Jevons handed a flattering win to a poor Town side, pushing them into the final or the second round of the county's premier knockout competition, depending on who you believe. Damaged midfielder Alan Pouton performed his first stepover of the season after replacing Paul Groves an hour into the game; and his failure to make a goalscoring return proves insufficient to deter Teamtalk from running a story headlined Pouton Makes Goalscoring Return. Town's official site, meanwhile, raises the spectre of Wacko Jacko-style plastic surgery in the squad by crediting the second goal to Darren Mansaram.

Speaking of spectres, Kevin Donovan has risen from the grave at Blundell Park, where he is training following his release by Barnsley last week. All the world's media is alive with talk of the former Mariners midfielder rejoining the club he left for the Oakwell dollar in 2001, but the GTFC website states merely that Donovan is "training with Town while his agent tries to get him a new club". The gist of most reporting on the subject appears to be that Paul Groves "has yet to deny" that he wants to sign the player, but by that token he must surely also be preparing a bid for Thierry Henry; and with a right-sided midfielder of Marcel Cas's calibre languishing on the bench, to bring in another would make about as much sense as John Prescott after thirteen pints of snakebite. Teamtalk, incidentally, appears to labour under the misapprehension that Town paid West Brom £30,000 for Donovan after he had also played for Huddersfield. These people, remember, are being paid and the Diary is not.

Birds fly, fish swim, Grimbarians don't watch football and Jarvis attracts controversy. Having been criticised fiercely for groundlessly attributing the Potters Bar rail crash to sabotage and taking lucrative contracts for education consultancy despite having no relevant experience, the heat is back on Town's less than willing sponsor after Steve Norris, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, took over yesterday as company chairman from Labour donor Paris Moayedi. Still with us? The Tory is accused of a conflict of interests because of Jarvis's involvement in the part-privatisation of the London Underground, with Lib Dem mayoral candidate Simon Hughes stating: "This is a direct clash of interest, not just in theory but in practice. He must now decide which job he most wants to do." Norris has pointed out in response that his appointment is as interim chairman only and pledged to resign his position with Jarvis if elected. Like everyone else, then, he is presumably expecting another shoo-in for Ken Livvo.

Returning down the A46 for a moment, Keith Alexander is on the mend after undergoing brain surgery. The Lincoln manager and former Mariners striker was taken to Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital after collapsing from an aneurism two weeks ago (so it's down the M180, M18 and M1 really) but is no longer in intensive care and has recovered consciousness, which is really nice to know. Staff at the hospital report Big Keith - who was rumoured to be a target for second division Peterborough before his illness - to be making good progress.

Veterans of yesterday's Diary will recall our missing words competition run in conjunction with BBC Humber, which headlined a story about Marcel Cas Substitute pulls of a winner! The best entry of all the, er, one entries so far comes from Mat Hare, who conjectures that the missing words are 'the wool over the eyes'. "Marcel Cas has been a sneaky bastard and has fooled one of his team-mates from Saturday," writes the alcoholic gambling addict. "Or perhaps we are just missing an 'f' and the Flying Dutchman has been administering hand jobs in the shared bath at the end of the match," adds the filthy-minded bastard. Interestingly, the name of the story appears in the title bar of web browsers as Name of story, so maybe there's something else missing somewhere.

Mat also has a word or two about the "swing low, sweet halibut" chant that started up at Brentford last Saturday. "The chant was crap! Yes, a very witty first line but it was followed up with what sounded like the traditional words," he complains. "How can a halibut carry you home?" And if that hasn't become a new random tagline on Cod Almighty by the end of the week, then my name is Susan Bookbinder. "It was never going to be as good as the duck impressions performed by the home fans. They saw the ground was more like a lake and started pretending to be ducks. I was convinced. I even threw them the bun from my half-time burger. I was disappointed though when I found out that Smiley Miley and Janice Long weren't going to turn up and do a live broadcast with Deacon Blue and Five Star. Maybe if the match had been in Cleethorpes they would have. Who knows." Who indeed, Matthew. Who indeed.

Tony Butcher and Paul Ketchley were also present at Griffin Park. "The ubiquitous Ms Emma Gillingham was with them and will no doubt know the perpetrators [of the halibut song]," says Paul - so, Emma, if you're reading this, do shed a little light if you can. "More to the point," adds Tony, "how did it end up being mentioned on Radio 4?" That is actually what the Diary meant yesterday when asking "Did anyone actually hear this?", but never mind - the whole thing has at least made like Des Hamilton and filled a bit of space.