Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 25 November 2003

25 November 2003

Alan Pouton could tonight take the unusual step of playing some football. The injury-prone and indisciplined but influential midfielder hasn't kicked a ball in anger or even mild dissent since knackering his knee in a pre-season friendly against Lincoln but is named among the substitutes for this evening's reserves fixture against, ooh, Lincoln! Simon Ford, meanwhile, is expected to start the game, reputed by Town's official site to be a first-round Lincolnshire Cup tie, while the Imps' Rivals site insists that the game is a semi-final, with the winners set to slug it out with Scunny in the tournament's prestigious final for a taste of cup glory that will live forever in the memories of players and fans alike.

But as the old expression goes, just as one door opens another two midfielders drop dead, and bang on cue Iain Anderson and Des Hamilton are far from certain to play against Tranmere this Saturday. Mr Anderson you already know about, and Disco has apparently had something called a tight hamstring for about a week. Hope they get better and everything, obviously, but a Cas, Campbell, Crowe, Hockless midfield certainly won't be giving this columnist nightmares.

Substitute pulls of a winner! is the headline chosen by BBC Humber for a story about Tony Crane saying Marcel Cas is dead skill. Now you may already be viewing this as further evidence for the case that the site in question is in fact run by Coco the Chimp, as an experiment to determine whether it really is true that an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce a local public-service news website; but who are we to dismiss the possibility that the Beeb is in fact running a 'guess the missing words' competition? Substitute pulls of a winner! What are the missing words, and what's the story about? Send your answers to codalmightydiary@yahoo.co.uk.

Séan Carr - you may remember him from such scrumpy-fuelled match reports as Bristol City away - has chimed in with a football joke that's been doing the internet rounds for a week or two now but is good enough to warrant being reproduced here for those yet to hear it. So... Sophie Ellis Bextor has been found dead in a Real Madrid player's hotel room. By all accounts it was murder on Beckham's floor! Um... hang on a minute...

A-ha-hand finally, the Diary is told that some Town fans were on Radio 4 yesterday talking about the brilliant "swing low, sweet halibut" chant at Brentford. Did anyone actually hear this? We want email and we want it now.