Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 November 2003

19 November 2003

Today's Darren Barnard news concerns the events leading up to Russian goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov's booking in the first leg of Wales' Euro 2004 play-off last Saturday. TV viewers saw the player run over to confront the Mariners' heroic left-back at half time, and DarBar sheds some light in today's Grimsby Telegraph. "The ball was at my feet and the half-time whistle had gone and I just flicked it up and into his goal," explains our boy. "For some reason he flung himself across trying to make a save. He made a sign which I gave back to him, then he was sprinting toward me." Should Barnard's nation benefit from the inexperience of the Russian keeper in tonight's nail-biting second leg, the Town defender should be the toast of Cardiff, since Ovchinnikov's yellow card triggered the suspension that rules him out this evening. Hooray! C'mon you leekies!

Anyone still keeping track of the many strikers who don't want to play for Grimsby should note the name of Sunderland's Michael Reddy. Paul Groves has revealed in the, er, revealing Q+A session that is ongoing on Town's official website that the Graignamanagh-born forward, as Graignamanagh-born forwards are wont to do, declined a move to Blundell Park last month in favour of a return to, inevitably, Sheffield Wednesday, where he has now scored five goals in two long loan spells this year. "He was a player that we knew about, as well as some others," says PG, arching his eyebrows coquettishly.

And those who still hanker to bear offspring to Danny Coyne may be interested to note that the former Town keeper - who has won two caps for Wales, eighteen less than Darren Barnard - could make a full Premiership debut for Leicester this weekend as first-choice flying Fox Ian Walker suffered a shoulder injury while training with England before last Sunday's friendly against Denmark. City boss Micky Adams is optimistic that Walker will recover in time to face Charlton on Saturday, but this could well be wishful thinking given that the player is held in such high esteem by his club that they named their stadium after him.

Another ex-Town type, Stephen Livingstone no less, has suffered the outrageous fortune of being transfer-listed by the league's bottom club just four short months after joining them. Carlisle manager Paul Simpson has responded to his side's annual slump to the foot of Division Three by making nine players available for transfer, among them the former Grimsby folk hero and great big heffalump Mr Livvo. In nine appearances for the Cumbrians the man who just a year ago was pitched successfully against the might of Stoke and Burnley has failed to register on the scoresheet, picking up three yellow and two red cards in the non-process. I think I might cry.