Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 18 December 2003

18 December 2003

Ah, sod you then.

The versatile Mr Jason Crowe will miss four of Town's next five games with the three-match ban for his sending-off at Bournemouth following soon after his suspension from this weekend's proceedings for receiving five yellow cards this season. Gosh. The former Portsmouth and Arsenal polyglot will miss the visit of Wrexham this weekend for his sequence of bookings and return only for the Boxing Day encounter with Oldham before missing the three subsequent games as the longer ban stamps in. Sorry, kicks in. Good job Pouton's back, really, though saying that, Paul could reinstate Cas and move Campbell to the middle. In an imaginative new fundraising venture Crowe will be available during his suspension to any Mariners fans keen to secure his services to teach trampoline or tenderise steak.

The Wrexham match also marks a repeat of the 'Ladies' Day' promotion, whereby the club offered discount tickets to women attending last month's game against Tranmere, in a bid to encourage "the awareness and participation of females in football", and then reported Town's defeat on its official website with the headline Ladies Day Ends "Bosoms" Up! Women will again be admitted this Saturday for just five quid, with girls under 16 getting in free; and Mariners Bet is listing odds on which female body part the OS will choose for another killer headline should Wrexham take all three points.

Until such time as it becomes a criminal offence punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment to move a football match away from Saturday afternoon when it isn't on the telly, Sunday afternoon is at least preferable to Friday night; and this is exactly the fate that has befallen Town's return trip to Oldham in 2004, which will now take place on Sunday 8 February. Don't think I'm doing anything that day, but the Diary will have to check its diary.

I was considering abusing my position as Diary by asking you my readers for some help with Mrs Diary's Christmas presents, but knowing my luck the day I asked would turn out to be one of the two or three times a year my small but perfectly formed better half chooses to see how I spend most of my life and actually looks at this page. Hey, but if I am prepared to bid 32 quid then I will lead the auction to have an entrance to Blundell Park named The Mrs Diary Gate, for this is GTFC's latest QXL extravaganza, and it makes a change from the unloved shirts of loan transients. If you bid and win, by the way, you don't have to call it The Mrs Diary Gate, but I would be much obliged if you did.