Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 15 December 2003

15 December 2003

Jason Crowe is denying the stamp on Bournemouth's Brian Stock for which he was sent off in Saturday's goalless draw at Dean Court. "I've spoke to Jason," says Paul Groves on Town's official site, with little heed for the niceties of the past participle. "He says that he has caught the lad but he's trying to hurdle over him." The manager was speaking immediately after the match, without the benefit of the video, and was still looking under the cushions for the remote when speaking to today's Grimsby Telegraph, but says: "From what people have told me it does sound like he's made contact and there was some form of infringement," and rules out an appeal against the decision, meaning a three-match ban for the central midfielder/left-back/right winger/handy knife sharpener. Whether this will entail some form of punishment for Crowe is uncertain, but having downloaded and winced at the video myself this morning, the Diary would be hard pressed to make a case for anything other than the maximum fine of two weeks' wages.

Al Wilkinson has emailed to point out the Diary's error in reporting the foul by Stock to which Crowe was retaliating. "I believe the challenge was on Pouton, not Onoura," he writes, and he believes right. After this sort of public humiliation, right here in my own glass house, you might have thought the Diary would hesitate before picking up another armful of rocks to chuck at other websites, but if you did then you don't know me that well, as I would not be following the holy calling for which I was placed on God's Earth if I refrained from pointing out the killer headline GROVES RUSHES TO GROVES' DEFENCE on the Grimsby Telegraph site. Well, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Simon Ford continues the comeback from his long-standing knee injury, or was it a groin injury, I really can't remember any more, as Town reserves make the short hop to Notts County this afternoon and attempt to get back on track following their 3-1 routing by Boston last week. Mr Paul Groves is also named in the starting line-up, but messrs Jevons and Pouton appear to have left the B team behind them forever.

"If you are going to take up the cudgels against the BBC's use of English on Ceefax," writes Pat Bell in an email to the Diary, "can I point out the desperate overworking of the verb 'crash', as in 'Grimsby crash out of cup', usually when 'knocked' would do just as well. A crash implies drama - if we get knocked out by Louth, or beaten by several goals, crash is fine, but crash just doesn't work as a synonym for 'team/player entirely predictably and mundanely eliminated from knockout competition'. What's worse is that when you start noticing crashes, they become absolutely unavoidable." This is true, Pat, or at least has been since Peter Handyside and Lee Ashcroft left the club.