Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 23 January 2004

23 January 2004

Perhaps he's inspired by yesterday's "get lost, Abramovich" outburst from Charlton chairman Martin Simons. Perhaps he's just losing patience with the 'we want a new playhouse' faction among the Grimsby populace. Either way, Town chairman Peter Furneaux is exploiting the gap left by the departure of alpha male Alan Pouton to cultivate a new hard man image. "We will not be exploited by Barnsley or any football club who think they can make offers such as the one they made for Michael," says Mr F in response to the South Yorkshire side's take-the-piss bid for Mr Boulding yesterday. "Peter Ridsdale is an experienced man but what he and Barnsley offered was nowhere near what the market value is for a player of Michael Boulding's ability." Even if he's out of contract in four or five months' time... like, say, Alan Pouton was? Boulding intends to stay put this time, though, if we are to believe what he tells Mariners World viewers today: that "he is happy at Blundell Park" and "his agent isn't trying to get him a move away from the club". In the Grimsby Telegraph, Mick further dismisses talk of a move, saying: "There is always going to be Continued on page 41 speculation, it is part and parcel of football."

Busy Mr Furneaux has also been rewriting Paul Groves' job description, reports BBC Humber, this time choosing to call the manager into a meeting yesterday afternoon to press him to give up playing, rather than leaving him to read about it on Ceefax. Now if you ask the Diary, which in a way you have, by visiting this page, then this is a right crimson kipper. Since a certain unmentionable event in Hartlepool several months ago, Paul has played 186 minutes of first-team football - the equivalent of just over two games - and whatever the problem is at Blundell Park, it's been going on for a sight longer than that. Indeed, 11 of those minutes were at Brentford, during which Town scored twice to secure their only win in their last 12 league games, so to me the chairman appears to be making like a dizzy old dog on this issue and barking up the wrong sycamore entirely. Little appears to have been resolved, in any case, with the illiterates at the Humber website today quoting PF: "I think we both except where the other is coming from but we didn't exactly resolve it." Accept. Accept. For crying out loud.

When the Wayne Burnett biopic is filmed, the 'Wilderness Years' section will feature scenes of the Wembley hero kicking his heels at Woking and eating a lot of pies, but the ex-GTFC playmaker, whose career in league football has been on hold since leaving Blundell Park in 2002, has been handed a non-contract deal at Peterborough and could go straight into the squad that visits Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow. At the age of 32 Burnett could still have plenty to offer, and the Diary for one hopes the move is not part of a concerted bid by Barry Fry to unseat Neil Warnock as world champion sniffer round the GTFC wheelie bin.

Michael Shelton speaks of the devil and he turns up at Blundell Park in the shape of Graham Taylor. This is no attempt to confound Googlewhackers; the former England manager and Town full-back is making an appearance at his old stomping ground to do one of those after-dinner speaking things and get lots of money for regaling listeners with Elton John anecdotes and saying "very much so" a lot. Tickets are 30 quid each, and are available from the club only in multiples of 10, which seems a little over-optimistic to the Diary, but the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust is selling them individually. "Taylor's contribution to the game is something that few managers are ever likely to emulate," says the blurb on the GTFC official site, and I don't think anyone would argue with that.

Lastly today - and maybe this week; I probably won't bother with a weekend Diary seeing as Town aren't playing - proof that the Diary is read by all the most prominent Grimbarians of our time arrives in the form of an email from Jam O'Neil, who "was one of these apparently 'yobbish' types ejected from the ground" on Tuesday night. He is a bit miffed with Emma Wilkinson, who in this column yesterday applauded the fans who applauded the police for chucking him out. "The reason for our ejection was because the majority in the Pontoon didn't like us singing 'Groves Out'," writes yer man, "and that's fair enough, it's their opinion, but ejecting us for voicing OUR opinion and furthermore being branded a 'yob' because of it is disgusting." It wasn't anything to do with that fight, then, Jam?