Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 22 January 2004

22 January 2004

Ooh, I've been dying to tell you this for ages! The Diary can today exclusively reveal that the rumours are true: Jarvis's sponsorship of Town is about as secure as one of the railway tracks the company used to maintain, and seafood firm Young's is in negotiations to take over. Doubts have existed over the validity of the deal from day one, since the Jarvis employee who arranged it, Mariners fan Stephen Venney, disappeared in May of last year on his way to the press conference scheduled to announce the sponsorship. Town chairman Peter Furneaux insisted, even after it emerged that Venney had served time for fraud in the 1990s, that the deal was watertight, but the Diary learned some months ago (and has only now been cleared by my source to break the news) that talks are in progress for the controversial engineering firm to be released from its three-year term after just one year. Word is that Venney lacked the necessary status to authorise the deal, but that Jarvis was prepared to stay in temporarily for fear of embarrassment, and club officials are in ongoing discussions with Young's about a handover. Now, what was that proverb about dealing with the devil?

Just days after 'larger than life' Peterborough manager Barry Fry revealed that his bid to sign Michael Boulding had been knocked back by GTFC, Town's official site reveals that another offer has been refused only this morning. The floppy-haired frontman insisted, when he rejoined the Mariners from Aston Villa last year, that a release clause be included in his contract allowing him to leave if an offer of £45,000 is received from a club in a higher division; so if Walsall are after him, as some recent rumours suggest, then they are clearly interpreting 'nominal fee' as 'ten bob and a bag of pork scratchings'. The Grimsby Telegraph suggests, in between a big bunch of nesbit reader contributions, that the evildoers responsible may in fact be our old friends Barnsley. Funny how they don't run half a dozen letters a day from fans when everything's going well, isn't it.

Maybe it would take a scare like Oldham's for Town fans to realise how lucky they are to still have a club to support. So relieved are the Latics, in fact, at surviving their recent brush with liquidation that they have taken the extravagant celebratory measure of making their forthcoming match with the Mariners free for all to enter! Tickets will be available for the 7 February date at Boundary Park on some kind of season ticket holders first basis, starting next Monday.

Thanks are due from the free world to Marcia Allen, who has emailed the Diary with details of Radio Humberside's Peter Furneaux interview about Marcel Cas the other day. "He said that Cas was wanting to train still with Town and get full wages," writes Marcia. "Furneaux said the board were meeting Wednesday to resolve the situation as this was unacceptable. He said that Cas has made his feelings known in the press before talking to the club about them." The upshot of said board meeting appears to be that the player will now be doing his sulking back in Holland, as GTFC now confirms that Cas's contract is fully cancelled, allowing him to join his old club Roosendaal in time for the end of their big poof winter break. "It's been a short time here but I have enjoyed it," says erstwhile Telegraph columnist Marcel, in stark contradiction of his dummy-throwing outburst last Wednesday.

Alan Pouton, meanwhile, has most certainly not failed his medical with Gillingham, thank you very much, say Gillingham officials. "A press conference was scheduled for Monday," explains a spokesman, "but the medical hadn't been done in time, and everyone can't believe the press have twisted it like this. It's all going to be OK." Oops. Sorry.

Two more emails this way come, the first of which is from Mark "I'm from Scartho, you know" Wilson. "I do pronounce it properly," he writes, "because if I didn't my Mum would give me a whack." And send him to bed without any truffles, presumably... Emma Wilkinson, meanwhile, has a rare ray of sunshine to share from Tuesday night's routine drubbing by Wrexham. "I saw a first," she writes. "A couple of yobbish types were escorted out by the police, and on their return they received a round of applause. Not important as far as the game was concerned, I just wanted to say that it was nice to see, or hear." We can only hope Em means the Ponny clapped the police, not the "types"...

And finally today, subscribers to Town's OFFICIAL SMS SERVICE need not be alarmed by yesterday's Diary, as a club official has confirmed to Cod Almighty that they will be refunded the cost of the text message they were sent on Tuesday night, after the Wrexham game, about the Wrexham game taking place on Tuesday night. Hey, we all press the wrong buttons now and then, don't we.