Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 10 March 2004

10 March 2004

"Nicky Law is hoping to add a goalkeeper to his squad tomorrow, but the chances of signing an unnamed outfield player is a little more complicated," announces Town's official website, with a grasp of English that would make the BBC Humber site blush - and speaking of which, Wednesday finds the estuary quite a-buzz with transfer talk...

So, having correctly identified the lack of experience in central defence as Town's achilles heel - well, as one of Town's achilles heels - Nicky Law is set to make a move for John Anderson of Kingston Communications RUFC. The 31-year-old Scotsman, who joined Hull in 2002 after enjoying promotion campaigns north of the border with Greenock and Livingston, was voted last season's player of the year by the long-vowelled north bank types but - stop me if you think you've heard this one before - has struggled to make an impact this term as a sequence of injuries have kept him out of the picture. Law has told the Hull Daily Mail: "John Anderson has come into the equation given the situation we are in on short-term deals." Might be nice if you can keep us informed this side as well, Nick, lad.

So is he any good, this Anderson? Our chums at Amber Nectar reckon: "Powerful and imposing, yet possessing pace and no little ability on the ball. Strong in the tackle, awesome in the air and with impeccable positional sense, he has the potential to become the perfect lower league defender." Makes you wonder why they're prepared to let him go, really, although the Diary is sure that nice Mr Taylor knows what he's doing. Sorry - did somebody mention Leicester?

Also likely to be stumping up the bridge toll in the not-too-distant is the Tahgers' highly respected and much-travelled Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Alan Fettis, who - a little peculiarly, some might say - has found himself unceremoniously shunted down to third choice in the goalkeeping scheme of things ovver the Umber and spent much of his recent life on loan at Sheffield United, where he has even played two or three games of football. After GTFC announced late yesterday that the not-too-bad Andy Pettinger has broken a different finger to the one he broke last time, the search for a new stickmeister at BP has returned to the top of Law's 'to do' list, and Fettis could hit Blundell Park today should the Mariners overcome competition from Colchester, Doncaster and Macclesfield. Fettis has also occasionally played as an emergency striker during his time on this Earth, scoring twice for Hull in the 1994-95 season - a nugget of trivia that may acquire added significance given that Lee Thorpe is now talking to another club.

Oh, and Town have chosen this opportune moment to release nominally third-choice keeper Bradley Hughes, which is bound to be construed in some quarters as further proof that the board must be tarred, feathered and left to rot in a skip on be able to find you a quote from Brian Laws about him because my computer is acting very weird when I try and open a web browser, and the buttons from Netscape are appearing over the top of the buttons from Word, and the buttons on Soulseek have lost their little icons, and I'm getting a bit scared. So that's it today. Soz. I'd better get all of the above uploaded before the Blue Screen of Death arrives. See ya.