Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 26 August 2004
26 August 2004
You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Old Obi-Wan may have been talking in one sense about the cantina at Mos Eisley spaceport - which, let's face it, looks like a Victorian tea room compared with most of the public houses of Cleethorpes - but in a very real way he was also referring to the FA Premiership. There always has to be one good apple, though, and in this case it's Charlton Athletic, the Diary's favourite top-flight club; and what a nice thing, therefore, that Town's reward for the brilliant League Cup performance that saw off Wigan reserves the other night is a home tie with the Addicks in the second round on 21 or 22 September. Speculation has already arisen, given the players who have appeared for both clubs, as to which current and former pros may be invited to the match as guests, with the names mentioned so far being Andy Todd, Clive Mendonca and Dave Challinor.
It's not just the Diary who's been plunged into the depths of optimism by the events of Tuesday evening. Cod Almighty's resident poet Al Wilkinson has composed a brief ode precisely on the theme of the P-word:
Listen carefully... can you hear the whisper?And the Mariners' hypothetical elevation through the divisions does not end there, as the Press Association or somebody like that seems to have referred to "League One side Grimsby", and everyone else has followed suit, their credibility toppling like syndicated dominoes. If it's not the BBC doing it, it's the Irish Examiner; if it's not Soccernet it's ITV. ITV? Did I say credibility?
The p word heard in the shadows of every
corner. Quietly for now, cautiously growing
for now, ever faster as Sladey shows us how,
shows us what we want to see, what we want
to be, but keep it a silent p. Champions win
games they should lose not lose games they
should win, so for now it's good to sit back,
think and grin; just enjoy, enjoy what we see
and try not to think about p.
Not that the Diary's own glass house is particularly reinforced this week when it comes to throwing stones, as Dave Chambers has become the first person to take the trouble to point out by email what previous pedants have only told me to my careworn face: that Gary Liddell's son Andy is no longer - as Tuesday's Diary suggested - a Wigan player and "now plays for Colin Wanker's boys," as Dave anagramatically refers to Sheffield United. "You might be aware of this but choosing to ignore the numerous corrections put your way. I hope not and that I am the first to notice this quite blatant error. If that is the case, at the moment I will take whatever small glories come my way." I'm afraid Tony Butcher grabbed my lapels and pinned me to the back of the Pontoon on Tuesday night to much the same effect, DC, but thanks anyway. Think of it as the projectionist putting a slide in upside down just to make sure you're still watching.
Mr Butcher it is again, in fact, who has written to correct Mark Wilson's reminiscences in yesterday's Diary about Chima Okorie. "Signed from a team in India, strapping six-footer, marked his arrival with a screamer away at Palace," wrote Mark, if you can't be arsed to scroll down a few piddly lines, you lazy son of a bitch. "Oooooooooooooooooooh dear. Two days, two errors. Not derived from your brain, but not checked was it," gloats Tony. "Mr O'Curry scored against Tranmere in the game before the Palace defeat. We lost 1-0 to Palace. Chima had 45 sublime minutes, but no goals." In fact, TB, it was the Diary who supplied Pat Bell with some of the Okorie data for his excellent recent piece for Cod Almighty. The policy of this column is to nitpick only at those who write badly or erroneously in a professional capacity, and not at amateur websites or indeed my own readers. Now leave it be; this is a fight you cannot win.