Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 16 August 2004

16 August 2004

Sorry there was no weekend Diary, readers; I spent the weekend at Old Mother Diary's, and her old computer is knackered so I couldn't get online. As you will doubtless be aware after all this time, Town were shite in the first half and dead good in the second - just as in the other two games they have played this season, except with the result this time that they scored five times and conceded only once. Dean Gordon looked pretty good to me; better than Jogging Justin W, anyway; and although only a fool or Dave Challinor would question the aceness of the Mariners' attacking play, it seems to the Diary that the side will have to tighten up an awful lot at the back, as they will probably face more diligent forwards than Bury's this season. If they don't, on the other hand, then it doesn't really matter.

An interesting few days for one-time Town types. Slacker almighty Mr Phil Jevons registered a second goal for Yeovil in their 2-0 win over Boston. Six months after being bundled out of Blundell Park in the boot of an unmarked car, Michael Boulding has finally found the scoresheet at Oakwell, having scored twice in The New Leeds' 4-3 home defeat by Luton at the weekend. It was behind the fridge. Another player who has suffered from Barnsley's evil schemes to kidnap former Town players and render them really rubbish using their deadly Galli-O-Ray is Peter Handyside, once widely believed in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area to be a Scottish international in waiting. The former Town centre-half has had to drop to the Conference and join fellow ex-Mariner Mark Quayle and Chris Thompson at Northwich, for whom he played in Saturday's 2-2 draw at Gravesend. Thompson may be about to be loaned out to AFC Telford, but hey.

Following Handyside down to non-League, finally, is Darren Barnard, who has signed for Aldershot and lined up against Pauls Groves and Crichton in a 2-0 win over York. And yes, before you ask, that is the same Darren Barnard who said less than a month ago: "Grimsby have dropped into Division Two of the Football League so that would be a problem."

Listeners to the handy online version of Radio Humberside's morning sports bulletin have spent the morning mystified after the usual heady brew of rugby league and Nick Barmby was replaced by a recorded message of somebody local trying really hard to talk all BBC and posh, saying: "This service is currently unavailable due to internet broadcasting restrictions regarding the 2004 Olympic Games. We will return to normal service after the games have finished on Monday 30 August." If there is any logical justification for a group of lycra-clad steroid addicts denying the good people of the Humber area the chance to hear Peter Taylor and Brian Laws bleating about refereeing decisions, then I have to say it eludes the Diary; but then I'm afraid the world is run according to capitalism rather than logic, isn't it.

Is it just me, or are loads of new people emailing the Diary and the Postbag recently? Perhaps the people who run Cod Almighty could take a look at the stats and find out whether we have a hatful of new readers. Fresh out of today's hat is Tom Allen, who has emailed the Diary simply to say: "I wanted to pass on my appreciation of the meanderings of Cod Almighty. Most amusing and well written. A good leap ahead of the usual moronic diatribe one comes across on soccer websites." Thanks very much, Tom; if you're going to be as nice as that then we'll not even demand your arrest for use of the word 'soccer' during the hours of daylight in a built-up area. I can't think which websites you mean, mind...