Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 10 August 2004
10 August 2004
The former Premiership left-back wanted by Russell Slade as cover for the damaged Ronnie Bull is, if I can keep myself dry for long enough to type it without short-circuiting my keyboard, Dean Gordon, once of Crystal Palace. Town's official site says the player won't be arriving at Blundell Park until Thursday, though, probably because people in London think it takes about three days to get as far north as somewhere like Grimsby. In the meantime, the smart money - or the Grimsby Telegraph's money, at any rate - is on the exciting new signing young John McDermott to play against Boston tonight, lining up on the right of the midfield four, whence flies the underachieving Jason Crowe to the left to replace Bull.
In tonight's other team news, Darren Mansaram is "a major doubt", having sustained back chaff in Saturday's defeat at Darlington. Graham Hockey Sticks is still carrying whatever it was he was carrying at the weekend, and Michael Reddy Brek still isn't fit enough to start, and so Clint Marcelle Marceau is the leading candidate to replace Dazman up front. GTFC groundsman Mike Phillips is bravely cocking a snook at the elements, promising on his cat's life that "The surface should be ideal for the game." Whether he means the Blundell Park pitch for football or the tables at McMenemy's for shove ha'penny, the Diary is not yet certain.
Radio Humberside this morning reckoned there'd be 5,000 there tonight, while the Lincolnshire Echo has seen their five big ones and raised them the Queen Vic by proposing a figure closer to 6,000. Do I hear seven? Boston, meanwhile, are still entertaining the patently ludicrous notion that Paul Gascoigne will play football for them at some point, and are offering by way of explanation for his absence from tonight's game a hopelessly flimsy narrative to the effect that the 53-year-old former England midfielder is recovering from a dodgy kebab or something. Yeah, like, whatever. That said, if you ask the Diary then anyone who is (a) gormless enough to have bought a ticket for tonight's game just to see 'Gazza'; and (b) sponge-brained enough to believe that he was actually going to play deserves to be mugged for 15p, never mind 15 quid.
Amadou Conte/Konte, the French striker who recently contrived to undertake trials for both the Mariners and Colchester United at the same time, is back at BP, Russell Slade presumably having decided that the trialists he had in July, the ones who scored goals, were better than the ones he brought over in August, who didn't. New hopefuls on the trial trail include, hey, another French striker, this time called Gregory Thil, and, wow, an English striker called Dan Bull who came through the ranks at Plymouth if you believe the official site, or an English striker called Dan Bulley who came through the ranks at Yeovil if you're throwing in your lot with the increasingly authoritative Grimsby Telegraph.
Apparently there were 875 Town fans in the 4,807 crowd at Darlington on Saturday, and Cod Almighty's auction for an autographed Mariners shirt raised £82 for the Meningitis Research Foundation. Administer to yourselves with the hand an approving physical contact in the vertebral region.
Just enough time for a dip into the Diary's resurgent inbox, where Leeds Mariner has thrust an inconsequential though diverting little email. "I noticed at the weekend that Chris Bolder had signed for Ossett Town," he or she writes, "or was maybe only on trial there, to which I have three questions: 1. Was this already known? 2. Is this interesting? 3. Do ye have any spare change?" Well, Leeds, it wasn't known by the Diary, so thank you; it's maybe less interesting in itself than as a possible indication of the decline in quality of the players to have emerged from the Mariners' youth system in recent years; and no, I don't - get a job, you bleedin' waster.
"Hello Diary," writes Dick of Legbourne, as he limbers up to lay in to the Exeter City striker who said "Where the hell is Grimsby?" Hello, Dick. It's always a pleasure. Get stuck in then. "Steve Flack - we've had a lucky escape methinks! This fella is clearly a sandwich short of a picnic. After slagging Town off, the daft git starts by being all gooey talking about his family being 'more important than anything else in the world', then continues that his 'non-league' contract won't be renewed at the end of this season because of the wage structure! Mr Flack, it's alright being loyal to the grecian boys and loving your family, but will they love you when you're only playing Sunday league football having to sell hair dye for a living!? You daft lanky get. Perhaps nine years at Exeter has taken its toll and you've lost the ability of forethought. 'A pension??? What's one of them?'. You can't help some people." Cheers for that, DL; couldn't have put it better myself. And, in fact, I didn't.