Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 23 September 2004

23 September 2004

Much as the Diary hates to be predictable, there is, sure enough, no mention of Sergio Ommel in the reserves line-up given by Town's official website for yesterday's match against Hartlepool. When the news broke on Monday of the player's arrival on trial, the OS announced that he'd definitely take part; by yesterday, of course, the Dutch frontman was only "likely" to participate; and now it looks for all the world as if the player has joined the long list of trial strikers to turn up at BP and then turn back without playing for the reserves. Well, that must be all there is to it. Conspiracy theorists may cite the fact that the club's account of the match, which Town won 3-2, fails to name all three goalscorers, instead reporting only that "Nick Heggarty and Clint Marcel [sic] were amongst the Mariners' scorers"; surely, though, there's no way on Earth that the club would have failed to secure international clearance for Ommel to appear but just stuck him in the side anyway and put somebody else's name on the teamsheet.

Less intriguing, but more immediately gratifying, is the news that 12-foot-tall central defender Rob Jones, who sustained knee thing in the Mariners' 1-1 draw with Boston back in the first week of the season, came through the full 90 in the seconds' runout and could soon be tapping Greg Young on the shoulder and saying, excuse me, I think that's my peg. That said, it would seem harsh to remove Young after his outstanding performance in Tuesday night's League Cup game against Charlton; either way, notes the Diary, it all distances further the prospect of poor Glen Downey ever getting to play for his new club.

Sean Fieldsend returns, in his email to the Diary today, to the vexed subject of All These Trialists. "Now that John tambouthingyblokey has been deemed not good enough for Grimsby Reserves," he writes, "if he doesn't feel like committing suicide on hearing this devastating news, maybe he could save on his plane ticket and share the Australian cricket team's plane home?" Now, now, Sean; let's be as gracious in victory as the Aussies would have been. Oh, you are being. "Secondly I was just wondering about all these trialists. I think Slade has a plan that at the end of the season he's gonna give all the trialists a game together. Grimsby Town v Grimsby Town trialist XI is definitely gonna draw a big crowd - we'll probably lose 2-0, forcing Russell to get some more trialists in to not play in the reserves in the hope of making the team better."

Today also brings the unexpected pleasure of an email from your former regular Guest Diary, whose practice it was to write this column in my stead on Fridays, until recently, when he very sadly got a job, and now no bugger else wants to do it. And GD is positively gushing about Radio Humberside's post-match coverage on Tuesday night. "It had everything - an old man chuntering about how rubbish Reddy was; a precocious boy confirming Ivan the Main Stand dentist's opinion that it was deffo a penalty; George Kerr reminiscing about the days when he was important, and telling a rambling, and curiously irrelevant, tale about referees at Wolves; the referee explaining that it wasn't a penalty, but there 'was no simulation' or 'whatever you want to call it' - he just went to ground too easily; and Mr Burns sounding like the Town fan he may secretly be. Even the phone-in number was just given as 01472 - so this was a Town programme through and through. Hats off to John and David for once." But until that kid and the mardy old sod rang up they'd only had one caller all night, Guest! They were just about to wrap up the programme in despair!

And on that note, I'm going to buy a house. See you when I see you.