Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 7 September 2004

7 September 2004

I just drove my car into a wall at 70mph - but it's all right, because I know a really good garage! That isn't true. The Diary doesn't actually own a car. But if it were, then you would call me a fool, wouldn't you? And you'd be quite right. Call Grimsby Town Football Club a fool instead, then, because the best defender on its books, Simon Ramsden, could be out with a knackered neck for four months. Why? Well, the uninformed bystander might observe that he has been made to play a lot of football by a manager who knew he was injured, seemingly in the belief that the whizzy new physiotherapy facilities available to the club at Grimsby College would make him magically invulnerable to harm, sort of like Bruce Willis in that film. No, not Pulp Fiction. The, ahem, good news (it's all relative) is that Glen Downey - you remember, the one who couldn't get in the first team at Scarborough - is back in training after recovering from the ankle hamper that has meant he couldn't get in the first team at Grimsby either since joining the Mariners three weeks ago. Hmmm... does anyone have Mark Lever's phone number?

Messageboard postings and letters to the Grimsby Telegraph calling for Graham Hockless to play for the Mariners have been notable by their absence this season, but last Saturday's defeat at Rochdale seems to have restarted the phenomenon, albeit politely. Admittedly, the player has been sidelined thus far in the 2004-05 campaign by a foot problem believed to result from Hockless being too big for his boots; though as Ramsden will testify, being unfit to play is no excuse at GTFC for not playing. Either way, young Graham was 'on the mark' yesterday for the second successive reserve game, in which Town's second string recovered from a two-goal deficit to see off their counterparts from York. The Mariners' other goals came from Clint Marcelle and David Soames, and, I dunno, some trialists played or something; I can't really be arsed with them any more.