Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 18 November 2004
18 November 2004
And... action! As a lifelong devotee of the silver screen, the Diary has always fancied being a director. Glug, glug! Society not yet being entirely meritocratic, I have instead been forced to devote my years to consuming endless pints of Courage Director's ale. Neither of these fascinating facts qualifies me join the board of Grimsby Town Football Club, sadly, as the requirements of a new director of the Mariners are (i) a reasonably sized wodge of cash; and (ii) the ability to read and understand complicated announcements about EGMs and Articles of Association. And a good thing too; otherwise board meetings would just be dominated by people like me interrupting to say: "Urrr? Eh? Wossat mean?" Anyway, it looks like Town need a new director, because there are only four right now, and the rules say you need five, so they're changing the rules to say they only need three, but they'd still really really like a new director regardless, so much so that you can be one even if you haven't got £337,000. I suspect there may be other websites out there which will be able to pronounce on the matter with considerably more authority than the Diary, so keep me posted if they do.
The flower of Grimsby's youth will be looking to blossom all over an east Midlands industrial estate after the club's under-18s this morning landed an away tie against Derby County in the third round of the FA Youth Cup. Instead of having a set time when these games have to be played, the FA seems to leave it pretty much up to the clubs and just sets a deadline, giving the kids a taste of academic discipline for when they have to find alternative careers, and the visit to Pride Park must take place by 18 December, apparently. "It's a great draw for the lads," enthused the Mariners' youth team manager Tony Hart.
Diary readers with attention spans longer than Jason Crowe's - or, indeed, than the Diary's - will have deduced from the above that the youths stopped worrying about girls and acne long enough to prevail in their second-round game against Bury last night, inspired, no doubt, by the smart dress of the spectators watching from McMenemy's Bar and Restaurant. You may not yet be aware, however, that the winning margin was three to two, Town's goals coming from Peter Bore and the excellent man-boy of the match Danny North (2). Today may be grey but tomorrow is sunshine yellow, or something.
Think Kettering Town, and you think Alan Buckley. Unless you're a bit thick and you think he joined Town from Nuneaton Borough or somewhere else instead. Well, from now on you might be thinking Kettering Town and thinking Jonathan Rowan, as the Tetney-born former GTFC frontlad is on a week-to-week down in cobbling country and appeared on Tuesday in his new club's 1-0 defeat to Raunds Town in the Northants Senior Cup. What do you mean it's a bit of a step down from Anfield? "Jonny was at Grimsby and had a couple of substitute appearances for the first team," Poppies manager Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson tells the Non-League Daily of the player, who came off the bench for the Mariners 25 times, in addition to making 34 starts.
"Andy might not be free around your birthday but I definitely am," writes Mat Hare in an email to the Diary, hoping for a free fish supper at Steel's. "When is it again?" Well, if you need to ask, Mat... hmmmph... let's see what Mark Wilson has to say. "I'm really looking forward to the night out you have generously offered to all readers. As I live so far away I wondered if you would be prepared to pay for my train fare as well. I'll stay at my mum's in Grimsby rather have an hotel room though. I wouldn't want to take the piss." Very funny, Mark. Very funny. Although if you lot keep buying these fantastic new Ivano Bonetti T-shirts then we might raise enough cash yet.
That's all from me for another week in Diaryland, then: tomorrow I will leave you in the strong yet soft hands of Special Guest Diary, and the day after I'll see you for the Kidderminster requiem. So long, dudes.