Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 3 November 2004
3 November 2004
Poor, brutal, deluded America. God help us all. Anyway, if he can put aside his amazement at not only still being manager of Scunthorpe but also at somehow being top of the fourth division, then Brian Laws will find cause for glee in today's news from Blundell Park - which is that four first-team players missed training on Thursday Tuesday with a variety of injury-related injuries. Jason Crowe and Sir John McDermott are still feeling their hamstrings, which is at least better than feeling each other's, while Michael Reddy's foot is still playing up and Dean Gordon has a swollen knee. Though it must sound good to Ronnie Bull, this roll-call of ruin is litotically described by Mr Russell Slade as "not ideal preparation" for this Saturday's visit to Glorious Glanford.
Having seen three defenders sidelined through hurtiness, then - and I use the term 'defenders' loosely in some cases - Noddy was probably already reaching for the 'recall Greg Young' button on his control panel, and the news that Terrell Forbes could also miss the Scunny game might make his finger twitch a bit more. The Grimsby Telegraph suggests that the former QPR man is being urged by his legal team to sit the game out in order to "keep his mind" on the rape trial he faces on 15 November, quoting Russ: "Terrell has got to prepare for his trial, but I am requesting that he play." Anybody want to buy a ticket?
With GTFC's remarkable series of online fundraising auctions having flogged off everything from a place in the playing squad to the autographed shirt of the Blundell Park Ghost, some fans have openly expressed the belief that the club is eventually bound to run out of things to sell. And with Town's latest auction offering for sale something the club had already sold in an earlier auction, it looks like they were right.
"I'm at work wasting time as usual," reads an email to the Diary from Steven Young, who sounds immediately like a Cod Almighty kinda guy. "And I've had a thought about Town's current penalty plight. Dean Gordon missed one on Saturday and joined the long list of failures for Town from the spot this season. I don't understand why they can't stick with the same taker even if they miss. Town have missed five out of six. What are the odds of one player only scoring one out of six? I think that from now on we should stick with Gordon. If Parkinson, who missed the first, had taken the rest of Town's penalties then surely just by chance his strike rate would have been higher and as a result we'd be higher up the league." It's a thought-provoking point, Steven, and perhaps a Diary reader who is good at statistics and stuff like that might like to email with some, um, statistics and stuff like that. Or perhaps Russell Slade might like to sign a player who has half a clue where the bloody goal is.
"It also seems a bit rubbish that the players don't seem to want to take them," continues Steven, in an admirable bid to avoid doing any work for the whole of this week. "They miss one before quaking in their boots about it for the rest of the season. My only consolation is that at least Town keep me entertained by managing to miss from the spot in various comedy ways. It's boring when you're watching England and some astronaut in row X is ready to catch set piece legend David Beckham's inevitable balloon shot into cyberspace - ten minutes later and it's on Ebay earning the brave space traveller who caught it a nifty fifty quid. Lovely." Now if anyone from GTFC is listening, the Diary is claiming a percentage on the next auction.