Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 29 December 2004

29 December 2004

Dean Gordon has attempted, and failed, to make his walk-out on the Mariners appear slightly less contemptible by giving a carefully measured interview to the Grimsby Telegraph which makes all the necessary "ooh, thanks Russell, ooh, I'll miss the fans" noises but collapses spectacularly on the player's assertion that "I heard from a friend that there was speculation on the radio that I may be released anyway and that made my mind up." The Diary is unable to decide which possible interpretation is the more laughable: that Gordon expects anyone to believe that he based a major career decision on a third-hand fragment of hearsay, or that he is telling the truth and actually did base a major career decision on a third-hand fragment of hearsay.

Without an apparently decent left-back in the squad, then, Ronnie Bull is set to continue his first-team duties for tonight's visit to Lincoln. He That Is Macca has been suffering with a virus - not that you'd have known it from his perfectly healthy performance on Boxing Day - but should be OK to face the Imps, apparently, while speculation is abroad that the instant clickage that occurred when Monday's substitute Michael Reddy joined Martin Gritton in Town's frontline will prompt Mr Russell Slade to field the two forwards from the start of this evening's match. Oh, and Russ, on the off-chance that you read the Diary, a final word of advice: it begins with 'P' and rhymes with 'inault'.

Finally, the Diary is just three Radio Times Christmas crossword answers away from the chance to win a plasma screen TV that is bigger than Tony Crane's arse, and seeing as I've spent most of the year looking at badly phrased websites, teletext pages and newspapers in order to bring you this column - and even making the odd phone call to tiny non-League clubs in the north-west of England - I reckon it's only fair to ask you lot for a bit of help. So...

52 across: Porcelain made by Siemens (7): _E_S_E_
62 across: Set of teams reaching three miles (6): L_A_U_
8 down: Brown entrance to one clay oven for this cooking (8): _A_D_O_I

The first one is clearly an anagram of 'Siemens', and I'm sure I'll slap my forehead with my palm when I find out what 8 down is. If you can help then please email diary@codalmighty.com, and if I win then you can come round and watch the 6-1 win against Barnsley on DVD. Cheers.