Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 20 December 2004
20 December 2004
As a loyal supporter not only of Grimsby Town Football Club but also of all the highly capable individuals involved in running the organisation, the Diary would like to begin today by asserting that the club's AGM taking place right now, at the same time as a Muppets film is on the telly, can only be seen as the cruellest of coincidences.
Well, none of you have worked out what odds Guest Diary and I could have got on a 1-1 draw against Oxford with Tommy Mooney scoring for the visitors, but I'll bet you any money that they'd have been longer than any available price on Finnish striker Ville Vaisanen returning to Scandinavia after his trial at Blundell Park ended without including a reserve match. If Vaisanen is true to the form of other strikers deemed inadequate by Mr Russell Slade then he will now become a leading candidate for European Footballer of the Year 2005, as Amadou Konte scored his second goal in four starts for rubbish Cambridge at the weekend and his fellow failed GTFC trialist Marvin Robinson made it three goals in just 92 minutes of football for Walsall. Hey ho.
The cranberry sauce of good news spooned by Town's official website over the bland turkey of striking failure is that Sort It's widely reported interest in the less than indispensable Peterborough forward Richard Logan "doesn't look like" it will be going any further. Instead the Mariners boss is now supposed to be "tracking a striker from an unnamed League 1 club", who is expected to turn down a permanent transfer to GTFC in favour of a loan to Bedford Town in time for the big Boxing Day derby against Hemel Hempstead.
In recent games he may have been blowing hot and cold like a dodgy Babyliss, but Colin Cramb's goal on Friday night was his third in 13 full and substitute appearances for the Mariners: nothing upon which to compose an epistle to one's place of origin but still a sight better strike rate than Messrs Reddy and Parkinson can boast. Sadly for Town's hopes of finishing higher than 17th in the fourth division, though, the skint striker was carried off injured not longer after his goal and, if it turns out to be ankle ligaments, could miss some forthcoming games which I am obliged, by a tradition practised by football journalists since time immemorial, to call "the crucial Christmas programme". I don't think they mean the Queen's Speech, anyway.
Speaking of which, if you're too stuffed with bland turkey and cynicism this Saturday to listen to Her Satanic Majesty reel off a sequence of anodyne reassurances, then why not hit Town's official website for an alternative Christmas message from the monarch of Blundell Park, HRH John Fenty? Well, he's nearly as rich as Liz, and he's less likely to try and persuade you that if you don't agree with government ID cards and install CCTV in your bathroom then your head will get blown up by foreign folk.
I think Greg Downey [sic.] has finally earned some corn," writes Dave the Engineer in an email to the Diary. "Pretty sure he was the Santa at the game on Friday giving away presents along with our defence." They'll have to send him out on loan along with Glen Young, eh, Dave?