Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 8 December 2004

8 December 2004

Town fans everywhere are today enjoying the temporary sensation of being only the second worst League side in Lincolnshire, as last night's knife-edge 3-2 win over Notts County has elevated the side to 15th place in the fourth division table and, incredibly, to within three points of a play-off place. In the Diary's considered view the Mariners just about deserved it, despite unconvincing (for which read: rubbish) performances from Ronnie Bull and Anthony Williams, and a sponsors' man-of-the-match award to Jason Crowe which can only be said to have repositioned the very boundaries of irony. So lap up those A16 boasting rights while you can, readers, because a win for Boston tonight at home to struggling Rushden would push GTFC back down to the arse end of the Lincs pecking order. And the Diary, for one, is fed up of having a pecked arse.

Jon Walters, Danny Allsopp, Richard Logan, Lee Thorpe. Four strikers Mr Russell Slade is casting his beady eye over for when his latest pair of pointless foreign trialists return to Scandinavia without having played for Town reserves. Cuddly Noddy checked out Walters and Allsopp in action for ambitious east Yorkshire side Kingston-upon-Hull City at the weekend, or rather he would have done had Allsopp been named in the starting XI or on the bench, but Walters came on as a 51st-minute sub. The Town manager's journey largely having been wasted, then, he now knows how several hundred of his team's supporters felt on the 6th of November.

Logan plays for Peterborough, and has the same name as a former Scunthorpe player, which seems not to be distracting Mr Russ from his crazed obsession to bring the Suffolk-born, six-foot-one, former Ipswich and Boston, previously-loaned-out-to-Shrewsbury frontman up to Blundell Park for what Town's official site describes as "a run out". Which, by breathtaking coincidence, is exactly what Thorpe did when his loan with the Mariners ended in March of this year - all the way to Bristol Rovers, for whom he started and scored last night in a 4-1 win over Chester, so unless Sort It knows something we don't he could be in for a bit of trouble on that front.

The name of another striker now: Paul Robinson. A name to strike fear into the hearts of Grimsby fans. Not so much fear of a repeat of the hat-trick he scored against their team about a year ago as his then Hartlepool side romped to a notorious 8-1 victory over the Mariners which arguably precipitated the latter's slump to a second successive relegation and buried forever their hopes of returning to the top division of the Football League, but fear of looking silly for forgetting which Paul Robinson is being discussed. For both the former Pools man and a Tranmere forward of the same name have served stunningly unsuccessful periods on loan with the Mariners. And now they're both going to be at York with Paul Groves and various other ex-Town types of the 1997-98 vintage, as Tranmere have released their Paul Robinson and York want to make it a pair. Trial, loan, can't quite tell. OK, bit boring really.

Any old how, I have in my hand a piece of email from Dan Lynch, who wishes simply to know whether Cod Almighty is still selling We Piss on Your Fish T-shirts. To which the answer is, yes, Dan, I believe we are. I have forwarded your mail to the chief executive of CA's rapaciously profitable apparel subdivision, Mr Andrew Holt, who will contact you shortly. You need to send Sue your address as well, Andy, OK?

Today's final word goes to the new manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Glenneth Hoddle. "I have a number of alternatives," the Mystic of the Home Counties once said, "and each one gives me something different." Read and learn, Mr Slade; read and learn.