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Diary - Thursday 13 January 2005

13 January 2005

Anyone who has slogged their guts out as a factory temp on the minimum wage or less, while watching their 'recruitment consultant' cream off an extra three quid or more for every hour of slog, will tell you that agents and agencies are nothing more than parasitic slime who make a big wodge out of other people's work. So it is with the, ahem, beautiful game, and a report issued today by the Football League reveals that its 72 clubs paid a total of £5m to agents between July and December 2004. Now with all this kerfuffle about Town's tax debt, you're wondering if any of the hard-earned you stumped up on the turnstile was siphoned off by these sleazebags, aren't you? Don't go to the Mariners' official website, then, because it won't tell you. Go to the Football League website instead, where you can download a pdf file which reveals that GTFC were not one of the 16 league clubs that paid no money to agents in the second half of last year, and in fact shelled out to the men with cigars the tidy sum of £24,020 - or, to put it another way, roughly the equivalent of one season ticket every two days.

Another organisation that enjoys chucking your money about is the BBC, and while the Diary remains adamantly in support of public service broadcasting and the licence fee, it is difficult not to conclude that the spondoolicks Auntie expends upon its Humber area website could be better spent on employees with a basic understanding of the English language. Employees who could report the utterances of Grimsby Town FC chairman John Fenty, for example, without feeling the need to use words that do not exist. Insubmantible my arse.

Town didn't just lose three points in Tuesday night's defeat against Northampton; three players are unavailable as a result of the match. One is Ashley '*%£*£!$!!' Sestanovich, who faces a two-match ban after his sending-off for telling the referee what everyone else in the ground was also telling the referee, while two others are injured. The OS reports today that Russell Slade is "down to the bare bones", informing the world that Jason Crowe and Ronnie Bull are likely to miss this Saturday's visit to Leyton Orient rather than meaning to suggest that the Mariners boss resembles a big, hungry lion that has ravenously chewed all edible flesh, sinew and internal organs from the corpse of a recently killed wildebeest.

In today's super fun bite-sized round-up, the reserves lost 2-1 to Huddersfield yesterday, the consolation goal issuing from the foot of non-existent defender Glen Downey; Hull are slinging 100 big ones Chester's way for that Kevin Ellison, who failed a trial with Town the other year; and USA international John Thorrington has recovered from the trauma of playing for GTFC under Nicky Law and finally resumed his professional career at the amusingly titled Chicago Fire. It's all a far cry from the 1992 Booker prize.

Tomorrow, as is my wont on Fridays, I will leave you in the more than capable hands of Guest Diary, who I hope will be telling you all about his new-found employment as a pigman. Until next time, peace be with you.