Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 10 February 2005
10 February 2005
There's some injury news, and it's good news. Well, it's quite good - I mean it's not like Freddy Shepherd has broken his neck or anything. Town's opponents this Saturday, Shrewsbury, will be two players light as they bear north-east, as their goalless draw at Bury on Tuesday night came at the cost of physical damage to captain and OK defender Darren Tinson and Red Dwarf soundalike centre-forward Duane Darby. "I think they're both struggling for Saturday," Shrews boss Gary Peters has told the Shropshire Star newspaper. Which sort of balances out the absence of Stacy Coldicott and Justin Whittle, though if Martin Gritton fails to come through as well then somebody might have to infiltrate the Shropshire nightclub circuit and give Luke Rodgers a good shoeing on Friday night.
Town fans who enjoy a laugh or two will be delighted by the news that the former Kidderminster forward Youssou Diop could be playing fourth division football again soon. At Blundell Park back in November, in what predictably turned out to be Diop's swansong for the Worcestershire side, his row with his own physio caused more mirth than had been heard from the Mariners faithful since Tony Gallimore missed that penalty at Oakwell last season, and the stroppy Senegalese frontman has now been offered a trial at Town's basement rivals Notts County. Sadly the Pies have already visited BP this season but GTFC travel to Meadow Lane on Saturday 16 April. The Diary is crossing fingers, toes and whatever else will cross in the hope that Diop earns a contract and marks the occasion of Town's visit by launching an almighty spat with the entire home crowd.
Richard Dawson has emailed on the subject of the Rumble Band's Tax Thing benefit gig being rescheduled from the Tuesday just gone to the second week of July. "I assume that the Inland Revenue has been informed that they will just have to wait a bit longer before their debt is recovered," he writes. "Isn't this postponement indicative of the whole campaign? Is this really a 'save our beloved club' situation or just a storm whipped up by a tabloid website that has kicked off a half-hearted fundraiser? According to the supporters' trust website the amount raised is only up about a thousand quid in the last two weeks; the Grimsby Telegraph has never updated its 'Keep the Mariners Afloat' website section since 20 January - the day the campaign was launched. On this basis how can we take it seriously?"
Well, Rich, since you're asking, I hardly think the trust can be blamed for the half-arsed approach of the Telegraph web monkeys; it's been made fairly clear that the campaign is a long-term thing (two years, I think); and Positive John said the other day that the Revenue was all for KTMA. There are unanswered questions, sure - will Fenty revoke his outrageous diktat regarding Radio Humberside, and if the Fishy had given up guessing at the situation before it got close, would the club have carried on keeping schtum? - but it's all better than doing nothing. That said, the Diary does believe more would be achieved by Mr Russell Slade winning the fans back by getting the team to play the sort of gloriously fluent attacking football that we enjoyed so much in the first two months of the season. It's no good taking our mates if Town play rubbish, after allÂ…
Today's last word is 'demands', because we're ending with an email from Pat Bell that says: "Is a pacquette a small packet? Does that reflect his wage demands?"
Actually, that's not true; today's last word is 'cheerio', because it's Thursday and before I hand you over to Guest Diary for the week, I would just like say cheerio. Cheerio!