Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 31 March 2005
31 March 2005
Michael Ende wrote The Never Ending Story. Franz Peter Schubert wrote an Unfinished Symphony. Massive Attack wrote 'Unfinished Sympathy'. The Wonder Stuff did a B-side called 'A Song Without an End'. And the Diary is clearly running into trouble with this introduction, so we will move swiftly on to the unfinished story of Jermaine Palmer's trial with Grimsby Town Football Club. Palmer, you may recall from a fortnight ago, is an 18-year-old striker with Stoke City who arrived at BP, er, a fortnight ago amid talk of big bustling frontmen and goals aplenty on loan in Scandinavia, and played for the reserves against Manchester United, and then... well... er... oh - it looks like he scored both goals in Stoke reserves' 2-1 win against Hartlepool yesterday. Given that GTFC chose not to bring us the final chapter of big Jermaine's Cleethorpes story, we will have to assume that they either thought he was rubbish - a verdict with which Hartlepool reserves might well take issue - or that by undertaking a trial with a club uninvolved in promotion or relegation issues, and hence shedding players to save a few quid, he was wasting his time all along.
Another group who specialise in unfinished stories are the web monkeys at the Grimsby Telegraph, and they've come up trumps again with an unfinished story about the players who will get their chance at Blundell Park in the absence of Palmer and Matt Harrold. Explaining that his reserve forwards will be given a run-out as the season dwindles into sleepy meaninglessness, Town boss Mr Russell Slade tells the Telegraph: "Players like Nick Heggarty and Danny North have done well for the reserves, now it is time to see how they fare in Continued on page 37
During his four years as a Grimsby player, the fondest wish of Welsh goalkeeper Danny Coyne was to add to his one international cap. His fondest wish looked unlikely to be granted when he fluffed spectacularly in a televised match against a Blackburn side that included the then Wales manager Mark Hughes. But Dan gradually found his way back into the international game - assisted greatly by transfers to Leicester and then Burnley - and earned his sixth cap against Austria last night as "Wales, Wales' number one". Shame he chose a World Cup qualifier to fluff spectacularly again, then, eh?
Diary reader John Pakey is unsure whether it is morally acceptable to laugh at Coyne's misfortune. "He's a former Mariner who has served us well-ish at times," writes John. "Yet, he left us in the cold. Unwilling to fight the good fight in the then-named Nationwide League Division Two. I'm really struggling with this one. What should I do? Diary, I look for you for help and guidance, like you were a black and white striped man of the cloth, if you will." Well, my child, we must weigh our brother's sins against his virtues. Let us remember that the avaricious Mr Furneaux was as eager to get Dan off the wage bill as the custard custodian was to take Leicester's twenty pieces of silver. On the other hand, even our innermost thoughts and feelings are known to the Lord God, and while Coyne remained more arsed than, say, Phil Jevons for most of last season, he did seem to sort of give up a bit halfway through that 2003 relegation campaign, didn't he? So when on the final day we are called to account before Heaven, we can laugh at Danny a bit, but not as much as we did at Jevons losing that last-minute penalty appeal the other week. Go in peace: your faith in schadenfreude has saved you.
It's Question Time in Grimsby tonight, and joining David Dimbleby will be: Daily Telegraph journalist Alice Thomson; children's minister Margaret Hodge; brilliantly named Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik; anti-war hero George Galloway, sacked by Blair for having principles; and David Cameron, co-ordinator of Tory policy on letting car drivers kill children and saying foreign people are all tuberculosis-ridden rapists. And just this once, the Diary is greatly relieved rather than hugely frustrated that the people of Grimsby tend not to support Grimsby Town Football Club. Just imagine
- I would like to ask Mr Cameron why current Conservative policies do not address the use of Graham Hockless in the starting line-up.
- Er
that's hardly a matter for Conser... I'm sorry? Graham who...?
- Booooo! Sort it, Camerons! You're rubbish!
- Next question please... the fat gentleman in the striped top...?
- HODGES Y RNT U DONT TOWN BEET RUSDEN DIMONDS 8-0!!!! U SHUD BE IN THE PREMERSHIPS UR RUBBISH NO AMBISHUN SAK THE GOVEMENT!!!!!
You've been a lovely audience. Thank you very much Miles Moss for the above, Jonathan Kershaw for more information about York, and Michael Shelton, aka Durham Diary, for writing this column tomorrow. Good night, God bless, and have a safe journey home.