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Diary - Wednesday 16 March 2005

16 March 2005

Only 11th in the league? Lost one of the last six games? How can they even think about reappointing the manager? If you've been ranting on madly like this recently then perhaps you need to book a place on Cod Almighty's new training seminar Advanced Expectation Management: How To Support Grimsby And Be Happy. As a satisfied delegate, the Diary can attest to the course's efficacy: just the other week, for instance, I'd have settled for a home defeat by Yeovil without Jevons scoring, so imagine my euphoria when Town not only shut out the Scouse sluggard but ran out 2-1 victors.

Expectation management, again, is what those with an interest in the Mariners' reserve team are practising today when they see that the defeat experienced by the stiffs last night at the hands of their Manchester United counterparts was by the far from humiliating margin of two goals to nil. This clearly includes Town's official website, which headlines its account of the match No Shame For Town Youngsters. Scum Seconds scored after 21 and 50 minutes, while the GTFC hopefuls had their hopes briefly raised by a couple of openings for on-trial striker Jermaine Palmer - one bringing a good save from the PLC's keeper Tom Heaton, the other fizzing wide - and another for that Town fan who lives on Hainton Avenue, which he whacked over the bar. Oh well.

Dunno about you lot, like, but the Diary's expectations of the sport section of the BBC Humber website tend to languish at the low end of the lowness scale, so that every so often, when the site does something that isn't rubbish, it's as pleasant a surprise as Town winning the European UEFA Championship Cup League. And today... guess what? That's right - it's still rubbish. The very skies of towering editorial incompetence are scraped once again by the presentation of a big story. A West Indies international is joining Cleethorpes Cricket Club, and so the teaser line reads: "Sherwin Campbell says he is excited to be joining the Chichester Road club"; all well and good apart from the fact that the headline above it says Chichester's new player. Give me strength.

Perhaps some expectations of Jason Crowe have been inflated by the fact that he used to play for Arsenal, and if his arrival at Blundell Park had followed a spell with, say, Harrogate Railway Athletic or Willenhall Pickwick then expectations would be accordingly managed downwards and we'd all think he was ace. Either way, eagle-eyed Diary reader Steven Young has just read the latest instalment of the Football Guardian website's excellent trivia series The Knowledge and discovered a "little nugget of info surrounding our very own Jason 'Full-Back Slash Midfielder' Crowe. It seems the full-back does indeed like to slash midfielders," explains Mr Young, "as he has the record for the fastest ever sending-off on a debut: an impressive 33 seconds [as a substitute for Arsenal in a 1997 League Cup game against Birmingham]. What an honour!" Thanks for that, Steve; and if the Diary recalls clearly then 'Big' Georges Santos wasn't far away from running Jase a close second in his debut for the Mariners...

The Diary tends to expect very little from internet messageboards, and so I am always happy when, as is sometimes the case, a halfway decent one pops up. Jason Ives is of a similar mind, and has emailed the Diary to hold forth at some length upon the inadequacies of both a certain messageboard and many of its inhabitants. This is not, I suspect, a debate most readers would be happy to see this column dragged into, and so we will cut to the Jase chase. "Main point of the waffling email," admits Mr Ives, "is to say I enjoy reading the Diary - if only other websites could display a sense of humour as well as discuss football and Town in general. Keep it going, and anytime they get stuck for that tipping thing again I'll have another stab - being as I did crap last time." Aw, cheers fella.

Mrs Diary has just left the house: she's got to go to Birmingham, of all places, until Saturday, for work. How am I going to pass the evenings? This is partly a rhetorical question, but if you do have any suggestions that aren't too naughty then email them to diary@codalmighty.com, will ya? Ta.