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Diary - Monday 7 March 2005

7 March 2005

In its dealings with GTFC the Inland Revenue has opted for a course of action that looked its most sensible all along, but which everybody sort of seemed to forget was an option, and exercised some flexibility over the Tax Thing. Town's official site today reports that while, financially speaking, the Mariners remain very much paddleless in Poo Pond, a decision by the IR to offer the club "a favourable repayment schedule" has at the very least postponed the repossession of its canoe. The 'Keep The Mariners Afloat' campaign organised jointly by the club and the supporters' trust will carry on regardless, adds the OS, because, well, it's not like the Revenue is actually letting us off or anything. If the Diary were a cynic then I might be tempted to suspect that the tax people spotted Town's recent improved form and chose to cover their asses in case Positive John decided the 10-point administration penalty could be absorbed without danger of relegation. But of course, I'm not.

If the KTMA cause is to succeed then gratitude will be due to Franz Ferdinand. The sharply dressed Scots pop combo, who are currently attempting to string out as much of a career as possible on the strength of one good song, have a PR officer called Steve Phillips, who hails from the port of Grimsby and has persuaded the boys to sign a few Mariners Afloat T-shirts for raising of funds via auctional floggage, bless 'em all. I'm sure I read this in the Sports Telegraph about two months ago, but the sale is now under way, and it can only be a matter of minutes before the first bid is lodged. Given the almighty job Steve has clearly done in persuading the world that the not-terrible-but-far-from-brilliant Franz represent the Future Of Popular Music, one can only wonder whether his talents might one day be put to the worthier use of getting his fellow Grimbarians to support their local football club.

Shortly before the seemingly reborn Andy Parkinson secured three more points for Town at Oxford the other day with another smashing goal, ginger loanee and Prince Harry lookalike Matt Harrold had the Diary punching the air in delight with a well-placed looping header to get the Mariners level. Mr Russell Slade has since been a-praisin' the contributions of both players, along with that of flu victim Martin Gritton, introduced as a snuffly half-time substitute. Significantly, though, the Town boss has also acknowledged for the first time the pressure that his out-of-sorts goalkeeper Anthony Williams is under, with the Grimbio Telbio quoting his post-match interview: "Willo hasn't had a great game with his hands once or twice today." If it weren't for those hands, eh.

As most of us have now known for some time, the internet is rubbish. The trouble with a 'democratic medium' is that even the most dimwitted illiterate can use a click-and-drag FTP application or basic content management system, with the result that our beloved town and football club have been renamed "Grimbsy" online more times than you can shake a fish at. In the Diary's more tolerant states of mind I could perhaps forgive the UK Noise Association its misspelling or British Cycling its similar display of ignorance, but you'd think the Daily Telegraph and the BBC might know better, wouldn't you? At the very least, you would probably hope GTFC's own subscription web service Mariners World might avoid this very basic error by not ending a highlights clip with the caption "Oxford Utd 1 Grimbsy Town 2".

And you would hope that even British Cycling would know that "Grimbsy College" is not in Yorkshire. But no. Perhaps some of you might like to email coachingnews@britishcycling.org.uk and tell them.

Finally, Clint Marcelle signed for Tamworth late last week. Which was nice.