Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 1 March 2005

1 March 2005

Tonight's game is "deffo on", according to a Grimsby supporter who has just phoned Rochdale to check, which one assumes is a confirmation positive enough to send Mr Fenty into paroxysms of joy, and so that means a late fitness test on Martin Gritton's sore throat, barring a freak accident in which Spotland is two-thirds destroyed by a dog-shaped hot air balloon horizontally striped in a colour that hasn't been invented yet. The Diary's guessing is that Sorted It will remember he sent his only substitute striker with substantial first-team experience to Halifax in exchange for a bag of mints, and just say sod it and play Grits regardless. Especially given today's Grimsby Telegraph reporting that flowers of striking youth Danny North and David Soames are knackered and Michael Reddy has a sore hercules. Achilles. Damn.

Oh. GTFC say there's a pitch inspection at two o'clock. Well, anyway, Rochdale are apparently likely to be missing Grant Holt and Ernie Cooksey - said by some to be the only two players who really troubled the Mariners in the ill-fated original fixture that was abandoned at half time on New Year's Day. I'm going to get a massive and fatal electric shock from a pylon if I don't stop flying kites.

Finally, a heart-warming if slightly confusing tale of one manager's struggle against the other team's supporters and society's inability to accept his sexuality. According, again, to the Grimmo Tel, Yeovil manager Gary Johnson has "come out and blasted the Blundell Park faithful following his side's 2-1 defeat on Saturday". The Diary applauds Johnson's courage in confronting both Blundell Park's boo-boys and football's relentless homophobia, but I can't for the life of me see much connection between the two.