Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 22 April 2005
22 April 2005
There are three teams in the English leagues with swear words in their titles: Scunthorpe, Arsenal and fucking Man United. While the latter two have rolled over and died this year to make way for a fourth name on the Premier League trophy, the former arrive at Blundell Park tomorrow sitting pretty in the fourth division's third and final automatic promotion spot.
Arsenal, Man United, Chelsea (in a minute or two) make three, so who are the fourth team engraved on the aforementioned Premiership trophy...? Blackburn Rovers, of course, whose captain Andy Todd has been cleared of violent conduct by the FA. Todd, the former Town loanee-goal-machine-centre-back, clattered into Robin van Persie elbow first in the FA Cup semi-final last Saturday, but claimed Arsenal's two-goal hero "ran into my shoulder". This is reminiscent of the time Durham Diary's annoying sister fell onto the end of my finger eyeball first, so I can sympathise with him somewhat.
How times change! 13 April 2002 and the Mariners (complete with Todd), were beating claret and blue-clad Burnley (complete with Gazza) to ensure survival in the top division of the Football League. 23 April 2005 and the Mariners play claret and blue-clad Scunthorpe in the bottom division of the Football League with nothing to play for but pride. Still, no point living in the past, as they say. But not as they say to anyone at the OS, apparently, which is running a highly selective piece on the history of Grimsby/Scunthorpe matches. Of the eight times the two teams have played one another in April, Scunthorpe have won only once, which was in that well-known low year for English football, 1966.
In team news for the game, the OS reckons Terrell Forbes is feeling better after his yucky virus thingy but the Grimsby Telegraph doesn't. Martin Gritton's back is back, so to speak. Stacy Coldicott looks unlikely to play after not training all week, leaving a midfield vacancy for either Sockless Hockless or The Frenchman, which a quick search on Google reveals was the title of a film from 1961 (not Sockless Hockless).
The Grimsby Telegraph is running a story about the Sortster wanting to end Town's season of derby woe, although I can't remember us playing Derby once. Sorry. One player who is partly responsible for this woe is Simon Yeo, who scored three of his twenty-three so far this season in the Lincoln/Grimsby match at Blundell Park. Yeo, reports the BBC, is stalling on his contract talks with Lincoln in case a bigger club comes in with an offer for him. I don't really suppose we count as a bigger club than Lincoln any more, but I thought I'd put it in anyway.
That's it for today. My feet are cold and I really fancy having a nice hot bath. If you're going to the game tomorrow I hope the weather's nice and you have a good time. If you aren't planning on going I hope you have a pleasant day doing whatever you are doing. Now where's that Radox