Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 4 April 2005

4 April 2005

I am the Ghost of Grimsby Future. I went to see Grimsby Present play Mansfield on Saturday, and it was rubbish, so I went and got drunk afterwards and I can't remember anything I had to tell you. Maybe I'd better hand over to Guest Ghost - the Ghost of Grimsby Past. And so, released Town reserves Paul Fraser and Giovanni Carchedi have signed for Ossett Town, reports the Non-League Daily; I don't know who Ossett Town are, really, apart from a sort of lower down the pyramid version of York, gaily hoovering up former Mariners. They won't have much luck with Terry Cooke, though, as the Jevonesque flitter of the right wing has apparently signed for Colorado Rapids in the good ol' United States of Future World Government. Come to think of it, Town never had much luck with him either. And Michael Boulding now being comfortably settled into his loan at Cardiff, the Welsh media are taking their turn at the old "ooh, he used to play tennis, you know!" routine. He used to play tennis, you know.

So is the present really all that bad? Pretty much. In an effort to keep Town's home attendances in four figures until the end of the season Mr Russell Slade is repeating the old "they're playing for their futures" line until he's blue in the face and crimson on the top of his head, telling the Grimsby Telegraph: "When players think there is nothing to play for at this time of the year when you find yourself mid-table they are foolishly mistaken. They are playing for their contracts." As Grimsby supporters discovered last season, however, it just doesn't work like that, baby, and the Diary for one is not looking forward to seeing Mr Brian Laws turn up at BP later this month for the points he desperately needs to get Scunny's promotion campaign back on track and the Mariners hand them to him on a plate with salt, vinegar and a generous dollop of tartare sauce.

Humberside Airport is to sponsor the Mariners' youth system School of Excellence thing for three years, prompting lame headlines from the club's official website and the Grimsby Telegraph within minutes of the deal being announced. "That School of Excellence thing, right, it's dead ace," is more or less what the airport's managing director Rob Goldsmith says in the story on the OS. The OS uses a Javascript thing to stop you selecting text to copy and paste, which I normally get round by right-clicking and then viewing the source code, or simply by typing out the text, but I can't be arsed today. "That Humberside Airport, right, they're great, they are," is more or less what John Fenty adds. Rumours that the deal includes luxury charter flights for the Town chairman over the course of his driving ban are yet to be started.