Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 4 May 2005

4 May 2005

"Do you think Rob Jones should be given a new contract?" the Diary asked Cod Almighty's widely renowned match reporter Tony Butcher on Saturday, early on during the Mariners' game down at Kidderminster. Yes, said Tony; do you? I, likewise, responded in the affirmative, for the Dock Tower-dwarfing centre-half has, I feel, played a considerable role in the side's recent run of proficient defending. And no sooner had we agreed on the need for Jones' term of employment by GTFC to be extended than up he popped to open Town's scoring for the day. Which was nice. What is less nice, however, is that Mr Russell Slade's final decision on the matter will be based on the games Jones has already played rather than the one he won't play against Southend this Saturday, as the concussion the player suffered at Aggborough rules him out of strenuous physical activity for a period of ten days. This is not, repeat, not a cue for the less than positive to insert a punchline about the workrate of Jason Crowe.

Not that the Diary tends to be concerned with other football clubs, and not that one-time troublers of AOL's email porn filter Scunthorpe United would tend to be among them if I did, but it's worth a moment to chuckle at how much of a twist some Iron knickers have got in about a daft webpoll thingy being run on Town's official website earlier this week. Not that I even saw it, but it was apparently some jokey thing about whether the Mariners should lose on purpose against Southend to try and help the Essex side beat Scunny to automatic promotion. Not that I'm desperate, after six games against the other Lincolnshire teams and no wins, for some kind of local laughing rights, but some of our friendly neighbours seem to be so uptight and unconfident of beating Shrewsbury at the weekend that they have taken the whole thing, well, a bit too seriously, really, and "reported" GTFC for this outrage - not only to the Football League but to the Scunthorpe Telegraph! Sometimes you don't even need a punchline.

There's something today about that failed Tory politician who runs the Football League trying to get the second, third and fourth divisions (which he renamed, um, whatever it was, I can't remember now) a bit more influence over the way the game is run; but if his attempts to persuade FIFA not to extend its stupid transfer window thing to the League were anything to go by then my breath, for one, is not going to be held.

When he isn't hurling abuse at Town players there's nothing Sean Fieldsend enjoys more than reading about Gamibian trialists on the club's official website. "The page said the team of trialists would partake in a game against the reserves," writes Sean in an email to the Diary, adding: "those that haven't been released without our knowledge, that is! That seems like a fair enough idea to me. Of course Slade probably won't keep any of them, but you can't blame him for trying. I was concerned, however, that the website claims at least eight will play in the game! Surely it would give them a better chance to shine if 11 of them played. If Mr Slade needs a few more trialists to make up the numbers before discarding everyone I am available and am prepared to be rejected at the end of it." Very public-spirited of you, Sean, I'm sure, but they don't have to pay travel expenses to traffic cones, you see.

Remaining on the subject of Town's latest influx of migrant trialists (who, it seems, managed to play their practice game yesterday without Sean), Loughborough Mariner and about 981 others have observed with a nudge and a wink that one of them is called Emmanuelle. "Please can we have a nice smutty joke in the Diary," begs LM, "as I'm too lazy to think of one myself?" Sadly I must decline, Loughborough, since such a gag would rest upon the highly questionable assumption that the Mariners' official site has got the player's name right. I mean for all we know he might actually be called Deep Throat.