Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 18 August 2005
18 August 2005
Now then! Have you got your season ticket yet? Having breached their wage budget - not to mention the faith of Keep the Mariners Afloat donors - by signing Gary Croft, Town have been giving an extra-big commercial push this summer to the 23-match bundle package. And as if those beautiful free red T-shirts and the chance to watch four pre-season kickabouts for 20 quid were not enough, the club has extended the deadline for 'discount' season tickets as far as two weeks into the season. An item on the official website today explains that the 10 per cent drop in season ticket numbers this year is more than offset by the increase in prices - so that's all right, then - before going on to insist that even though the Great Croft Himself is back in town, this Saturday is absolutely the last chance to buy one at the reduced rate, no, really, totally, completely your final opportunity, going once, going twice, like not even if you're being eaten by wild dogs will you be able to do it next week. Unless John Oster comes back tomorrow, obviously.
As the old proverb goes, an absence of updates on current events would appear to be a good update on current events - and today's Grimsby Telegraph has certainly made good news out of the fact that there is no news coming out of Blundell Park as far as this Saturday's visit of Darlington is concerned. The local organ has impressively created a back-page piece out of thin, recycled air today (I'm not mocking; what do you think the Diary spends most of the time doing?), reminding us that Ciaran Toner and JPK are set to challenge for first-team debuts against Darlo and that Gary Cohen is also pushing for a start, which would presumably be at Martin Gritton's expense. Gary Jones is also moving towards match fitness, which is nice - particularly if your name is Russell Slade. "It is a selection headache but one that manager's like to have," are the words of the GTFC boss, the apostrophe kindly added in later by the Telegraph at no extra charge.
"Has anyone else noticed that the last time we won at home was 26 February," writes Keith Collins in an email to the Diary, "almost six months ago!" Point taken, Keith - Russ's Town have drawn far too many home games that they should've won - but to be fair to the lads, saying in August that they haven't won for six months isn't as bad as saying it in March. And on the bright side, the Mariners haven't lost to Manchester United for nearly 60 years.