Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 9 August 2005

9 August 2005

Only seven hours remain until Town kick off their second game of the season at Bristol Rovers, and no further team news has issued from Blundell Park's throbbing news hub since this time yesterday, when Town's injured trio of Justin Whittle, JPKK and Ciaran Toner were all ruled out, and Michael Reddy and Tom Newey were not quite ruled out but at least sort of faintly scribbled over with an HB pencil. In the interests of balanced reporting, however - OK, in the interests of cynicism - the Diary is compelled to record the observations of a number of seasoned - OK, cynical - Mariners supporters that Reddys and Neweys exited stage left at the end of Saturday's disappointing draw against Oxford looking like nowt was up wivvum, and that their alleged doubtfulness for this evening's proceedings is nothing more than a crafty bit of misinformation. The idea is presumably that gullible old Ian Atkins will respond to the ostensible absence of Newey by sending out a team without a right-back or right winger and to what he believes will be the non-appearance of Reddy by fielding a central defensive partnership of Sidney the Snail and Toby the Tortoise.

Town's official website, meanwhile, has gone to the trouble of telling the world that those lovely people at the Memorial Ground are quite happy for us to pay on the gate this evening. This may only be borne out of desperation to encourage more than eleven Mariners fans to turn up, but it at least makes a nice change from the club's recent years in the second flight, when the run-up to an away game would invariably see the OS issue a succession of blood-curdling imprecations that supporters turning up without advance tickets would be turned away, flogged and pecked to death by geese. Of course, it always turned out to be wrong, and travelling Townites were perfectly able to shell out 20 or 25 quid on the turnstiles of Selhurst Park and Molineux, and then watch their team lose 4-1 and wish they were being pecked to death by geese after all.

Pretend Grimbarian-Italian Paulo di Moranio, née Paul Moran, has emailed the Diary to bring our attention to another tiresome gimmick by the fizzy drink vendors who sponsor the league competition Town play in. If the 72 clubs in the Football League score 4,500 goals this season then the sponsor will give them a million quid, apparently. I assume the 4,500 goals and the million quid are between them, although if Michael Reddy makes a quick recovery from this injury then you never know, eh.

A further email reaches the Diary, this time on the subject of Sir John McDermott's impending retirement (which is still, interestingly, yet to be reported or commented upon by the club in any way). "In these times of greedy footballers chasing cash rather than staying loyal to one club, how can we best honour Macca?" asks Rich Mills. "There's talk of a knighthood but is that enough? How about sainthood? Let's get him beatified! I know he's not dead but why let that stand in our way? The RC church will probably be glad we're taking an interest, what with falling visitor numbers, scandals and the like. I'm not entirely sure how to proceed but I'd imagine there's a form on the Vatican website or something." You may think Rich is kidding, but canonisations have begun over much less than 700-odd appearances for one club, you know. "Alternatively you could make some mugs with his face on." Oh. I guess he was kidding then.