Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 26 September 2005

26 September 2005

Town fans who watched last season's final away game at Kidderminster retain fond memories not only of Michael Reddy's two fine goals in their side's 4-1 stroll but of a magnificent minute from the master of mystery, Mr Glen Downey, in his debut for the Mariners as a late substitute just eight months after joining the club. Despite a brief non-speaking role in his side's League Cup win at Derby last month, though, a regular first-team slot looks further away than ever for the elusive Glen now that GTFC have loaned 20-year-old utility full-back Simon Francis from Sheffield United. Francis was very highly rated at his first club, Bradford, where he debuted in 2002 at the age of 17 and made 50-odd appearances before transferring to Bramall Lane last year - despite interest from Sunderland and Charlton - for a fee variously reported as £200,000, £250,000, £375,000 and £400,000. To add to his stock with Town supporters, young Simon even had the decency to get himself sent off at Blundell Park in 2003. Put the kettle on, then, Glen.

Modern supporters who take at least as great an interest in the balance of their club's bank account as the balance of its midfield will be delighted to learn that Town's third round League Cup tie at home to Newcastle will, like the Tottenham match before it, be screened live by a well-known satellite broadcaster, enriching the Mariners to the tune of another 50 or 60 thousand quid or whatever it was. The game has been scheduled for Wednesday 26 October, presumably by a Football League official with a perverse preference for Eastenders over Coro.

You shot me in the bollocks, Tim! Diligent students of the Diary will recall from last week that the Town reserve side that lost 3-1 at Scarborough on Wednesday night included Niall Flynn, a 19-year-old midfielder released by Sunderland over the summer. What we did not know at the time but have learned over the weekend is that Flynn was one of four Black Kittens punished by their club in 2004 for driving around their city firing paintball pellets at passers-by. Chris Brown, Sean Taylor and Ryan Bell were cautioned by police, fined by their club and ordered to perform 10 weeks' community service, while the target into which the hapless Flynn unloaded a round of paint turned out to be a 40-year-old off-duty police officer. Insert your own gag here about his shooting needing to be sharper than that on the football pitch.

Heh, heh! Grimsby! Fish! You expect it from tabloids and ropey network websites - but surely not from the Daily Telegraph. Or maybe you do.

"Robbie King? Just notice glaring error in my drunken email I sent on Tuesday night," begins an email from John Pakey, who still doesn't sound quite sober. "I somehow confused an 18-year-old promising Colchester United midfielder for a little Irish guy who 'plays football' for Spurs. Hungover to hell on Wednesday morning, but still smiling." What about the rest of you, readers? Share your tales of post-Tottenham drunkenness at diary@codalmighty.com - and if you can recommend good hangover cures into the bargain then so much the better.

Felix Oliver-Tasker is another reader who just can't stop emailing the Diary. "Please thank TB for another superb match report," he enthuses. "It was well worth the wait. In reply to your query regarding footballers in our world-renowned Clap Clinic, I can only say that we get every kind of baller you can imagine plus many you can't." Are you absolutely sure, Felix? The Diary can imagine more kinds of ballers than most, you know. "If you would like a tip from an aristocratic, failed horse race trainer-cum-clap doctor, I recommend the one given by Sir Ronnie Scott, aristocrat of the tenor saxophone: 'Never pat a burning dog.' Thanks once more. Up the Mariners!"