Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 26 October 2005
26 October 2005
Third verse, same as the first. Luton forward and sometime Grimsby wide midfielder Calvin 'Andrews' Andrew is returning to Blundell Park for a second month on loan, giving Town the option to hoof long balls out to one side of the midfield as well as straight up towards Michael Reddy. Having not played in the League Cup this season, Andrew would be eligible to take part in tonight's match against, um, er, dunno, I've forgotten, should Luton show themselves to be cool about him becoming cup-tied. They might even have got knocked out by now, come to that. I'll have a look. Yeah, they have. Woo. Andrew proved an effective player in his first month on loan at Blundell Park at the beginning of the season, scoring the winner in Town's 1-0 triumph at Barnet in August, and if we're going to play route one then we might as well have players who can make it work. I feel dirty.
After yesterday's Diary went live with a spirited if entirely predictable attack on GTFC for moving next month's game against Macclesfield to a Friday night, the club's official site added another paragraph to the page on which this latest atrocity was announced, which succeeds only in undermining its case even further. Possibly in response to the Diary pointing out - as if it needed to be pointed out - that the attendance against Wycombe the other Friday was artificially inflated by part-timers chasing ticket stubs to get into the Newcastle game, the OS added: "The Stockport game was switched to a Friday night, with the club originally expecting a Saturday crowd of around 4,500, 5,381 turned up for the clash with the Edgeley Park side." First of all, that should be a semicolon after "Friday night"; more importantly, the club is once again insulting the intelligence of its own supporters, who know very well that a substantial proportion of the crowd at the Stockport game were kids who'd got in for free on a special offer the club put in place after switching the game to the Friday. Keep digging, guys. You're making my job a hell of a lot easier.
Oh, all right then, if I have to. Both line-ups for tonight's oversubscribed Lager Cup match against Newcastle - they're in the Premiership, you know! - are still far from clear, with Andy Parkinson and Jean-Paul Kamudimba Kalala seeming likely to shake off the injuries that we never believed would keep them out of the match in the first place but Sunderland fan and sworn deadly enemy to Geordies Simon Ramsden on stand-by to fill in at left-back should Tom Newey not recover from his. As for the visitors, some reports are claiming Graeme Souness may rest some of his players while others suggest he'll go shit or bust with a full-strength line-up; on balance it seems likely that Alan 'Kick Your Head' Shearer will join his one-time England striking partner Little Michael Owen on the sidelines. Back in the starting line-up for the visitors, though, will be Kieron Dyer, Celestine Babayaro, and, um, I dunno, some other millionaires.
If Souness succumbs to the temptation to withdraw some of his poor little lambs from the fray tonight then at least his club's official website can't be accused of failing to take the match seriously. A quite decent Rob Jones interview, in which Town's most upright of citizens tells of losing 8-0 to Newcastle while on the books at Spennymoor United, will be the highlight for GTFC fans, but also of interest is a statfest which reveals that "Grimsby actually enjoy a better record in the previous head-to-heads" between the two sides, having beat the Magpies 16 times and lost only 15. Note the use of the word 'actually', implying: "You're not going to believe this, because we've got loads of money and they've never been higher than the fifth division in the whole 20 years they've existed for and, er, um... fish. Yeah."
Finally, let's hope the Mariners can make it an ecstatic 50th for regular Diary emailer Dave 'Sibbo' Burton, whose friends and family have been bombarding Cod Almighty with virtual birthday cards. "We would like you all to join in wishing our dad a happy 50th birthday for Wednesday 26 October, and thought what better way to do it than to post a message on the one and only Cod Almighty website! After all, he practically lives by this website, and is a top GTFC supporter through thick and thin. Have a great day Dad, let's hope it's as BIG as the Grimsby vs Newcastle match. All the best to the Mariners, make it a good match for our extra special birthday boy! With lots of love to you, from your 'lil sibbas' Nicola, Toni and Charlotte." Awww! Hey, I could start charging for this. Dave the Engineer adds: "Tomorrow may go down in Mariners history if we manage to win, but history of another kind will be created when Sibbo turns 50. To celebrate we have clubbed together enough to buy him a pint in the Rutland before the game. Honour indeed for this stalwart of Blundell Park and just reward for retiring from the East Lincs Combination and Alford Town's defence." Have a good 'un, Sibbo, and if you wear a Cod Almighty T-shirt tonight and we reach the Rutland in time then I'll buy you a pint meself. Mmmm, Bullion. Thirsty now.