Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 19 October 2005

19 October 2005

Result! By fielding a weakened team against Morecambe last night, Town achieved their more-or-less stated intention of elimination from the Light Commercial Vehicles Trophy - the competition that brought joy to the hearts of only 35,000 GTFC fans who travelled to the final at Wembley in 1998. Second-half substitute Paul Ashton enjoyed a dream debut, scoring an equaliser to force half an hour of extra time that nobody wanted, and the Mariners' apparent objective of getting knocked out was confirmed beyond doubt during the shoot-out when the responsibility for taking the decisive spot-kick was given to Tony 'Duck!' Crane, whose penalty is now being traced by the Huygens-Cassini space probe as it passes through the orbit of Saturn. The club has now cunningly avoided having to play a second-round tie in November - when the fixture schedule is crammed solid with, er, three league games and the first round of the FA Cup - and avoided weakening the squad with injuries and tiredness, as the only regular first-team outfield players on duty last night were the fit young lads who never pick up any knocks, such as, um, 34-year-old Justin Whittle, who played all 120 minutes. What are you complaining about? It only cost a tenner to get in.

Sensitive Mariners chairman John Fenty has issued a statement seeking to pour soothing scented oil on the troubled waters of ticketing arrangements for next week's League Cup tie against Newcastle. Treacherous whirlpools of discontent are swirling over whether the club had its fingers crossed behind its back when it announced that two ticket stubs - or counterfoils, to be accurate about it - from the matches against Notts County, Wycombe and Hull would get you in to see the big, big cup match, and the former Five Star Fish supremo has strung together some businessman's bad English in an admirable attempt to placate the great Grimsby public. It all seems sincere and convincing enough to the Diary, but then I'm not one of these people who are never happy unless they've got something to be unhappy about. Yeah, I know. Maybe my parents lied and I wasn't actually born anywhere near Grimsby.

All of which nonsense drags us kicking and screaming towards today's Seatwatch Update, where it seems that the Grimsby Telegraph has beaten Town's official website to the story again. The provisional approval of plans to install extra seats for the Newcastle game seems to have been upgraded to definite, positive, go-ahead-and-install approval, and 228 lucky winners will now get to see the match from another windswept open corner. Hooray!