Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 12 October 2005

12 October 2005

Err nerr! The Mariners' dreams of lifting a prestigious trophy this season lie in tatters after the reserves lost 2-1 to Hull yesterday afternoon in the Pontins Holidays Cup. A strong Tahgers side strolled to a two-goal half-time lead against a Town XI featuring Tony Crane, but Graham 'Rodgers' Rodger's side came back strongly after the break, propelled by another stirring - and goalscoring - performance from ginger winger ninja Nick Hegarty, who must be due a return to the first-team squad one week soon, eh, Sladey?

Since their win over Tottenham in the League Cup last month the Mariners have been all over the media like a rash, or Abi Titmuss, and in the run-up to the third-round meeting with Newcastle the rash shows no sign of clearing up. Really old defender John McDermott has told nobody in particular that, in the style of Bobby Robson during the 1990 World Cup, relative newcomer to the club Russell Slade "often talks to a few of us senior players and asks for feedback or advice on certain things". But other than Macca himself, who exactly are the senior players? Over on the BBC, meanwhile, there's another of those longer-than-a-news-story shorter-than-a-feature-article pieces, in which a sleepy-looking Slade declares: "We have turned a big corner," referring either to the club as a whole or the fans who queued up for Newcastle tickets on Sunday and made it as far as the final 90-degree turn from Grimsby Road into Constitutional Avenue.

At the time of writing there is no news as to whether Town are going to be allowed to put those extra seats in between the Osmond and the Smiths/Stones/Findus/Barrett stands. The club's official website says a decision will be made today, but if we were reliant solely on the OS for the background to this story then we would be uncertain as to whether permission is needed from the local council, the Football League, John Fenty's mum or the leader of the Singapore Democratic Alliance. It's a good job we have the Grimsby Telegraph, then, which has reported that the decision will be made following a meeting between club officials, Humberside police, and something called the Safety Advisory Group - a meeting due to take place on, er, Thursday. So either the OS has it wrong or Town are going to just sneakily erect a new stand before the meeting, under cover of darkness, and hope nobody notices.

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us/To see oursels as others see us! Oh, here it is. Cheers giftie! A preview of Friday night's Town match can now be found, fittingly enough, on the website of Friday night's opponents Cheltenham. Excitingly, the Robins' OS manages to correctly identify the national team of Jean-Paul Kamudimba Kalala, but lets itself down on hyphenation, apostrophes, the number of goals scored this season by Gary Jones and the spellings of Calvin Andrew and Russell Slade. There are also some weird photos of headless footballers, and while it may be factually correct that GTFC "lost the services" of Anthony Williams to Carlisle over the summer, this is a bit like saying the Diary's careful daily use of Anusol over the summer caused me to lose the services of my haemorrhoids.