Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 22 November 2005
22 November 2005
Viewers of the BBC's recent adaptation of Bleak House may be aware that the novels of Charles Dickens were often first published in instalments in the popular periodicals of the Victorian era. It was this chapter-by-chapter format that encouraged authors to end each section of their tale with what we now call a right old cliff-hanger; and it is surely with this gripping narrative style in mind that the governing bodies of football have very gradually made public the workings of the recently introduced transfer window system. Chapter 1: The Premiership has transfer windows. Chapter 2: The Football League has transfer windows. Chapter 3: Transfer windows don't apply to loan signings. Chapter 4: Transfer windows do apply to loan signings but not at the same time as permanent signings, and Russell Slade has until Thursday to bring in another full-back or striker to play wide midfield now that Calvin Andrew has gone back to Luton again and Simon Francis is at Tranmere. Chapter 5? Fog everwhere, fog up the River Humber; the lawsuit of Laws and Bonetti still drags its dreary length; and young orphans Gary Cohen and Nick Hegarty are made wards of court.
Anyone fancy a pint? Yes? You won't be driving, then? Better give this weekend's trip to Oxford a miss, since the location of the ground seems to make it inaccessible via public transport - or so Town's guide for travelling fans seems to suggest. It's just as well you're in the car and on the wagon, as the guide has also forgotten to go back and finish the name of the punctuation pub that sits next to the Kaslingradstad, leaving it as "the Priory and ?". In any case, the Diary finds that you tend to get a better pint at the Swan and Semicolon.
If you're a grown female, a minor, or a kinship unit who can these days brave the bearpit of Blundell Park without being showered by rubble, sporting equipment or wee-wee, then a curious item on Town's official website tells you who to thank. The piece appears in the OS's 'What the Papers Say' section (which neglects to tell us which paper said it) and seems to be a bit of promo copy for yet another cack-handed 'hoolie' book. Now that the police have an extensive intelligence-gathering network, it says, and the courts can impose banning orders, "women, children and families can now go along to a game and watch the spectacle safe in the knowledge that they will not be pelted by bricks, snooker cues or bottles of urine," which we can only assume must have been a weekly occurrence at BP before the rozzers bucked their ideas up. The things you miss when you're watching the football, eh? Three cheers for our brave boys in blue!
And finally today: things you never thought you'd hear, part 43: Gary Croft, who averaged about 14 league starts per season in the nine years he spent away from Grimsby, described as "a naturally fit lad". But would you chuck him out of bed for departing?