Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 17 November 2005

17 November 2005

Good day to you all, Reliable Stand-In Diary here, bringing you the latest news from Blundell Park. I'm not just reliable; I'm the undefeated Guess Who? champion of my student house. My greatness means I never have to answer the front door again until the New Year. Now that's what I call a prize! But being a Guess Who? master means I already know who's at the door anyway.

Wes Parker, Chris Bolder Graham Hockless, David Soames, Liam Nimmo and Iain Ward are awe inspiring names, I'm sure you'll agree. They gave to football what Ian Duncan Smith gave to the Conservative party. So it's only natural that the Grimsby area has been targeted as a "hot spot for potential talented football superstars of tomorrow", according to the local rag. Football scouts will be attending Hereford Technical School on December 10 in the hope of unearthing that rough diamond who will transform the Premiership and lead England to World Cup 2014 glory. "After detailed research, we believe that the Grimsby area holds a lot of potential hidden talent and we want to put this talent in front of the top scouts who will be turning up," said Danny Fisher, director of Sports Opportunity. This 'detailed research' sounds curiously vague, but nevertheless, men wearing tracksuits carrying clipboards will descend on the town in a few weeks hoping to sign up the next big thing (and we're not talking about their hair-dos here).

Blundell Park wasn't voted as the fans' favourite ground in a survey conducted by Life Style Extra (UK). That's a bit cheeky, if you ask me. Apparently, the comfort, view, toilet facilities, food and club shop products at Blundell Park are not even good enough to make the top ten. I don't know how anybody could vote against those charming urinals behind the Main Stand. Philistines. I can't help but sense that the OS is quite bitter about this. It believes there has been an injustice, and they are currently engaged in writing a badly-worded, ill-spelt letter of complaint to Life Style Extra (UK) - their main point being that only 3,000 fans (that's just under 33 fans for every league team) were surveyed, which makes the whole thing invalid anyway.

Town's weekend opponents Wycombe Wanderers have already announced their prices and other related offers to fans regarding half season tickets. Now that's what I call forward planning. Anyone interested in buying a half season ticket at not-good-enough-to-be-in-the-top-ten-favourite-grounds-survey Blundell Park? You'll just have to wait to see what last-minute, organisational mess the suits at BP have in mind.

Mariners World offers news regarding Toner's hopes of keeping his place in the side now that Kalala has returned from that abandoned international match. Gary Croft played the first half of yet another defeat for Graham Rodger's reserve side, which also featured a young Andy Taylor. Remember that name folks, because that lad is good. Good enough to be promoted to the reserve side, good enough to make the subs bench one day, and certainly good enough to leave Blundell Park in four years' time after developing into an actual decent prospect and sign for Bridlington because the manager couldn't bother his arse to play him.