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Diary - Thursday 3 November 2005

3 November 2005

Town's attempts to avoid FA Cup humiliation this season by beating Bristol Rovers on Saturday have been hit by injuries and cup-tyings... cuptie-age... cuptiedness... Luton's wish to prevent Calvin Andrew becoming cup-tied. The Grimsby Telegraph has reported fitness doubts over Ciaran Toner and Andy Parkinson, while Andrew's parent club has barred him from participating on Saturday so that he would remain free to play for the Hatters in later rounds of the cup. Some fans and pundits have recently claimed that the rules preventing players from appearing in the same cup tournament for two different teams are outmoded and should be scrapped. The Diary believes, on the contrary, that these regulations are such a useful way to prevent conflicts of interest that they should be adapted from football to politics, so that former cabinet ministers would be disallowed from taking up directorships with companies that might bid for government contracts. Oh.

Slade Departs Town is the cheeky and in no way wishfully thinking headline used by the Mariners' official website to announce the exit not of the club's esteemed team manager but of former Barking & East Ham United frontman Steve 'No Relation' Slade, who had been on trial at Blundell Park for two weeks. The OS reflects that the player "has been unlucky during his time at Town", since he suffered a bang on the head during one of his two reserve games and a 4-0 defeat by York in the other. In turn this raises the question of whether, if it was worth taking a look at Steve in the first place, it is right to let him go now on the evidence of a trial so sorely blighted by ill fortune - but then I never really understand how these trials work. Maybe the club couldn't afford to keep him in a B&B down Meggies any longer.

Now, as the BBC continuity people say when they introduce Look North, it's time for the news wherever you are. If you're near Hull, that is, because our regional correspondent North Bank Diary has emailed with a collection of stories on former Mariners who have quite literally crossed the water. "Graham Hockless plays his last game for North Ferriby this weekend," writes NBD. "Off to Oz at last! Yippee. How missed will he be? He was the small guy, remember. With a hundred hairstyles." Or 98 more hairstyles than goals, of course. "Chris Bolder scores first goal for North Ferriby. Reported in local newspaper as a 'relief'. No idea how long he has been there by the way. Who cares? He is their captain. They are top of the table. Joe Lightowler sits on North Ferriby bench. Mighty. Fallen. How the have. Chris Hyam plays regularly for Bridlington, who have just signed ex-Town trialist Alastair Benson from Hull City." Thanks for that, North Bank - a real message of hope for Tony Crane if ever there was one.

This being Thursday, today's final item will be the last of the working week to be brought to you by your regular Diary before I hand over tomorrow to one of the ever-expanding team of sub Diaries retained by Cod Almighty to step into the breach while I'm down the pub on Fridays and possibly to replace me on a permanent basis on the occasion that I never make it back from the pub one Friday. On that cheerful note let us be happy for young right winger Simon Penney, who was released by the Mariners in the summer and is now doing great things for Holbeach United under 15s in the Peterborough and District Youth League, where he has been tipped for a certain return to the Football League after scoring six times in one match last weekend. If you were wondering why we get Bolder, Hockless and Lightowler these days instead of Croft, Oster and Handyside, and why Town reserves have lost every game this season, then wonder no longer!