Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 17 January 2006
17 January 2006
Gary Cohen: a striker or a winger? Andy Parkinson: a striker or a winger? Calvin Andrew: a striker or a winger? Gary Jones: a striker, a midfielder, or so brilliant that his continued existence forces spectator and pundit alike to question the very notion of footballers' positions, concluding that they are not a 'natural' way to conceptualise players but a social construct maintained by the oppressive discourse of the ruling class? Until we decide, we can agree that Russell Slade has a penchant for attacking players who are neither lamb nor mutton, and so it is with Junior Mendes, who has joined the Mariners on loan for the rest of the season and will probably be on the bench at Darlington tonight. Notionally a striker, Mendes has started only 150 league games at the age of 29 but been subbed on in a further 50, scoring 41 times in all. The player spent a season and a half with Mansfield before leaving for Huddersfield in 2004, where he has apparently had 'fitness problems' but looked decent on the left of midfield before heading out on loan to Northampton this season, for whom he has also played out wide, scoring twice in 12 league appearances. After signing Ben Futcher last week, Slade declared that he was still looking for a striker and a wide midfielder, but slyly failed to mention that this only meant one player.
Another truth you and I will most likely hold to be self-evident is that Steve Mildenhall is Bloody Great. Perhaps all this season's GTFC goalkeeper needed to get the fans on his side was to not be Anthony Williams, but My Lord has distinguished himself beyond this minimum requirement with some fine exhibitions of shot-stopping and, more importantly, by going crazy ape-shit bonkers in front of the Pontoon when Town score goals and win matches. The news on Mariners World will be welcomed by all, then, that the club's splendid custodian is shortly to begin talks over an extended contract. "Hopefully we'll sit down and try and thrash something out," declares mild-mannered Mildenhall, who is currently on one of these year-with-another-year-option thingies which we're a bit closer to understanding than we used to be. May masterful Mildo remain a major Mariner many more moons, as Tony Gallimore would have struggled to put it.
This may come as a shock to some, but not all football club chairmen are as orange-juice-spilling passionate about their clubs as a certain Mr Fenty clearly is about the Mariners, and some seem more concerned about what they can get out than what they can put in. As a recent article by the excellent David Conn explains, the chief suit at Mansfield, Keith Haslam, not only draws a salary from the club (£66,000 in 2004) but has taken over half a million quid out of the Stags' coffers in "interest-free loans", and another half-mill has gone to a company he owns to pay for an academy that hasn't been built. Stags fans visiting Blundell Park last Saturday wanted to display a banner to protest against all this, but Haslam asked GTFC to stop them doing so, and BP's ever-effective stewards obliged. Here, though, is the banner Mansfield Town and Grimsby Town didn't want you to see.
Not that violence and intimidation are the Diary's style, but when peaceful and well-intentioned protest is unreasonably silenced you can almost understand why people sometimes go too far, can't you? Let's hope it doesn't happen in this case. Anyway - to find out more, visit the Stags' supporters' trust.
An email now, to return the Diary to our habitual tone of levity. Remember Bas Savage, November's trialist striker who had never scored a league goal but would only sign for Town if they paid him considerably more than they're paying Michael Reddy? John Pakey does. "Not since my dad had half a Heineken and lime too many at my cousin's wedding have I seen such a strange display of dancing," writes John. "I am referring, of course, to Bas Savage's first goal for Bristol City in their 1-1 draw against Brian 'Watch Out Ivano' Laws' lot down at Glanford Park. I was actually shocked that the man, who decided to not sign for Grimsby and go off and not score (until Saturday) for the Robins, had a celebration. I would have thought his head would have blown up like something out of Scanners, befuddled by the experience of actually scoring a competitive goal. So all credit to Savage, for keeping his head intact and not letting it explode in a gooey mess all over his team-mates." Let's see if something similar happens with Junior Mendes.