Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 13 January 2006

13 January 2006

Your Guest Diarist has spent the last few minutes wishing he could be in Southwark Crown Court watching Steve Evans and his Boston cronies facing charges of conspiring to cheat the public revenue. This particular match kicked off at twelve of the clock, and sadly is not available live on Sky. As well as mentioning this, Ken Fox's news diary also reports that it is a condition of the transfer of young Mr Futcher that he will not be picked for the Town versus Boston game later this season. How very Chelsea. Not that we will be short of centre-halves or anything. I hope that Mr Futcher's arrival, plus the return to fitness of some of our other able central defenders, does not presage a return to non-4-4-2 formations: we had quite enough of that nonsense last season.

The Football League has just published another of its agents' fees reports, covering the period from July to December 2005. As you'd expect, it makes dispiriting reading. Luton had to part with over ninety grand, so you can understand why Mike Newell is so upset. Grimsby wasted a total of £13,560 (down from £24,020 in the corresponding period in 2004). Eleven fourth division clubs (including Boston and Lincoln) apparently did not spend a penny on agents. That word 'apparently' crept into the previous sentence purely because the word 'Boston' was in it as well. In total League clubs shelled out £4.4m in the six-month period, down a bit from £5m the preceding year. I'm sure there will be a long and orderly queue of managers waiting to back up the whistleblower Newell - aren't you?

Meanwhile the Grimsby Telegraph, in its fascinating interview with Messrs Futcher and Slade, has come up with yet another name for the bottomest division in the Football League where our beloved Town currently languish (although at least we are currently known as "promotion-chasing"). To quote Futcher junior from the article: "The team are in a good position in the Continued on page 46.league". Mr Slade, who is already receiving treatment for a slightly ricked neck, had this to say: "With Futcher and Rob Jones, we now have two massive threats in both boxes. But what Ben really likes to do is defend and make tackles. He enjoys marking people and stopping frontmen from scoring." Among Ben's other hobbies are reading, watching Big Brother (in case there are people as tall as him in it) and collecting prints of dogs named after his dad.

The Telegraph also features interviews with Steve Mildenhall and Paul Bolland trotting out the usual footballer homilies, and a more informative one with Michael Reddy and Mr Slade, in which top Telegraph reporter Trevor Green treats us to: "The in-form pace ace picked up a knock to his shin this week and has sat out training sessions. But the 25-year-old, who is rumoured to have attracted the attention of a number of other clubs this season, is on the mend and should be back in contention for tomorrow's 'Stag-hunt'." Mr Slade is reported to have said: "Redds trained for the first time yesterday and hopefully he will be okay. Crofty also trained and may be available. John McDermott is making progress and may be back for Tuesday's game against Darlington - but Mansfield will come too soon for him. Justin Whittle and Simon Ramsden are longer-term casualties while Jermaine Palmer (back), Tommy Taylor (groin) and Nick Hegarty (ankle) are also unavailable."

Well, that's your lot, folks - I'm off to practise for a role in an all-male remake of Driving Miss Daisy. See yer.