Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 6 January 2006

6 January 2006

It's one of those days in the Diary room much like reading a Virginia Woolf novel: you concentrate for about twenty minutes on the subject matter, realise you are bored and move on to more important things in life.

Paul Simpson shows the PFA website a bit of the shrewdness that won him the fourth division manager of the month award yesterday, proclaiming: "We've got a good chance to put ourselves into the top two this weekend [with tomorrow's game against Bury], with Wycombe, Leyton Orient and Grimsby all involved in the FA Cup." The Grimmo Telegraph, for a change, captures the mood of Town's fans and trumpets Slade's achievements. The Town gaffer is keeping his feet on the ground and his head out of the clouds: "It doesn't bother me though - the award I want is the one for April because it will mean we are still up there." Which makes the wait for his side's next league game all the more agonising... ah well...

The mammothental (a word our lowly sub-ed is likely to get all huppity about) [not really, Si - I was too busy correcting your spelling from "Viriginia Wolf" - lowly sub-ed.] Tony Crane is - it transpires in a monumental moment of official site investigative work - only on loan at Worksop Town, as the player and his current full-time employers are yet to agree a settlement on the remaining time on his contract.

From something old to something new, promising winger Nick Heggggggaaaaaaaaaarty has been given a new 18-month contract "to prove himself": a story so newsworthy that it currently fills the bottom two slots (huh, huh) of the OS's front page. Hopefully Slade won't send him on another morale-lowering, and reserve-team-crushing, work experience spell to Whitby Town during that period.

Which leaves this guest-written Diary to end on the recent news of top flight referee Mark Clattenburg recently proclaiming that he is willing to learn "for the future from video replays". Those with a memory unblunted by an excessive Christmas period will remember this is the same referee that missed Martin Pringle being somewhat abruptly taken out by Stockport's Dave Challinor just over three years ago. Like he says, he's willing to learn. And, like this Diary, better late than never.