Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 28 March 2006

28 March 2006

Digby Jones is a wanker. The sort of wanker who would probably justify trashing workers' pension schemes by saying: "There's always someone worse off than yourself." This platitude holds particular relevance for the Mariners' nouveau-riche neighbours King$ton Communication$ FC, who - in case you didn't realise - have got loads of money. This is why they can afford to buy eighteen new strikers every season, and this in turn can have done no harm to their cause as their reserve side crossed that bridge to face Town's second string at Blundell Park yesterday. Given that the league record of Graham Rodger's team this season reads "won none, drawn three, lost the rest", it is unsurprising that the visitors ran out victorious, but given the financial context of the game the 2-1 scoreline almost counts as a win for the Mariners. Trialists Craig Richards and Andy Bagnall are said to have played well, and disappointing January signing Junior Mendes even put Town ahead at one point. KCFC's first goal was scored by Stuart Elliot, whose scoring record over this season and last suggests that he is a sort of Northern Irish Kevin Donovan, so that's cheating, really.

Speaking of trialists, two more are due to join the Mariners as the reserves' dreary medley of defeats goes on the road to York tomorrow. As yesterday's Diary reported, FC United of Manchester midfielder Will Ahern is on his way across the Pennines, but today Town's official site announces that team-mate Rory Patterson will be joining him on the journey. Patterson is a 21-year-old Irishman who spent three years at Rochdale (whose home game against Barnet tonight has been postponed because of a waterlogged pitch!) before being released in 2004. The player has scored a creditable 18 goals in 23 starts plus six subs this season, and collected an equally impressive two red cards - one of which came after Patterson had already been subbed off in a November cup tie at Colne only to throw a punch in a late touchline dust-up between large numbers of players and officials on both sides. Rory was banned for 35 days for his trouble. It'll be just like Tony Crane never left!

The Mariners' brave attempt to cram 6,000 supporters into their stadium for the final six home games of the season may have fallen 900 or so short at the first two attempts but, just as the club's insistence on building a new 12,000-seater ground continues, so the Target 6000 campaign goes on for the four fixtures remaining at Blundell Park before the summer. To tie in with this Saturday's visit by Wrexham, GTFC have published two pages on their website littered with unexplained question marks at the end of sentences that aren't actually questions, you know, like this? Maybe they're meant to be pronounced with that rising intonation? Like everyone in Neighbours and Home and Away speaks? The pages relate to an April Fool promotion thingy, whereby the club sends out a load of vouchers to schools to try and get to local schoolchildren before they make their parents buy them Liverpool and Chelsea shirts, and some of them win free gifts if their voucher carries "a picture of The Mighty Mariner dressed as a fool". No change there then.

In case you missed it, Daryl Clare has signed for Burton Albion. After rejecting a move to Lincoln because the money wasn't good enough, and declining talks with third division Yeovil because it was too far to travel from Louth, the former Ireland u21 forward - who scored ten goals in a hundred appearances for the Mariners and then averaged comfortably over one every two games for Chester and Boston - joined the Conference side late last week and made his debut as a substitute in the Brewers' 2-1 win at Altrincham. Distance and journey time from Louth to Burton according to theaa.com: 92.6 miles, 2 hours 33 minutes.

Several days on from Durham Diary's shock revelations about Andy Bagnall's dark cricketing past, emails continue to pour into the Diary's inbox linking GTFC with leather, willow and linseed oil. And telling me about dodgy copies of Corel Draw, penis enlargement and how to get a share of 89,500,000 dollars being transferred from a bank in Nigeria, but that's by the by. "Harry Betmead," writes Bedders. "315 games for Town, England one-cap wonder and Lincolnshire county cricketer 1935-49. He also played occasionally for Brocklesby Park Cricket Club." We even get a couple of web links into the bargain. "And Paul Wilkinson was a much better cricketer than footballer," adds Tony Butcher. "But football pays more and, in those days of early Thatcherism, poodle perms 'n' tache combinations were frowned upon in the land of flannel." The MCC didn't frown hard enough to prevent that Scunny player committing some tonsorial atrocities though, did it?