Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 28 June 2006

28 June 2006

Let us hang bunting from the lampposts. Let us party in the streets. Let us binge-drink ourselves into a coma. Today is a day for celebration, as every right-thinking Grimbarian and Meggie-arian will be elated to learn that, far from retiring from professional football, Mariners hero Sir John 'Sir John' McDermott has signed a contract keeping him at Blundell Park for an incredible 21st season. After turning out in Town's friendly against Blackburn last summer, the Great One promptly informed Radio Humberside that the 2005-06 campaign would be his last, but has now shifted his course by precisely 180 degrees, having put his name to a new year-long deal with the club and told the Grimsby Telegraph: "I had some interest from elsewhere and, to be honest, I was starting to feel my time had come to leave. But it's better the devil you know and I'm happy to still be here." Macca has now not only made a contribution to the cause of Grimsby Town FC that is unlikely ever to be paralleled by any future player: he has also proved the Diary's long-suffering driving instructor wrong by demonstrating that it is not necessarily a bad thing to perform a spectacular U-turn.

This time last year the Mariners were about to begin a reality TV-like week of 5am cold showers at an army boot camp in Cambridgeshire. This was credited by some for the team's strong start to the subsequent season - to the extent that promotion would have been a near certainty had they not been knackered by the following spring - and the club's series of pre-season link-ups with the military services continues next week as the players report for duty at RAF Honington in Suffolk (insert joke here about aerial bombardment and Russell Slade's style of football). The Grimsby Telegraph reports that Town's players will do some swimming, boxing and assault course type stuff, adding intriguingly that "the base is home to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear regiments and some of the sessions will reflect that area of expertise". The Diary is, of course, a lifelong pacifist, but if getting out of this division means rolling up your sleeves, infecting Boston United's midfield with a lethal strain of anthrax and detonating small but devastating items of atomic weaponry in Chester's 18-yard area then so be it.

Two days after the unfathomable announcement that both of Town's games against Torquay next season would be played on Fridays, a third fixture has now been moved away from the Saturday afternoon it was scheduled for - but this time there is a reason for the rearrangement. Hereford's visit to BP, originally pegged for 7 October, will now take place on Sunday 8 October instead, as it is to be televised live in glorious Murdochvision, kicking off at 4pm. Regardless of our feelings about the traditional timing of matches, we might at least find solace in the knowledge that Town will be very unlikely to play as badly as they did last time they were on the telly.