Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 26 September 2006

26 September 2006

Is anything happening yet? Oh, there's a match tonight, isn't there. Town's official website will surely be the place to discover all the team news as Hartlepool hurtle down the east coast en route to this evening's encounter at Blundell Park, so let us see how the mouthpiece of the club can enlighten us. "Graham Rodger will make at least one change of personnel," reports the OS. Go on. "With Rodger now having cover for defensive and midfield positions, he may opt for a reshuffle in those departments." OK... can you be any more precise? "The Mariners chief is also tinkering with some changes up front too." That'll be a no then. What the fuck does "tinkering with some changes" mean, by the way?

The long and short of it is that Justin Whittle is playing but Andy Taylor could drop to the bench. Heh! Did you see what I did there? Oh, all right. Town still have three gaping absences up front in Isaiah Rankin, Gary Cohen and Luton's Michael Reddy; loan forward, er, what was his name again? Lawson. First name? Hang on... no, can't remember. Let's call him Nigella. Anyway, he might start in place of Taylor, given the inability of the Mariners' forward line to create anything presentable against Stockport last Saturday. The Grimsby Telegraph does a little better than the OS, leading today's sport section with the news that Peter Beagrie could reclaim a starting place against Pools, but I don't think they've put the story online yet so I can't link to it. Between the inadequacies of one website and another there lies a metaphor deeply buried, but the Diary has got soup cooking so you'll have to dig it out for yourselves.

With every new season that begins, Town's hopes of returning to the higher divisions seem to look more and more forlorn; the punditry of Mark Lawrenson becomes less and less useful to anyone at all; and the sponsored name of the Football League trophy grows ever more ridiculous. So diminished has the competition become - which was won gloriously by the Mariners in 1998 at Wembley in front of a record 62,432 spectators - that I forgot to mention that the draw for the first round took place last Saturday morning and paired Town with Lincoln in a match to be played in the week beginning 16 October and forgotten forever by the week beginning 23 October.

As members of Town's supporters' trust are aware, there is a vote going on as to whether the organisation should continue to buy shares in the club, in the hope of eventually securing supporter-owned status, or instead direct its resources towards supporting the club's youth system, in the hope that the more cash goes in the more likely we are to discover a new George Best or Jackie Bestall on the streets of North Somercotes. Despite the tone of the preceding sentence, and despite the comment made on John Pakey's email in yesterday's Diary, I'm not entirely sure what I think about this - so it is perhaps fitting that today's two emails on the subject make the case very well for both options. The first is from Chris Parrott, who writes: "I would urge all left thinking Trust members to heed your advice and vote for Option 1 [keep buying shares], as any other policy just delays the glorious day. All right-thinking members can do likewise - after all, the Blessed Margaret was the arch-proponent of share ownership by the masses (feel free to add your own quip about Town followership). For those mourning the passing of the Blair era, the third way would be to do a deal with Positive John whereby he lets the trust have a share for every pound it spends on the youth programme."

Sibbo, on the other hand, is an Option 2 kind of Diary reader. "Back in the 1980s some will remember Tony Ford, Kevin Drinkell, Kevin, Andy and Dave Moore, Gary Lund and perhaps others I've not thought of," he writes. "All local lads and playing their part in a successful period of GTFC history. The club made transfer money, especially from the two Kevins, when they left for pastures new. By bringing youth players through the ranks surely a club stands more chance of finding a gem or two along the way, rather than checking out x amount of trialists. Most of them will have already failed elsewhere. Perhaps finance comes into the equation but we all know false economy is no long-term answer. Although I'm sure supporter-owned clubs have been successful, this did not save Kidderminster Harriers from relegation to the Conference." Thanks to both Sibbo and Chris for making these excellent points - and whichever way we end up voting, we can't much argue with the bit about the trialists.