Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 25 October 2006

25 October 2006

The Diary spent last night in the company of a mate who supports a Conference North club and goes to every match home and away (the train fares to home games alone cost him 30 quid a pop). The other week he was upset that he couldn't go to a cup replay because of a meeting at work, so his girlfriend bought loads of nice food and cooked him a lovely meal, but by about four in the afternoon his sense of priorities had become deranged, so he sent a work experience kid to the meeting, missed the meal and jumped on a train to the back of beyond. The result: a great black hole in his finances, a massive bollocking at work and a megalithic strop from his girlfriend. As if all that weren't bad enough, his team lost the match and got dumped out of the cup.

Were Graham Rodger to be told this tale of woe, he would probably know how the Diary's mate feels. His players are strolling off to do TV work when there's a match on and leaving one week into a loan because they're homesick for Southend. The fans have all had their attention spans crippled by playing Football Manager and wanted him hung, drawn and quartered in Freshney Place before he'd had a dozen games in charge. And as if all that weren't bad enough, his preparations for a difficult away game against a likely promotion contender have been hit by injuries to several key players including probably the only goalkeeper on the books who is properly ready to play first-team football. The Mariners' official website explains the full and horrifying extent of the crisis, with Phil Barnes and Paul Bolland rated as "big doubts" for this Saturday's trip to Peterborough and Tom Newey, Peter Beagrie and Justin Whittle also having missed training today and yesterday. Counted with Town's trio of crocked strikers, this brings to eight the number of first-team players currently out of action, and with this sort of misfortune attending his every step the hapless Rodge should not be at all surprised if he arrives at his front door this evening to find his house broken into and his entire My Little Pony collection stolen.

Elsewhere on the OS today we are told that the loan period of Town's loanee striker Tony Thorpe will come to an end after the weekend's visit to London Road. Given that Thorpe arrived at Blundell Park one month ago and signed for an initial period of one month, we could probably have worked this out for ourselves - but let us persist; there may be new information to follow. "Thorpe, who joined the Mariners from Conference side Stevenage Borough, was brought in because of injuries to frontmen Luton's Michael Reddy, Gary Cohen and latterly Isaiah Rankin." Again, we knew that, but the inclusion of contextual material reiterating facts already known by the reader is a staple of news journalism. Let's carry on and see what the story is. "Thorpe has so far played 5 times for the Mariners during his four week stay at the club." Yes, well, it doesn't hurt to be reminded. Just one paragraph left, then - the news must be there. "No decision has been taken on whether Thorpe's loan deal will be extended beyond Saturday." Having read this for free on the worldwide web, the Diary can only hope nobody has been charged 25p for receiving it as an official club text message.