Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 4 October 2006
4 October 2006
Town have belatedly confirmed the exit of James 'Blink And You Missed Him' Lawson after just 11 days of his scheduled one-month loan - and their spin on the news differs markedly from the way the story had been represented earlier by Lawson's parent club. As you might remember from yesterday's Diary, Southend manager Steve Tilson suggested to the local press that the player had been sent to Blundell Park on the understanding that he would be given some first team football, but was recalled after getting just 22 minutes of it in three games - and not even receiving a place on the bench at Darlington last Friday. According to the Mariners' official website, however, Lawson's loan ended for another reason entirely. "James came up to Grimsby but couldn't settle," is the explanation from Graham Rodgerses quoted on the OS. "He said he was homesick and asked if he could go back to Southend." This smells more than a little fishy to the Diary, since the Essex seaside resort differs from Cleethorpes only in its steeper prices and slightly nastier accent. Put a blindfold on Lawson and he might never have known he was away; or at the very least, his positional sense would have been unaffected.
An exciting new link-up between GTFC and the financial services sector offers you the chance to support the club while you save your money! For every £100 you keep for a year in a Mariners Account with the Derbyshire building society, instead of blowing on two tickets to a clinically depressing play-off final defeat 12 hours' drive away there and back, the Derbyshire will give a whole English pound to the club to spend on the next 22-minute loanee from Southend. Want to know more? Then don't visit Town's official website, which not only gives a brief outline of the product's features but offers a link to "More" at the bottom of the page, taking you to a seemingly random section of the Derbyshire's website with lots of information about the company's mortgages and not the slightest mention of the Mariners Account. "See also the special conditions in the Mariners Account leaflet," adds the OS, completely failing to explain how you can get a Mariners Account leaflet so that you can see the special conditions in it.
"Why call it a pastie if it's a pie? Stilton should stick to chip butties." It does if you melt it under the grill for a minute! This is an email from Mark Dillerstone referring to a decades-old dispute between two members of the Cod Almighty team regarding the taxonomy of pastry products which I should have known much better than to allow into the Diary. "Oh, and he'll end up buying the first round because he's usually in the Rutland a good hour before Mr Butcher arrives," concludes Mark. In that hour, though, Mr Butcher is buying his programme, locating the perfect parking space and sharpening up his similes in preparation for his match report, while the rest of us are just trying not to spill the first round when that huge dog in the pub comes up and sniffs our Joey Bartons.
"The man's turning into Lennie Lawrence!" writes Philip Emberson in despair at Graham Rodgerses, but only because of the eyebrow-raising comments of Town's daydreaming head coach that "I want to be winning the European Cup in five years", rather than that he is running up colossal debts and destroying a decade of progress on the pitch at a club he is using only to resurrect his ailing career and wouldn't care less about if they went into liquidation ten minutes after he lands a better-paid job somewhere else.
Today's final word comes from Sibbo, and what a positive word it is. "Oh how good it is to hear the ressies have won at last and that Miles Chamberlain is fit and scoring. I hope he gets a chance in the first team because he's definately one of the likely lads. I've decided to go to Sunday's home fixture against mighty Hereford and hope that Graham Rodgerzzzzzzzzzz team are more lively than on my last visit, which was the Stockport game. I know we've lost a lot of ground to the top teams but there's still plenty of time to turn things round. We have to believe! Come next January and February we could get on a run while some of the teams in the top half cock it up. It's been done before, remember." That's the attitude that every Town fan needs to help the club out of this scrape - the sort of support that says: we will stay with you, no matter what, however bad it gets, whatever the circumstances. "Finally, a very important question. Will the Rutland be open on Sunday afternoon?" Oooh, that's a point. I don't really fancy going to the match if it isn't.