Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 20 December 2006

20 December 2006

One year, four months and eighteen days after announcing that he would retire from playing at the end of the 2005-06 season, Mariners demigod Sir John McDermott has announced that he will retire from playing at the end of the 2006-07 season. Macca originally told Radio Humberside in August last year of his plans to call it a day but possibly felt a bit embarrassed when the club curiously declined to announce the news on its own official website and decided to carry on for a staggering 20th season (I think - or is it 21?). For probably the first time in his career, though, His Royal Macness has not been Town's first-choice right-back for much of this season - when fit he has often been kept on the bench by the excellent form of Gary Croft - and now insists that the end will come next May, by which time he will be 38 years old and could well have extended his GTFC appearances record beyond the 750 mark. The player sounds a bit fed up in telling Town's official website of his decision - particularly where he muses that "it would have been good to end my after the play-off final", the missing word presumably being 'agony'.

Paddy Grant has emailed the Diary regarding the BBC news item we look at here yesterday, which claimed that Ashley Sestanovich had once played for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City. "The BBC are also claiming Sheffield United have a new shirt," writes Paddy and, indeed, the accompanying photo of Stan in a Town kit is captioned to suggest that the player is representing the Blades at the time. Well, Town fans living in South Yorkshire have performed many a double-take this season as Sheff U fans clad in their team's new black and white striped away shirt have strolled by, and if we can nick their greasy chip butty song then I suppose they have every right to nick our kit.