Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 11 December 2006

11 December 2006

How do you feel after your most successful manager of all time is tempted out of semi-retirement to return to your club and immediately lift you from the brink of relegation to within six points of the promotion play-offs on the back of your best run of league form for 15 months? If you're a normal person, you feel quite happy. If you're from North East Lincolnshire, where abnormal is normal and where everything fails, you find something to be depressed about in the fact that the man scoring the goals is only on loan and will probably have to go back to Stoke at the end of the month. Such was the impression given by Radio Humberside's Football Forum on Saturday, in which Town's hard-fought win over Shrewsbury seemed to be entirely overshadowed by rumours that Martin Paterson was being watched by scouts from his own club who are bound to snatch him back to the Potteries as soon as the clocks chime midnight on New Year's Eve, to be honest with you Burnsy. The other side of the coin, of course, is that Mart's ready-made replacement Luton's Michael Reddy has been ordered out of bed and back to full training after an examination by a top Harley Street plastic surgeon last Friday. But why let a bit of good news spoil your day?

So what's the latest betting in the Shit, We've Only Got Two Centre-Backs And One's Suspended handicap stakes? The early money is on Gary Harkins to replace Nick Fenton for this Saturday's difficult trip to Lincoln, given that the player is reported to have spent some of his time with Blackburn reserves playing centre-half as well as his usual central midfield position (though not both at the same time, obviously; there are only two Ricky Ravenhills). With Harkins installed as 5/4 favourite, punters are looking for value in Tom Newey at 4/1, with Sir John McDermott returning to right-back, Gary Croft being switched to the left, and Newey moving inside; Cod Almighty's Mark Stilton insists that Newey once had a good game in a central position, and given the player's seemingly innate tendency to drift inwards and leave the left flank undefended, who is the Diary to doubt him? The long shot at 12/1 is Gary Jones, in a scenario whereby the Lump takes Fenton's role at Sincil Bank and Isaiah Rankin partners Messiah Paterson up front, but this would mean a severe lack of pace at the heart of the defence. The Diary is putting a tenner at 66/1 on a quicker solution in Paul Futcher being persuaded out of retirement.

In other news-related news this glorious Monday lunchtime, GTFC have declared the next home game a kids-in-free event in the hope of boosting the disastrous attendance that would otherwise have resulted from the club's dim-witted decision to switch the fixture to a Friday night. For the visit of Struggling Torquay (that's their name) on 22 December any minors accompanied by an adult paying full-price admission will be allowed in for just one hundred new pence, and there's music from the Salvation Army band, whaddaya know, not to mention a Santa's Grotto. If we're all very good boys and girls, do you think he'll bring us an extension to Martin Paterson's loan?

"Not sure I've seen this anywhere GTFC-related, might be handy for padding out your entry," writes Richard Bedwell in the first email to the Diary for pigging yonks. What you don't yet know, but will by the time you have finished reading this sentence, is that Bedders is referring to the news that the Mariners' record signing Lee Ashcroft has been made manager at Kendal Town. Peggy has been scoring shedloads of goals for the Northern Premier League side for the last three seasons and was appointed boss at the end of November, only for club captain and fans' hero Ricky Mercer to leave the club last week for league rivals Fleetwood Town and Kendal to lose 3-0 at home to Guiseley at the weekend. Kendal officials have moved swiftly to deny rumours that Ashcroft was given the manager's job in a bid to keep him at the club in the face of interest from his former boss Alan Buckley, who recently returned for a third spell in charge of Football League side Grimsby Town.