Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 18 January 2007
18 January 2007
Deposit on a nice new house... build an extension on your old one... start your own business... spend a year or two travelling the world... get a dead posh car... put it away for the kids going to uni... invest in some art... install solar panels or wind turbines so you never have to pay for electricity again. You could do a lot with £21,000, couldn't you? Unless you're Grimsby Town Football Club, in which case you would blow the lot on agents' fees in six months flat. The Football League's has published the fees paid to agents by clubs for the second half of 2006, which reveals that GTFC paid football's parasites the equivalent of nearly three season tickets per week, or to put it another way, £805.47 per week, or to put it another way, possibly enough to have kept Rob Jones. While 15 of the 24 clubs in the fourth division got by perfectly well without spending a penny on agents over this period, Town were getting on for double the amount they spent in the first half of last year (£13,560) - which represents quite some achievement given that the team is less than half as good as it was when Sladey did one to Yeovil.
When a desperate Grahams Rodgerses gambled on loaning Tony Thorpe from Stevenage in September there were those who grumbled that bringing in players from the Conference would result in Town being relegated to the Conference. This is to overlook the contributions made by Keith Alexander, Andy Tillson and John Cockerill to the promotions achieved during Alan Buckley's first spell in charge at Blundell Park, not to mention the Mariners' 2004 acquisition from Scarborough of the legendary Glen Downey. And besides, the Diary quite liked him - so I am not too dismayed to see that Thorpe is back in Cleethorpes for a three-day trial. Admittedly, there are already six full-time forwards on the books at GTFC, and Thorpe has not played a minute of first-team football for Stevenage or anyone else since his loan spell in Cleethorpes ended at the end of October; but Cod Almighty already has a player profile for him, so if Town end up signing him again we can just re-use that instead of banging out a fortnight of emails to contributors until somebody agrees to write another one.
The company that has patronised you and me by calling the competition our football club takes part in "the Real League", ruined the play-off finals with its intrusive sponsors' advertisements, and cheapened the sport further with its 'win a player for your club' competition is at it again. To properly support your club in 2007 means buying a specific fizzy drink, and Chairman John is joining in the fun by promising to have his head shaved if Town win something or other to do with some other tacky new competition. To learn more about your benevolent uber-sponsor, visit this website. It's all a waste of time and effort anyway, because of a gigantic new TV deal which means the team finishing bottom of next season's Premiership will be given as much money as laughable Chelsea were given for winning it last year. In terms of being an openly competitive sport, football is basically finished, isn't it? This being the case, the Diary sometimes wonders how much longer I can keep watching it.
On that cheery note I bid you ta-ra for the week and leave you in the hands of tomorrow's guest diarist - but not before an email in which Diary reader Steve Hull cackles smuttily like Sid James in a Carry On film. "I see the auction for Saturday's game includes 'a chance for a couple before and after the game'. Not bad if you get it for 20 quid," he sniggers, before adding: "You also get a view of 'one of the most historic and loved pitches in the country' (the demolition of which is being supported by our three local MPs). Although we assume this means BP, it mentions something about seeing good football, so maybe not." Cheerio, everyone - and keep smiling!