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Diary - Thursday 15 February 2007

15 February 2007

There are certain descriptions one does not expect to apply to certain people. The phrase 'well-informed and charming' is never likely to be used in conjunction with Jeremy Clarkson, for instance, nor the epithet 'modest and abstemious' with Robbie Williams. Just a couple of weeks ago, likewise, you would not anticipate the term 'free-scoring' to be found in any account of Grimsby Town Football Club, but two games and ten goals later that is exactly how the Mansfield Chad newspaper introduces the Mariners in anticipation of their visit to Field Mill on Saturday afternoon. Before we start to envisage a 1,500 following cheering the Mariners on to a 9-0 win at the Stags' expense, though, let's read through the piece and allow it to remind us that former Town forwards Michael Boulding and Martin Gritton are both in form for the Nottinghamshire side right now, and with GTFC's struggling defence having undergone severe ex hex this season Lord Buckley's side might need those nine goals just to emerge with a point.

On-loan tough-tackling midfielder James Hunt has apparently spoken to Mariners World about the possibility of signing for the Mariners on a permanent basis. I say "apparently" because that's what the text suggests on the website next to the link; you can't really heard Hunt very well because the interview sounds like it was recorded as an Airbus A340 prepared for take-off just out of shot while a pack of 9,500 bloodhounds exhaled noisily nearby, a troupe of council labourers with pneumatic drills set about digging up an area of concrete the size of North Yorkshire and God himself was trying out a new and particularly noisy hairdryer.

Finally today, before your regular Diary hands over to tomorrow's as yet unknown guest writer, a row has broken out over GTFC's offer of free coach travel to Mansfield, meanwhile, after the club announced this morning that its fleet of buses would "depart from Harrington Street at 11am prompt". This massive PR catastrophe is another kick in the teeth for members of the Grimsby Town Supporters With Slow Watches Club, and - oh, it all seems to have been sorted out now. Never mind!