Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 6 February 2007
6 February 2007
Scientists from across the world gathered in Paris last week to consider substantial changes in the global climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that human activity is the cause of rising temperatures after hearing evidence from delegates that the seasons in the northern hemisphere are shifting by as much as three days per year, with the common bumblebee becoming active as early as December, spring flowers blooming in January, and the annual campaign for the people of Grimsby and Cleethorpes to rally round their football club moving forwards to the first week of February.
Following the relative success of last season's Target 6000 project, then, this year's scheme is called Be The 12th Man, Town's 12th Man, or Be Town's 12th Man - we haven't quite worked it out yet - and is officially launched today with the support of the Grimsby Telegraph (which is probably now too terrified of the club to do anything other than support). It reflects sadly on North East Lincolnshire's attitude to football that a large-scale publicity operation should be necessary to communicate the idea of actually going to watch your local team and then supporting them once you get there instead of spending 90 minutes whining and booing and calling them wankers, but there are some brilliant offers involved: all tickets for Bristol Rovers this Saturday cost a fiver; season ticket holders can bring a friend for free; and the club is running free coach travel to Mansfield the weekend after.
So let's have some optimism, people! If 300 million Americans can eventually be convinced that belching infinite megatons of carbon into the atmosphere every hour is not their patriotic duty but actually quite a bad idea, then a few thousand Grimbarians might even be persuaded to support Grimsby for a month or two.
Diary readers, at any rate, are still buzzing from the Mariners' last-gasp victory at Boston last Saturday. "Not only were Town back to their best," writes Sibbo in an email to the Diary, "or should I say they surpassed their best (of late), but hey, how good to see Tony Butcher, too, in vibrant mood. I was pleased to see Matty Bloomer having such a good game but it's no real shock that Phil Barnes is in a 'shall I, shan't I' state of mind. He may have been to blame for some of the goals that Town have conceded, but let's be fair: with the sort of defending he has had to witness in front of him, he's not going to keep them all out. Now comes the big test: they've done it once - can it be repeated? (Yes, I know it's no problem for TB.)"
Thanks, Sibbo - but if you think you're relieved to see our ace match reporter back in a good mood, imagine the reaction of those members of the CA team whose season tickets place them within Tony's Groan Zone: we feel like we won 12-0.
Our next email, funnily enough, comes from another of those members of the CA team, namely Letters Ed, who hasn't actually done any letters editing for so long that he's forgotten his own name and signed himself Postbag Ed instead. "Interesting list of excuses put forward by Steve Evans at the weekend," he begins. "I particularly like this whine: 'We wanted to keep the boy and offered him a wage of around £400 per week and our local rivals could offer him wages three or four times that.' Unfortunately it seems the newspaper hasn't included the full quote. Surely it should have ended: 'And now that the Inland Revenue have put a stop to us making illegal payments to players, we can't match that.' Of course, they wouldn't have to compete with teams with a bigger budget if they hadn't cheated their way out of non-League in the first place."
Nicely put, sir - and as Evans reverts to form, will you be reverting to the Postbag any time soon? "I'm back from my winter break now (© FA Shittip Bollocks League), so there's a Postbag penned in for Friday in case anyone wants to drop me a letter. I fear that once I make my way through all the spam there'll only be letters about how Rodger should definitely be sacked etc etc." Probably - and don't leave out the ones about whether Slade will sign a new contract or who should replace Dave Booth.
"I know you're picky about people's mistakes... but Peter Bore has got a MySpace profile again," writes Luke Craven helpfully, going so far as to provide a link to the offending site. Thanks, Luke! This differs from Bore's earlier page on the annoying, formulaic, overhyped and creatively limiting web-within-a-web that is MySpace in not claiming that he is earning £250,000 a year, but it does afford us a precious glimpse into the personal life of Town's reborn goalscoring superstar hero.
In an extensive questionnaire Pete reveals that his ear piercings have closed up, that he likes Arsenal, rap and whipped strawberry ice cream, and - perhaps offering ammunition to those who have raised doubts about the authenticity of his recent fitness problems - that he prefers indoors to outdoors. Bore deems lower-case type sufficient for the vast majority of his answers but when the question of his sexual orientation arises, the Mariners' thrusting young stud, interestingly, feels the need to resort to capital letters. "STRAIGHT!" insists the player with a vehemence that can only be described as suspicious - and hunky Pete (19) digs himself deeper with some similar upper-case insecurity when asked whether he supports gay marriage or has ever copped off with another fella. Seems like a nice boy.
Keith Collins, finally, has spotted a fine quote from Town's manager in a BBC news report on Anthony Pulis' return to Stoke: "He's never ever injured until he came here, and now he's had a calf injury, a knee injury and a thigh injury." A flummoxed KC asks: "What does this say about our training/warm-up procedures?" It's just like Buckley never left, eh?