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Diary - Monday 5 February 2007

5 February 2007

From hero to sulking on MySpace to hero again, young Peter Bore has already undergone as many ups and downs in his brief professional career as most Grimsby Town players see in, well, two seasons, probably - and pleasurable though it was to see the lad putting Boston to the sword for a second time this season, his post-match response to Town's epic 6-0 strut on Saturday is perhaps even more satisfying than his three goals. Bore's season seemed to be over and his future uncertain when he disappeared from the first team squad after responding badly to the arrival of Alan Buckley with a couple of apathetic performances - but going on the player's Grimsby Telegraph interview at the weekend, as much as his hat-trick at York Street, he shows every sign of having taken on board the need to Buck up his ideas a bit. Probably anticipating a BOOO BUCKLEYS BOOO, Y WOZNT E IN THE TEEM ORREADY BOOOOO messageboard backlash, the manager had already pointed to the Boston Strangler's improved attitude between matches, and Bore himself agrees: "I think it's fair to say I have been doing a lot better in training recently." The Diary believes a more significant turning point, however, was Bore's decision to cancel his MySpace account: the upward trajectory of his fortunes since then makes him a kind of Sandi Thom or Arctic Monkeys in reverse, and anything has to be better than listening to them forwards.

The players can get better, then, but Town's official website stumbles on from blunder to spectacular blunder. At least this time somebody spotted and corrected it, but in early editions of Saturday's match report the OS had an interesting take on Lord Buckley's tactical switch. A what formation? With how many in midfield?

The Diary's inbox has been as busy over the weekend as, ooh, Andy Marriott, though the Town fans who have emailed have mostly been as lost for words as the Diary was on Saturday night. "Bloody hell comes to mind," writes John Ide. "What went wrong? Bore a hat-trick... Bukko will not be able to keep him back now." Steve Hull, meanwhile, goes so far as to quote the weekend Diary in its entirety: "'Blimey! Shitting Nora!' Succinctly put. Is that the match report?"

No Diary response to a 6-0 tonking of Boston would be complete, of course, without celebrating the reaction of Cuddly Steve Evans. Indeed, the Pilgrims manager's pre-match utterances took on a new and pleasantly ironic layer of meaning as the goals flew in on Saturday - his club is "a long way behind Grimsby off the pitch in terms of fan base and budget," remember, "but when it comes to effort and desire I think we're miles in front" - and before he could get chucked into the Wash by the local police, Stevie E found the time for a classic exhibition of post-disaster buck-passing. "I am the team manager and I therefore take the full responsibility," the fat fraudster told BUFC's official website at the beginning of a 500-word statement passing full responsibility on to the chairman and board for stopping him spending any more of the money they don't have. It's only a shame Honest Jon Sotnick isn't still at York Street to talk about the conspiracy against his club. "There seems to be some sort of vendetta against Boston United, because at every game the other team keeps trying to score loads of goals against us. Grimsby had scored one goal in seven games, and then they scored six against us in one day. When you look at the league table it is quite obvious that people have a grievance against this football club."

Lastly this happy Monday, as we enjoy A16 boasting rights for another season (well, if Scunthorpe insist on being any good for a bit longer, it'll do for the time being), let us remember that plenty of Boston fans are as disgusted as the rest of us at the way their club is run, and let us therefore extend some comradely empathy in their direction. One such Pilgrim is Pete Brooksbank, proprietor of the fantastic impsTALK website, whose coverage of Saturday's carnival should bring tears of both laughter and sadness to your eyes, and who has emailed the Diary in so glorious a huff as to deserve today's final paragraph all to himself. Cheers, Pete...

"Oh, right. I see. Like THAT is it, eh, Grimsby Town? Like THAT eh? Well, we're not going to be friends with you anymore. I thought we had an understanding, you and us? I thought you were going to roll into York Street and give us a game, a blood and thunder™ six-pointer™ - not line us up and execute us in cold blood. There was no need for it, you know. You could have gone away as two-nil winners. Fine. Maybe three. We'd let you have three. But six? Now that's just sadistic. It wasn't a game. It was a brutal slaying that should, by rights, see Alan Buckley hauled to The Hague and indicted for war crimes. It was like one of those occasions when an Iraqi family run towards US troops waving white flags, only to be mown down by an A-10 Tankbuster mistaking the family for, well, a tank. I think you mistook us for a competent team and were a little too trigger-happy. We were waving the white flags at four - but you didn't stop. Oh no, you didn't stop. It was a massacre, frankly, and nothing to be proud of at all. Well, enjoy your three points and your Peter Bore and your Alan Buckley and your Fentydome and your not-liquidated football club and your scouts that actually scout and your strikers that actually score... Enjoy them all, why don't you? Bah."