Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 15 March 2007
15 March 2007
Football League sponsor Coca-Cola could find itself with egg all over its sticky face this afternoon if chairmen and managers chuck out proposals to 'decide' all drawn matches with penalty shootouts. The new official names given to the league's three divisions in 2004 - when the global fizzy drink corporation began its commercial partnership with the league - still sound stupid today, and in the week when Coke extended its sponsorship deal, representatives of the 72 clubs have been forced to consider the preposterous notion of abolishing draws. The early signs, thank God, are that the idea will be laughed out of court, with officials of several clubs already queueing up to condemn it. Not that the rule change would have made a great difference to the Mariners recently, with the side having drawn only once in Lord Buckley's 20 league games back in charge, but it would be good to hear some confirmation from Blundell Park that Town's own crack football administrator John 'Fentydome' Fenty will be doing his bit to protect our sport from crackpot American brainstorming. Real football for real fans, remember.
Stoke manager Tony Pulis may be insisting that they play "men's football" at Grimsby, but much attention around Blundell Park has turned recently to the activities of Town's boys. So it is that an interview with youth team midfielder Josh Burge finds its way into today's Grimsby Telegraph. Young Josh, who has been on trial at Aston Villa recently, gives the paper a glimpse into the average day of a Myspace Mariner, revealing that his first job of the day is to clean the boots of Town's heroic but kinetically challenged forward Gary Jones. Any chance you could equip them with tiny jet engines on Saturday mornings, Josh?
That's nearly it for another week from your regular Diary, but before I hand over for tomorrow to one of Cod Almighty's team of redoubtable guest diarists there's an email - from one of Cod Almighty's team of redoubtable guest diarists. "At the risk of being arrested for harassment with all these persistent emails," writes Durham Diary, who only two days ago was using this page to plead his case as a poverty-stricken student, "I just wanted to point out the auction on the OS for spending a match day in the boardroom. It all looks very nice and sounds like a good day out, but if you actually follow the link to the eBay page (which I did, purely in the interests of extended procrastination), the item is listed as 'used'. Thought you might find some funny comment to pass on this in your Diary if you're bored one day this week." Thanks, DD - very thoughtful. But you don't think they're going to buy new chairs and plates and stuff, just for you, do you? Cuh! Anyone would think you were at a really posh university full of people who weren't quite clever enough for Oxbridge.