Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 2 March 2007

2 March 2007

There is a whiff of spring in the Lincolnshire air and your Guest Diarist has been tramping a fen this morning in search of inspiration and spring greens. When I got back I discovered that the meaning of life had been neatly bottled by none other than Luton's Michael Reddy who has told the official site that he 'has been to see leading Irish groin specialist Mr Gerry McEntee but his diagnosis is much the same as the specialists in England.' Reddy explains that Mr McEntee is a specialist 'who my family has dealt with before.' Weird hip/groin injuries obviously run in the family then. I hate sterotyping as much as anyone but Gerry McEntee sounds like a character from a flipping Val Doonican song. I wonder if he has a goat?

I listened to that long Stuart Watkiss interview recommended to you by yesterdays diary and discovered a piece of news of bombshell proportions buried in the last third - Town will not make the playoffs this season! Yes, it is official from the lugubrious yet faintly melodic mouth of our assistant manager. Both Watkiss and Lord Buckley find tomorrow's home match against Bury a slightly suspicous looking package given the wildly erratic form of both teams. Bury have lost four on the bounce without scoring so it goes without saying they are due a win sometime, but "flippin' heck Dale, we're OK!" remonstrates our great leader. Buckley also muses, in his weekly mariners world preview, about what it would be like if he were a basketball coach but more on that story later.

As for team news Lord Buckley is poised on the horns of a dilemma. It is fairly obvious that he wants to play both fit-again Boshell and Jones the lump but is struggling to fit them both in to his preferred 4-4-2 formation. Croft has pulled his groin so we may well get a chance to hail Sir John of McDermott whom I'm told played well when he came on last week. Buckley made no mention of Mr Rankin who has become somewhat a forgotten figure. Remind me why I thought he was a decent signing when he has more the appearance of a broken-down one-trick pony these days. Recent memories that pop up in my mind are, he rolls 'em and then... nowt happens. And as for Mr Thorpe - well who knows? Is he still with us?

Do you remember all that pipe-dreaming fuss about a new stadium? It's all gone very quiet thank god. But lest ye forget, gentle reader, if by some faint chance Mr Fenty gets the finance together, and the fentydome gets half built, and Town abandon Blundell Park, then it will be the final straw on the back of the collapsing camel of civilisation. There - I've said it. But even if you don't believe me and like the prospect of driving in to the middle of nowhere to sit in an empty soul less plastic monstrosity, think hard about what you will be leaving behind. For you will miss it more than you could know. In the meantime - and the meantime is probably about twelvety seven years - why don't the club do a few things on the cheap to make BP a better place - like moving the away fans out of the Osmond so we have vocal support at both ends? I'm sick of sitting in the Pontoon facing rows and rows of empty seats - most away teams this season have brought under 250 fans - so stick 'em in with the dentists or summat. Just a thought - see yer.