Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 6 April 2007

6 April 2007

Regular readers of Tony Butcher's idiosyncratically brilliant match reports may remember the brief period this season when he chose to nominate a word of the week. This section was quietly retired after a few matches - not because, as some wag no doubt wagged, he had run out of words, but rather that... erm, well I don't actually know why he did. And I certainly can't be arsed to ask him now. Anyway, the point is that Lord Buckley has a word of the week in similar vein on Mariners World. This week's excellent interview finds AB perturbed. In fact he is perturbed, finds certain things "a bit perturbing" and almost accused 'Straight' Peter Bore of committing the sinful act of perturbation in the bath after his two-goal reserve team midweek triumph.

Lord Buckley's biggest worry is the 'soft centre' that means we concede too many opening goals. He has latched on to the fact that Town do not draw many games and has slyly calculated that if we had drawn eleven instead of five we would be much higher in the table. Although, gentle reader, one assumes he has chosen to postulate that we would draw the losing games rather than the ones we went on to win. His interviewer made the timorous point that "Tom couldn't do much about the first one at Notts though, could he?" Alan's response was designed to show why he is a vastly experienced league manager while the man holding the microphone is nobbut a lad in football understanding terms. Because of course, the goal started some three minutes earlier when Barnes caught a corner, explained Buckley. A hasty throw-out to a nearby monochrome stripey caused all the ensuing problems, you see. So to Buckley's simple maxim of 'defend when they have the ball; attack when we've got it' should be added the rider 'don't bring pressure on your defence by giving the ball away. Next week a masterclass on how to avoid your laces coming undone when they have a corner.

And what caused Peter's bathtime perturbation anyway? Well, your Guest Diarist can only guess that his back was a bit sore. But regardless he is 'in contention' for a place in the team to face the Bastard Franchise Scum tomorrow - a team possibly even more physically direct and aggressive than the truly awful Notts County. This will, again, not be a match for the faint-hearted so although young Ryan Bennett gets to ride on the first team bus these days it is very unlikely that he will figure. Still, at least he is learning the rudiments of five-card stud. Mr Fenton is still having to go gentle on that knee but, with a rest on Friday, should be OK to play. But even if Bore does play and gets kicked into the air, inducing a massive teenage sulk, then no Town fans will get on his back. Because they will not be there. Boycott this game, as Pete Green advises in his wittily excellent article in today's Grimsby Telegraph. I know - there should be a link to it, but I can't find the flipping thing so will rely on the editor to sort that out... [The Telegraph doesn't seem to publish Pete's columns online any more, GD, but here it is on his website - ed.]

The other thing Buckley said that made me smile was in answer to a poser about how contract talks are going. "Well, we've got two games in three days so I think I'll leave that until after Easter." A bit like leaving the washing-up because we've still got two clean forks, a spoon and the dog bowl to use. Anyroad, I'm off to work now, so let's hope McLeod's pace is less of a worry than Jason Lee's elbow. See yer.