Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 21 August 2007

21 August 2007

Ex-player slams Mariners boss shock! Veteran defender Gary Croft, as we know, left Blundell Park for a second time earlier this summer and added to the ageing Lincoln squad his experience, injury record and ability to spot a must-be-viewed investment opportunity for the first-time buyer. What we didn't know was that our Gary would shortly taint his Mr Nice Guy image with a bit of sub-Premiership bitchiness, as the player has apparently been bleating to the Lincolnshire Echo about his harsh treatment under Lord Alan Buckley. "I think there was a little bit of a clash there. Alan is very headstrong and he has to be the man in control. That's everything, right across the board. Maybe he thought I was an influence around the club - I don't know," says the 33-year-old full-back whose only appearance for Lincoln so far was on the opening day of the season when the Imps lost 4-0 at home to Shrewsbury.

Croft's first chance to apologise to the manager who made his career will come tonight, in Town's Lincolnshire Senior Cup tie away at Sincil Bank, which nobody at this end of the A46 seemed to know about until it was mentioned on the Imps' website yesterday. Other than a back four drawn from the Myspace Mariners, GTFC look set to field a strongish reserve side, with Gary Montgomery, Straight Peter Bore, Jamie Clarke, Andy Taylor, Jones the Lump and Nick Heggggggarty among the starting XI named ahead of the match. The winners this evening will face Scunthorpe in the tournament's final, reveals today's Grimsby Telegraph, after Lincolnshire's new biggest club beat Bust'un 3-0 in the other semi-final. Town's reserve game away at Dirty Leeds, which had already been brought forward from tomorrow night to this evening, has now been put back to 11 December, according to the Yorkshire club's website, so it looks like the editors of the Mariners' superb new official website weren't the only officials at Blundell Park who'd forgotten tonight's match was happening.

Speaking of behind-the-scenes bungling at BP, which we do from time to time, David Martin has emailed the Diary telling of yet another GTFC cock-up to leave you beating your head on your desk in despair. "I thought my daily cuppa would taste that much sweeter in an 'official' Grimsby Town mug," he writes, "complete with this season's fixtures direct from the club shop at Blundell Park. Pretty it ain't, but at least putting £4.99 into the club's coffers made me feel better. However, Town being Town, we can't even do a mug properly. According to said crockery, we will be visiting several new clubs this season. Apparently on November 17, we are entertaining 'Morcombe', while on Boxing Day we are playing host to 'Accrigton' Stanley. What a bunch of twts. Maybe I should have invested in the best Mariners china on offer on the Wonderland Sunday market instead."

After today's final email the Diary will be indisposed for the rest of the week, but if I know the Cod Almighty team then a team of Jamie Clarkes and Gary Montgomerys should slip seamlessly into the gaps left behind in my metaphorical midfield and goal. Today's final email comes from Richard Lord and it says: "According to Russell Slade, Yeovil's first-half performance at Hereford in the League Cup first round last Tuesday night was the worst half he's had as a manager. Oh, how quickly we forget that performance at Lincoln! There are no reports to suggest that he had the team out on the pitch during the half-time interval at Hereford though. Interestingly, he said that he would have offered his resignation if the team had played just as badly in the second half - a comment that will do his growing reputation of deserting teams after achieving something but ultimately nothing no good whatsoever." Fair point, Richard - though he'd be buggered now if he'd stayed at Scarborough.