Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 17 September 2007

17 September 2007

Let's keep this brief, so that I can watch the England game without the distraction of typing. There's hardly any news again, so there's nothing to lose. Is it just me, by the way, or does the Argentine defender who scored the own goal look like Justine Frischmann?

A loud and disgruntled minority of fans may be baying for the blood of Lord Alan Buckley after the Mariners' winless start to the league season continued at home to Stockport on Saturday, but opposition managers just can't praise him enough. In the Grimsby Telegraph today the Town boss worryingly explains that his Hatters counterpart Jim Gannon told him after the match that the visitors "appreciate the way we are trying to play at the moment". What he fails to elucidate upon is whether Gannon enjoys the football played by Buckley's team for its constant attractiveness or its current ineffectiveness, and if any of the loud and disgruntled minority have two brain cells to rub together they will be quick to retort that Accrington Stanley's John Coleman probably appreciates it even more than Gannon.

Nick Hegarty played all 90 minutes of York's 2-0 home defeat by Stevenage on Saturday, but the Diary's efforts to find more information than that about the flame-haired winger's Minstermen debut have come to nought. York's official website has yet to publish a report on the game - but they at least have the results and line-ups now, which represents an improvement on this morning, when the most recent addition to the site was a match preview from Friday, sending the Diary into a peculiar internal panic based on the fleeting misconception that it was still Saturday morning and the last 48 hours had all been some kind of strange dream, and the breeze wafting through the open window bore the unmistakable scent of Cindy Beale's perfume.

John Ide has emailed the Diary to describe Saturday's referee, Mr Graham Horwood of Bedfordshire, as "another name to add to the self-important twats with whistle". Not keen, then, John? "He in my opinion should be on Bradley Pitches on a Sunday morning in February with the snow falling and a gale blowing." If all the dodgy officials Town have encountered over the last ten years were to suffer this fate, though, the Grimsby Sunday League would find itself at the forefront of a new FIFA experiment whereby, rather than merely following the recent suggestion of a referee in both halves of the pitch, there'd be three referees for every player.