Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 9 October 2007

9 October 2007

A long-standing rule observed by the football authorities in England is that, to avoid allegations of bias, a referee should not be appointed to a match where one of the teams is based in his or her own home county. Counties are not fixed geographical entities, though - despite the number of times Humberside continues to be mentioned in the media as if it still existed more than a decade after its abolition - and so suspicion remains over the performances of some match officials in certain games. Town fans who were unhappy with Carl Boyeson's refereeing in their team's League Cup defeat at Doncaster in August 2003, for instance, were unlikely to be persuaded by the argument that, while the game was staged in South Yorkshire, Boyeson's home city of Hull is situated in the East Riding of Yorkshire - especially given the fact that your average Hully-Gully is unlikely to lavish kindness upon Grimsby at the best of times, let alone when the Mariners are facing another Yorkshire team. Similarly, the referee for tonight's visit to Rotherham in the Dulux Cup may call County Durham home, but it is at best tactless of the Football League to appoint an official with the same name as one of the teams - especially when it's Nigel bastard Miller.

The big issue on the Mariners' teamsheet, meanwhile, is which of the club's two former Rotherham keepers will face their old club this evening. Early player of the season contender Phil Barnes has got a dead leg and may not be fit for the game, so Gary Montgomery is psyching himself up for a Town debut. The Diary always thought the only way to get a dead leg was for a big kid at school to come up and punch it really hard, but then that's just the kind of childhood that I had, I suppose.