Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 5 October 2007
5 October 2007
As Middle Aged Diary, I have seen enough youthful ambitions and ideals tarnished (instead of writing a Middlemarch for the 21st century, I'm trying to rustle up two or three ephemeral paragraphs about a fourth division football team) to have every sympathy for the good people behind the Superb New Official Site. Whatever dreams they may have of maintaining a ground-breaking web presence must surely founder on the rock of being required to publish a Johnstone's Paint news release stating that they have developed a colour card featuring the "exact" home team colours of all 48 teams in the third and fourth divisions, to "enable fans to decorate their homes with real team pride." Now it is possible that Johnstone's have developed a paint that comes off the brush in stripes, in which case smuggling the news out on a football site seems unduly modest. Failing that, developing a black paint and a white paint does not seem terribly exciting. These thoughts and many along similar lines must have occurred to the SNOS webmaster as he or she was putting up this puff, which lends their willingness to quietly get on with the job admirable stoicism.
For that, they deserve more than black and white paint. What other colours, associated with the Mariners, could we demand that Johnstone's develop? Perhaps Buckley Red: the "exact" shade of the top of the manager's head after his defence stop play, assuming a free kick is going to be given; Humber Grey, a mix seventeen parts grey, two parts green and one part yellow for the shade of the estuary; or Gallimore Green, depicting the popular left-back's skin tone during a training session he'd forgotten all about during another kind of session the night before. Send your Grimsby-themed colour ideas to diary@codalmighty.com.
This is not the end of the Johnstone's onslaught. For beating Huddersfield in the first round of the associate members cup, Grimsby Town have won the "highly sought-after" Ultra Team of the Round award. Now it makes sense: sacking Jose Mourinho is a first step to getting Chelsea in the third division, so they too can win the Ultra Team of the Round award. A chant is born: if you are going to London Road tomorrow, be sure to sing, loud and proud: "We've won the Ultra Team of the Round award, we've won the Ultra Team of the round award, you've not, you've not". Alan Buckley, meanwhile, heroically attempts to maintain his dignity as the press release says he was "clearly thrilled with the result" (note "result", not "award"), before attributing to him the comment "To be awarded the Ultra Team of the Round trophy is a fantastic accolade". No doubt the bit where he mumbled "it says here" was just edited out.
"Ultra", incidentally, is a new range of Johnstone's paint. In football, the word tends to be associated with hooliganism. Johnstone's are promoting the associate members cup as "family-friendly". Somehow, they have not quite thought through their marketing strategy, have they?