Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 22 November 2007

22 November 2007

It pissed it down all day and all evening on Tuesday. But Blundell Park's lovingly tended pitch remained in pristine condition, allowing both teams to play an open, passing game - unlike the match your Guest Diarist watched last night on BBC1. I suppose you all watched it with me, and I just thank my lucky stars that I put on me big coat and had the fortune to see a stand-out game 24 hours earlier.

Even the ref had a good game and the bloke from Cumbria's News and Star was well impressed with Town, and particularly Gary Jones:

Gary Jones, 32, was by a street the most influential player on the pitch last night. The reason why Grimsby can perform like this in cups but struggle so wretchedly in the league is a mystery in itself, but Jones' presence and awareness surely offers them a way out of the gutter.

The tall striker had already brought a pile of anxiety to United's first half when he hit the post with a header and then drew a fine, diving save from Keiren Westwood in a matter of seconds. Then in the 62nd minute he claimed a splendid goal.

First there was a clever dummy which foxed Peter Murphy, and a dart into space which was rewarded by Danny North's neat backheel. Jones' finish was a triumph of technique, an inswinging shot with the outside of his right boot that bashed the bottom of the bar and fell into the net.

I couldn't have put it better myself. No, I really couldn't, because if you read the remainder of this bloke's report you will notice that it is a rather fine piece of provincial journalism. Not like what that Grimbsy Telegraph churns out most of the time. Yes, the paper that can't even spell eponymously.

So while the FA board are busily shuffling deckchairs in Soho Square, Lord Buckley and his lanky, verbose, and just lovable cohort Mr Watkisses are desperately phoning round on this most peculiar deadline day for a centre-half. This is presumably in anticipation of many more lapses of discipline by Messrs Fenton and Newey. Wouldn't it be handy if they found one who could deputise at left-back as well, eh? As for right-backs we had one who lasted 20 years, but his successors only seem to last about a month so far this season, don't they?

The Grimsby Town official website authors seem confident that a suitable centre-half will be secured on loan by the end of the day. And those guys should know because Buckley's had to borrow their mobile due to the ongoing local difficulties with the phone system at BP (oh, so that's why we need a new stadium - the switchboard at Blundell Park is just knackered, friends). No, I have no idea who it will be and I made up the bit about the phones, although the idea that no-one went on Tuesday was because someone left the club phone off the hook is equally implausible.

Having tried and failed all afternoon to get through by telephone, I resorted to the superb new official website which invited me to buy my ticket online (to save time and queueing they said, or summat). Sadly the cup replay match had not been deemed fit to be presented as an option. In fact the only game I was allowed to buy a ticket for was the one last Saturday. I registered as an official prospective ticket buyer and received a curt yet fatal error message. Nil desperandum, because five minutes later I had an email congratulating me as a fully registered person. Not that it did me any good, because when I tried to buy a ticket for a match four days earlier it told me: "You are not authorised to view this resource." What I think they meant was that by buying a ticket for a match that has already taken place I would have had to do time travel and that would have got the Cardiff lot off the telly on my back.

Anyway, before I go, here is something funny out of today's Grauniad. See yer.

"When you have tackled the Gerrard v Lampard conundrum head on like I have," Big Mac tells the world's media with a reassuring smirk, "then believe me the Palestinian situation is something you relish." The Yorkshireman quickly gets to grips with the problem of accommodating "two absolutely top-class peoples who would walk into any other country on the planet" on the same tiny strip of grass by proposing that Hamas withdraws from Gaza because of a "wrist injury" and drafting in Mahmoud Abbas to play a holding role alongside Ehud Barak who is given licence to "roam about and blow things up". However, he singularly fails to solve the West Bank problem. A source close to Venables tells the News of the World: "I, er, sorry, Terry told him Stewart Downing didn't have the character to deal with Mossad but Steve just stood there swigging from a water-bottle and pretending he hadn't heard."