Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 5 December 2007
5 December 2007
The melancholy journey home after watching a rubbish game of football gives us all a chance to ponder some of the great philosophical questions of our age. Questions such as "if there is a God, why does He allow Channel 4 to exist?", and "if we're supposed to be cutting energy use and carbon emissions, why are big shops still allowed to leave their lights on all night?", and "is it possible to have more than 100 per cent if it was already 100 per cent the players' fault and then it gets even worse?" You will glean from the latter, dear reader, that Lord Alan Buckley has been laying into his team again following last night's hopeless drubbing by Darlington - of which the Grimsby Telegraph reports "the final whistle was drowned out by the home fans' disapproval", which strikes the Diary as more than a little optimistic given that the scant smattering of spectators remaining at the end would have had as much chance of drowning out a farting earthworm as a referee's whistle.
So exactly what has Town's beleaguered manager said? It's not much different to what he's been saying for the past month, if the quotes in today's Telegraph represent him accurately. "These are professional footballers. We can't concede like that. The fourth goal was just a joke." Asked about the furious reaction of James Hunt to being substituted midway through the first half - as if Hunt's performance somehow didn't justify the switch - Buckley explains: "I would not expect him to be happy about being taken off, but I was not happy about all 14 of those players," which is unnecessarily harsh on the excellent Andy Taylor. "I don't have the answers for what happened," concludes a shell-shocked Lord Al, beginning to stray worryingly close to Brian Laws' infamous "once they cross that white line" speech.
It's a good job Pete Brooksbank is here to put a smile on our faces (because no bugger else has emailed the Diary in ages). "I note with interest the Diary's mention of another online petition organised by Grimsby's local rag campaigning to have some ex-player called Jack McDonald, or something, awarded an MBE." Yes, go on. "I can't help but wonder if anyone at the Telegraph - or anyone for that matter - has actually taken the time to fill in the forms (which can be found online), ticked all the boxes and gathered the necessary supporting evidence required to formally nominate McDuff for such a prestigious honour? I realise that online petitions are a unifying force for democratic protest - you need only hark back to 2003, when millions convinced Tony Blair not to embark on a imprudent, disastrous invasion of Iraq to see that - but in this instance those forms really need sending off first." I hope you're not meaning to suggest that the Prime Minister doesn't read the Grimsby Telegraph from cover to cover every single day, Pete.
"By the way," adds the same correspondent, mercilessly stretching today's tortured Diary to another agonising paragraph, "Tony Crane is back! back! back! for Boston. His disciplinary suspension was incurred after he was caught playing in goal for a Sunday league team up in Sheffield. The offence apparently only came to light when he was booked during a recent game. I doubt it was for time wasting. Boy, we've missed him." In goal! Old Crazy Legs must have covered every position on the pitch now, what with Big Wednesday having used him as a midfielder and Worksop Town having made full use of his predatory instincts up front. Did you know he was once tipped to play for England, by the way?
Lastly today, Lincoln City Football Club announce: "We have been informed by Lincolnshire Police that our [fourth division] game at Grimsby Town on Saturday 29 December 2007 will now kick off at noon," presumably to reduce the possibility of silly boys fighting over whose go it is on the Wii that one of them got for Christmas. Let's hope someone tells the home team as well - although in their current form it may be wiser to protect Town's goal difference by letting the players oversleep so that Lincoln are awarded the match as a 3-0 default.