Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 30 January 2008
30 January 2008
After their team made it 17 points out of the last 21 with a narrow and ill-deserved win over Bury last night, incredulous Town fans continue to debate whether their highest league position in over ten months is due to luck, karma or giant fairy mermaids with space helmets and a powerful remote control. True, the players were moving the ball around fluently early in the season with chuff all to show for it, whereas in January they have soared up the fourth division by blundering around the pitch like a team of blindfolded scyphozoans, but this curious reversal of fortune seems to the Diary simply to emphasise the importance of capable defending. Notwithstanding the performance of Tom Newey last night - alright, and Danny Boshell's headed back-pass last Saturday - the side has largely eliminated the kind of defensive bungling that undermined its fine offensive play throughout the autumn. The results between now and May will depend on whether the Mariners' attackers will shortly remember how to pass and move, and whether Lord Alan Buckley has a plan B in case Sam Hird and Rob Atkinson are recalled from loan by their clubs, but for those bewildered by the discrepancies between the league table and Town's recent performances the explanation is simple: build from the back and your ass will follow, as Russell 'Funkadelic' Slade might have put it.
Fentydome news now, and GTFC are inviting "representatives of local teams and clubs to a meeting at Blundell Park to discuss facilities at the club's proposed new stadium". A meeting tomorrow night, says the club, will offer "junior and adult teams - including sports other than football" an opportunity to give their views on the facilities to be incorporated into the grey new ground. So local teams and clubs are having their say; the council has had its say; the residents of Great Coates have had their say; and the Diary, together with thousands of other Town supporters, continues to wait for any sign of a formal process by which the fans might have their say. Still, we're only the poor bastards who'll pay hundreds of pounds a year for the privilege of sitting in the sodding thing every other week for the rest of our lives.
"Who will make the pies?" is the crafty heading of an email to the Diary from Clav Divs, which continues on the same subject. "I guess the Fentydome moves a step closer with the news that the catering at BP has been outsourced from the end of this season," is the first sentence of the body text, and the rest says: "Whether it has plugged the £6million funding gap or not is doubtful. It's well known that a business will outsource non-core activities to those who can provide them cheaper and better, so that they can concentrate on what they do best. Therefore, in this case we should expect that the on-field activities will improve whilst the pies will get cooked in India. However, it is also well known that most outsourcing deals end up costing more with lower quality services." Thanks for that, Clav - and God help us if they ever outsource the superb new official website.