Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 29 January 2008

29 January 2008

First of all, sorry about the site being down from yesterday to this morning. The next new feature to be added to Cod Almighty will be a clock counting down in real time to the moment our contract with the ISP expires and we can move the site somewhere more reliable.

GTFC have established a link with Scottish youth team Hutchison Vale and immediately insulted their new partners by misspelling their name twice in the first two official mentions of it. "The Mariners have recently recruited striker Omar Ali from the Edinburgh club and hope to pick up some of their best youngsters in the future," explains a short piece on the club's superb new official website. Oh, that Omar Ali. It all sounds quite intriguing and surely can't be a bad thing, though a very lengthy list of the Scottish club's other graduates which the SNOS has copied and pasted from their OS, does rather suggest that other English clubs might have been there first. The list makes interesting reading - OK, mildly interesting reading - as its heading "Famous Hutchie Players Past and Present" may be readily applicable to the giddy celebrity of Livingston's Leigh 'Sparky Griffiths' but is surely stretching it a bit when it comes to Darren Fletcher, who apparently plays for an obscure Lancashire outfit called Manchester United.

Did anything else happen while we were away? Only the publication by the Grimsby Telegraph of some more computer-generated grey images of Town's proposed grey new stadium. "We are extremely positive," says GTFC chairman Extremely Positive John Fenty (Con), failing to elaborate on how he proposes to address the stadium's £6m funding shortfall, which he revealed last month - an issue the Telegraph has been curiously reluctant to press him on, don't you think, readers? The Diary has enjoyed all the reader comments on this story, but most of all the one pointing out that, since Conoco became ConocoPhillips in 2002, the corporate logo used in the Fentydome images is several years out of date. This is entirely appropriate, of course, since the entire concept of out-of-town stadiums and retail developments is one that also belongs irredeemably to the past.

Back to the present, then, where Town are preparing to take on Bury at Blundell Park tonight without the services of Paul Bolland. The Yorkshire born-and-bred midfielder is not expected to be in contention after suffering a recurrence of his ankle injury during Saturday's kickboxing tournament against Shrewsbury. Who will take his place? The Telewag reports that Ciaran Toner has a virus and so expects a starting role for Danny Boshell - who replaced Bolly at the weekend and handed Shrewsbury their goal with a weak header back towards his goalkeeper - but adds that "Peter Till could also be a surprise contender for a central midfield role", presumably because of his exertions in that position for the reserves last week. Gary Jones will be available, adds the paper, despite missing training yesterday to attend the delivery of his new baby daughter Olivia - who weighs in at a suitably hefty 9lbs 13oz. Congratulations to family from all of us at CA, if you happen to be reading!

Ben Gresswell has sent us a link to a "funny little article from the Guardian (not that I read it, of course; I'm a man's man and read nothing but the Sport and the Star)" about little Kev Keegan's ability to make his players "feel 10 feet tall". "I think Lord Buckley could follow in King Kev's footsteps and make the Mariners feel even mightier!" writes Ben. Indeed so - and it will always be a much greater feat to make a player such as Dave Gilbert feel 10 feet tall than a player such as, say, Fen Butcher. Oh, he's playing against us tonight, isn't he? Gah...