Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 10 January 2008
10 January 2008
When history looks back on John Fenty's chairmanship of GTFC, it is fair to say that smooth-talking diplomacy, tact, and the common touch will not rank highly among its memorable features. He has managed to have a prolonged, serious and counterproductive public disagreement with the world's largest broadcaster - in which Ofcom recently threw out his complaints on every count - not to mention a brief spat with a teenage fanzine editor. When banned from driving for six months after a speeding offence brought the points total on his licence to 14, he fumed to magistrates that the "the imposition to myself and my family will be extremely impractical". He expected "serious benefits to this club" from the fourth division's corporate 'rebranding' as 'Coca-Cola League Two'. He lost the services of Russell Slade with what seemed to be some clumsy contractual brinkmanship and then said "I'm sure the fans will be happy with the choice" of Graham Rodger to replace him. He deemed supporters' wishes for a debate on the site of the Fentydome "ludicrous", described as "nonsense" the environmental aspect of the stadium's planning process, and then dropped casually into a very recent interview the fact that there's a £6m hole in its budget. And after failing to condemn regular pitch invasions by Town fans at Blundell Park, he argued this week that the "thugs" who, er, walked through a gap in the fence at Chesterfield "should be sent to the front line to fight for their country".
But now he's capped the lot, as yesterday it emerged that the Town supremo is to contest local council elections in May as a candidate for the Conservative party, which destroyed Britain's public services and social cohesion in the 1980s, vastly increasing poverty and inequality and enshrining in law discrimination against minorities - and, given the chance, they would gleefully perform an encore in the 2010s. It is true that probably 99.96 per cent of football club chairmen are Tories - but 99.95 per cent of them are savvy enough to keep quiet about the fact, and only Foot-in-Mouth Fenty is tactless enough to actually stand in an election for the party of foxhunting, bigotry and rich bastard tax dodgers.
Town's first team and their reserves, as we know, aren't allowed to both be doing well at the same time. Hence, just as the first XI's league form has picked up, so the form of the stiffs has declined precipitously from its early-season heights. A win looked on the cards for Stuarts Watkisses' team last night away at Hartlepool (well, at Billingham actually; we can't have these posh big clubs messing up their pitches, can we?) as Martin Butler and Justin Whittle put them 2-0 up, and after Pools levelled it, Nathan Jarman made it 3-2. It ended up 4-3 to the home side, though, and the staff on Town's superb new official website have been so distressed by the reserves' decline in form that they've been unable to bear updating the fixtures and results page since the middle of November.
And finally today, Grimsby Telegraph 'soccer writers' looking for a story to fill space on their next slow news day will be delighted to learn that one-time Town striker Luton's Michael Reddy has joined a top-flight club. After leaving GTFC when his contract expired at the end of last season (or possibly before, given that there was no way he was ever going to play in it), the player was last seen training with his old Mariners boss Russell 'Sort It' Slade, now doing the biz with third division Yeovil. A deal at Huish Park failed to materialise, though, and Reddy has since signed for FC Malamuk, who compete in Greenland's first division. Malamuk are based in the town of Uummannaq, which lies 440 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 2000 miles north-west of Kenilworth Road. It must be true because I read it on Wikipedia.