Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 8 February 2008
8 February 2008
As the Roman poet Catullus said: "I hate and I love; why I do so, you may well ask." What brought this epigram to the mind of your Latin O-level graduate Guest Diary was the interview Lord Buckley and Kam-player of the month Danny North gave to the Sky Sports lot. Buckley, I suspect, still feels like a bit of an interloper at Blundell Park, desperately trying to work out how to make it 1998 again. He didn't use his 'unfinished business' line but you sense that may be because he has lost track of what that business exactly might have been as he plods along on the treadmill of the bottom division.
On the morning after a lot of us have resurfaced following a brief TV submersion in 1981 - a year when Town played well in the old second division and had great characters in the team like Bobby Cumming and wore red stockings - maybe we don't fancy the soundtrack of 1998 quite so much. A frankly awful year for music, and when I was first diagnosed with golden goal syndrome - a condition where an unexpected happy ending arrives in such an unforeseen way that gnawing anxieties are not calmed and one is left with a sense of having ejaculated prematurely without noticing, and a continual craving to seek reassurance that we did actually win. I think that's what the psychologist said anyway.
But, notwithstanding, here we are in 2008 waiting to welcome Mr Jack Lester back to Blundell Park as the time warps continue. Town have all of their players (I don't count Butler any more) turning up for training today, reports that superbly new official Grimsby Town website. In fact manager Buckley has so many strings his bow is overloaded. To continue with Till attacking through the central areas; to recall Jones, who 'gives us a presence'; to continue with Boshell and Clarke in midfield, or to restore Toner (for his hundredth appearance) and Bolland. And then there is 'what do you do with a problem like Tom Newey'? These are the decisions that face the man who must take them.
Buckley, as world-weary as ever in reminding his interviewer that only he is brave enough to make his mind up on such matters, should consider being equally decisive in dealing with his workshy striker problem. Gary Jones has been playing in pain for three months and has delayed an operation for the good of the club. Butler, with a stiff back from too long in his Audi, throws in the towel immediately. So if the Lump graces the pitch tomorrow remember that and give him due accolade. Stiff back my arse!
Chesterfield have sent Adam Rooney and Michael Barnes back to Stoke and Man-Ure respectively, having signed winger Kevin Cooper. I'm telling you this because the Cod Almighty factfile team are too hung over or busy to write one today. So, in a nutshell, the Spireites have only won one in six, have plenty of players to pick from and are overdue to resume their promotion hunt by picking up points at Grimsby. Town haven't lost since Boxing Day, have loads of players to choose from, and need to play as well as they did at Notts County. Draw written all over it, eh? Mick Russell is the referee - a bloke we haven't seen since Macclesfield away in the spring of 2006. You know - the day when Butcher told us Picasso had a dog called Lump. See yer.