Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 5 February 2008
5 February 2008
Welcome to Tuesday's Diary, where all your second-day-of-the-week GTFC news urges are tended to with the highest and tenderest love. First up, hearty congratulations are due to the little puppy that could, Danny North, whose eager performances and four goals in January have earned him some sort of award as the fourth division player of the month. It's just a shame that the award is tainted by bearing the name of some sponsor's product that I've never heard of, is all. The other players in the running were Darlington's Tommy Wright, Glenn Poole of Brentford, and former Bust'un United striker Anthony Elding, who has suddenly got really good this season and just moved from Stockport to Leeds. "Not a lot of people know this. Northy started out as a central defender?" adds Town's superb new official website to its account of the news, putting a question mark on the end of a sentence that isn't a question? So it sounds like that fashionable new accent? With a rising intonation at the end of every sentence? Everyone has heard it? The one that started off in Australian TV soaps and spread quickly to the majority of the Anglophone world?
Today's Grimsby Telegraph is positively brimming with Town-related titbits. If one of them is anything to go by, then Martin Butler has been making his back injury worse by spending hours at a time reading what supporters are saying about him on the internet. "There are fans who will point the finger and will ask why I came and why I want a move away and I understand that," says the confused striker, adding that the cause of his pain is "a septic nerve trapped in my back". The Diary is neither a physiotherapist nor a seasoned peace negotiator but I cannot help reflecting that if Butler is making a bid for patience and understanding then it would surely help his cause greatly if there actually were such a thing as a septic nerve.
Elsewhere in the Telewag one of Butler's teammates seems more likely to win the trust of sceptical Grimbarians. Peter Till, whose tremendous display as a stand-in forward at the weekend terrified a lumpen Notts County backline, says he doesn't mind where he plays as long as he's in the team. "We had only lost one in 12 before Saturday so it wasn't as if I could go in and ask the gaffer why I wasn't playing," reflects the player, with a humility and patience that seem increasingly rare among professional footballers; Lassana Diarra is sure to take note. Elsewhere in the local rag, we learn that local teams are all in favour of the new-fangled plastic pitches Town are on about building next to the Fentydome. "More than 30 club managers and representatives... pledged their support to the scheme," reports the paper, conjuring dark images of a shadowy Masonic-style rite involving candles, Latin chants and the ritual letting of blood.
Pat Bell has emailed the Diary in response to Monday's tirade against the latest bunch of toss designed by a corporate sponsor to twist a few more quid out of fans who are already heartily sick of shelling out nearly 20 quid to watch fourth division football. "Re marketing aimed at football fans - bravo, yesterday's Diary," he reflects. "Pretty hard to foul up the case for energy efficiency, but those carbon 'footy'-print ads (my toes curl as I type) bring about a strange urge to personally flood several Pacific islands." Just so, Pat, and in a similar vein the Diary is still protesting against the fourth division being renamed "League Two" at the behest of the Football League's sponsor by necking 12 cans of Pepsi every morning before breakfast.
"Right, I need your help," writes Michael Shelton on the same subject. "I don't have the replica kit of my choice, so I'm going for this colouring competition. I get the feeling this is one of those competitions won by someone who answers 'yes' to every question. But I wouldn't dye my hair zebra style (though I did spray it for an away match in my younger days), I hate tattoos in all forms, I don't have a house, and the thought of my daughter being called John Clive Ivano is frankly stupid. The obvious solution is to lie. But then what if my answers are legally binding? My only other option is to get on eBay and bid for Rankin's tent. Help!" What should Mr Shelton do? Is there such a thing as a septic nerve after all? Readers! Email your answers to diary@codalmighty.com and put us out of our misery - at least until the next time we have to watch Notts County trying to pass a football.