Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 4 March 2008

4 March 2008

So! The day is here! In an epic match that is already being described as "being played tonight", Town take on Morecambe to decide who will face Bastard Franchise Scum FC in the Dulux Cup final at Wembley later this month. Wembley! WEMBLEY! It's a BIG GROUND! BIG! And everyone's GOING MAD! The Grimsby Telegraph is using headlines that sound like chapters from Mein Kampf. The Mariners' superb new official website seems to have published a story an hour or two ago headlined Town fans take over the Osmond, and then deleted it. And the BBC has recast Jones the Lump as a defender. CRAZY!

What's really happening with the Town team then? Nobody honestly has any idea, except, hopefully, Lord Alan Buckley, but the boss is giving nothing away. "I made a few changes at the weekend and it was a terrific performance," the manager reminds us. And? "The players who came in have certainly given me something to think about." Yes... so what are you thinking, Al? "Fortunately, apart from Ciaran, we have no new injury worries so it's good to have options." Options, yes... go on... "It keeps players on their toes when there are others waiting in the wings to perform - the likes of Peter Bore and Justin Whittle in particular did well on Saturday." And so it goes on, with the distance between Buckley's cards and chest never other than negligible. GAH!

Perhaps we'll have better luck with the attendance. Five days ago the SNOS was talking about a capacity crowd for tonight's game, which was always going to be an ambitious target, not least because nobody actually knows what the capacity at Blundell Park is from one season to the next. Suffice it to say that the crowd this evening will comfortably outstrip the paltry 3,200 who were rattling round Christie Park for the first leg last week (which included a large contingent of Town fans, of course). The Diary remains unsure as to how the Grimsby Telegraph concludes that "more than 6,000 people will be cheering the Mariners on tonight" from the evidence that "more than 1,500 tickets were sold up to 5pm yesterday", but I'm sure they wouldn't print it if it weren't true.

The last word before tonight's astonishing and dramatic encounter falls to Straight Peter Bore - the self-confessed heterosexual enigma who has yet to decide whether he wants to be the new John Oster or the new Graham Hockless. For all the mystery over what goes on in his head, SPB has given an impressively grounded interview in today's Telewag. Where next for the lad who scored twice last Saturday with his first start of the season? "Now I am looking to carry on working hard in training to give myself a chance of more games, and then take my chances." And the team's prospects between now and May? "We are not going to get carried away. We will stay disciplined and prepare right, like we do for every game. It has been a good day. We will see what comes on Tuesday, and we will carry on doing the same thing." Let's hope for once it really can be that simple. See yers.