Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 30 April 2008
30 April 2008
GTFC's torpid backroom team have decided that this weekend's visit to Hereford will be quite enough of the south-west for 2008, thankyou very much. It was reported last week that the Mariners would be taking part in a quite interesting-looking pre-season tournament in Devon this summer, but after the club's shrugging suits travelled to Devon to see how far away it is, they have deemed that the usual uninspiring kickabouts against Scunthorpe and Gainsborough will suffice instead. "The decision has been taken that the Mariners will not be involved," reads a statement on Town's superb new official website, using a passive verb construction to diminish any sense of responsibility for the move. "When we played Gainsborough last summer and realised we'd directed travelling Town fans to Southport instead, we had to turn the computer back on to correct our hideous mistake just when we were in the middle of our Ovaltine, so by playing them again this year we can keep things nice and easy by just copying and pasting from the same page," is what they could have added, but didn't.
Speaking of this weekend's trip to Hereford, which we were, the Bulls have responded quickly to their automatic promotion by cutting admission prices for the end-of-season party. Hereford, who have secured third place in the league despite a stadium that is more than 100 years old and an average attendance of 3,303 (cf. Town's: 4,115), announced earlier this week that a seat for this weekend can be had for £13 and a place on the terraces for £11. There is no specific information from the Bulls on whether the offer extends to Mariners fans, but one assumes this to be the case given that Football League clubs are compelled to charge visiting supporters the same price as home fans in similar accommodation. Except Town, of course, who charge home fans £16 to sit in the Pontoon and away fans £18 to sit in the Osmond. I really must get round to reporting them to the league for that sometime.
After Town's superb new official website reported yesterday that GTFC's women's team had secured promotion with their weekend win over Winterton Rangers, the Grimsby Telegraph has clarified the situation somewhat. The women, explains the Telewag, are not necessarily going to be promoted after all but "now have a chance of going up into the East Midlands regional division - pending a meeting of officials to decide who gets relegated from that particular league". The Diary would have thought the the teams at the bottom of it would be a good place to start, but perhaps meetings of officials to decide promotion and relegation could be the best way forward. Someone tell the Premier League!
Lastly today we have, depending on your disposition, either a stirring story of the faith being placed by GTFC and Lord Alan Buckley in the local young players whose hearts swell with pride as they pull on the black and white jersey of the team they supported as kids, or a clever piece of spin designed to downgrade supporters' expectations of transfer market activity this summer. Just half a week after Town's heavy defeat at home to Peterborough had the manager alluding to major changes in the squad over the close season, Lord AB can now be found in the Telewag emphasising that "I'm keen to strive for more improvement from our young players as well." Uh-huh. "We have a lot of talented youngsters who have done well this season and that's not to mention the likes of Matty Bird, who I want to try and bed into the first-team squad," explains the boss. In fairness, the likes of North, Taylor, Bennett, Hegarty and Till are all young enough to continue to improve - although none of that will fulfil the need for an all-round, box-to-box central midfielder and an inspirational team captain who can organise and genuinely motivate those around him. Something tells me Tom Newey is not really cut out to meet those latter criteria in the long term, eh?