Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 24 April 2008

24 April 2008

Does the name Henry Boot mean anything to you? A week after it was originally scheduled, GTFC have made their newest announcement on the club's proposed new stadium at Pyewipe, and as tends to be the case with official announcements from GTFC, it raises more questions than it answers. The gist is that the High Court has declined a request, made in February by somebody called Henry Boot, for a judicial review of its planning permission. Who is Henry Boot? We are left to do some Googling and discover that he/it is the person/company behind a new £30m retail development in Grimsby town centre. Why didn't the club or the Grimsby Telegraph report the request until now? It's apparently put back the whole Fentydome project by another half a year, but again we are not told. "The last six months since the council determined the planning application for the club's relocation to Great Coates has been surreal," John Fenty (Con) told the Mariners' superb new official website, as a floppy clock folded over the branch of a nearby tree.

GTFC's communications team were rather quicker off the mark when the local media in Devon reported yesterday that Town would be taking part in a pre-season tournament this summer down in the south-west, alongside Crystal Palace, Hereford, Kidderminster and local non-League outfits Torquay United, Bideford, Eastleigh and Clevedon Town. Forced to actually tell us something for once instead of discovering it from other sources, the superb new official website wiped the sleep from its eyes to emphasise that Town "have not confirmed they will be taking part" following a visit to Devon by club suits on Monday. "A potential drawback could be the six-hour journey down to the south coast," explains the SNOS, neglecting to remark that they could have worked that out from the RAC routeplanner website without needing to send Dave Boylen down the M5 with a stopwatch on his dashboard.

While Town fans continue wonder where the first XI's next point is coming from, the reserves rounded off their season with a battling 3-2 win against Lincoln yesterday afternoon. As the SNOS explains, "The Imps took the lead through trialist Neil Harvey" (the Imps actually fielded a starting line-up composed entirely of trialists), but goals from Danny North and Straight Peter Bore gave Town a second-half lead. Lincoln pulled back to 2-2 on the hour but Andy Taylor popped up late on with the winning goal. Hooray! Let's see if the first team can do likewise on Saturday, eh? Ta-ta for now.