Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 14 April 2008
14 April 2008
When you support a team that will never win anything worthwhile now that football has been made boring by the rich clubs, you have to take pleasure in smaller, symbolic victories. Victories such as the blood of Alan Shearer - the living epitome of boring, rich club football - being spilt on your pitch. For this, and for nearly 150 displays of grit, mettle and endless commitment to the cause, Town fans will always be grateful to Justin Whittle, who is being released by GTFC at the age of 37. Since the turn of the century, as successive managers have gambled and failed on the quick fix of loans and short-term contracts, an enormous number of players have played for Grimsby Town. But Whittle is one of the few who have earned the right to be called, in the fullest sense of the term, a Grimsby Town player. Thank you and good luck, Sarge: the Diary salutes you.
On the same subject, Cod Almighty's ruthlessly corporate fashion subdivision has asked the Diary to take soundings about the Justin Whittle T-shirt they've been talking about for ages but never got round to producing. Would you be interested in buying one, readers? The cash raised, of course, will go towards keeping this site online and ad-free, with any extra heading into GTFC coffers via shares and sponsorship type stuff. Email diary@codalmighty.com if you fancy a bit of Sarge on your pectorals, and I'll pass it on to the relevant bods.
Town's superb new official website, on the same page as the Whittle news, has also clarified the contractual status of Danny North. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it. Turns out that the club's top scorer was due to be out of contract this summer, but he's decided to activate a clause that allows him to extend his deal by two years once he's started 30 games. There is no word on whether Town would have offered him new terms had North not himself opted to lengthen his existing agreement with the club in this way, but we can probably assume that they would.
Difficult though it may have been to believe for anyone who wasn't there, some good came out of the Mariners' effortless home defeat to Rotherham on Saturday. As his teammates continued their relegation form by shrugging their way to a sixth failure in eight games, highly rated young defender Matthew Bird made his first-team debut with a 12-minute appearance as sub, and has been breathlessly recounting the tale to the Grimsby Telegraph. "It would be great to get a starting role before the end of the season," concludes the Grimsby born-and-bred teenager - who could well get a starting role against Wycombe tomorrow night, what with Ryan Bennett being away on England duty. Given the team's recent run of performances, in fact, Lord Alan Buckley might as well give the entire reserve team a run-out on Tuesday and name himself and Stuart Watkiss on the bench.
It is on the subject of Bennett's absence tomorrow - or, to be precise, on Town's official announcement of it - that Neil Drakes has emailed the Diary. "According to the OS," he writes, "Alan Buckley is going all urban - he's letting Ryan Bennett join up 'wit' the England party. Wicked brethren, Grimsby massive and so on." Yes - and some might question the wisdom of releasing an important member of the team when injuries have deprived the manager of several other key playas. Pimp my ho, mofo!
Today's Diary was brought to you by The Airfields' amazing cover version of the Field Mice classic 'Sensitive', by Idle Theory, and by a hot water boiler that has finally given up on life. See you tomorrow!