Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 11 June 2008
11 June 2008
Blundell Park officials are refusing to make public the amount paid by Young's to extend its sponsorship of GTFC. The club announced this morning that its partnership with the local seafood producer will run to a fifth year, but its statement is considerably lighter on details than on press release quotes, and the Grimsby Telegraph refers only to a "deal, which club bosses say is for an undisclosed figure" - as if it were not in the club bosses' gift to disclose the figure should they wish. Young's, of course, stepped in during 2004 to bagsy a rumoured cut-price package when the club's previous sponsor Jarvis mysteriously pulled the plug just 12 months in to a three-year deal (which not a single Telegraph journalist dared to investigate). "As with most towns and cities across the country we feel that Grimsby's football club lies at the very heart of the community," are the words put in the mouth of Young's financial bigwig Dave Roberts by his PR and communications staff, who clearly either have a keen sense of irony or have never in their entire lives been within miles of Grimsby, where the community actually couldn't give a monkey's bollock whether its football club lives or dies.
When Town's superb new official website reported last week's news of new contracts for Jamie Clarke and Gary Montgomery, it refrained from tantalising headlines suggesting that the club had signed two entirely new players. This was a good thing. Pete Brooksbank has emailed the Diary to say: "Your palpable relief at Grimsby's reluctance to erroneously parade players signing new contracts as 'new signings' got me thinking about a similar, and horrifyingly frequent, occurrence that often has me grinding my crooked teeth with rage. No, it's not Ken Bates failing to die every day - it's when a player returns from long-term injury and is said by his manager to be 'like a new signing'. What? A 'new signing'? No, he is not like a new signing. He is, in fact, just like a player returning from long-term injury. A player already registered with the club. I mean, if I fix my laptop when it breaks, it's not like I think I've suddenly purchased a new fucking laptop is it? I have, in fact, merely restored my current laptop, a device I already own, to working order, at my own expense and in my own time." True - although when Tony Crane returned to fitness in February 2005 after nine months on the sidelines, it was like a new signing. Of a really bad player. The Diary enjoyed your piece about Halifax in the new WSC, by the way, Pete, assuming it's the same person. There can't be that many Pete Brooksbanks with that much knowledge of the Conference.
Lastly today, a quick look across the fourth division to Chester City, the purpose of whose existence may be an ongoing mystery to most of their own supporters but who serve as an enduring reminder to Town fans that there's always someone worse off than yourself. And indeed, while it may be a quiet summer so far at Blundell Park, the Diary has at least not yet reached the point where we're so desperate for content that we have to report on other clubs' new playing kits. I'm sure we're equally flattered and surprised by Chester City Mad's strange fascination with the redesigned "Grismby Town" shirt, and we'll be even more so if it turns out to be of any interest at all to your average Deviants fan.