Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 4 June 2008
4 June 2008
In 2000, when the Radio Authority considered Compass FM's request to broadcast in the Grimsby area, it found "significant weaknesses" in the station's application. Nevertheless, Compass was given a licence to broadcast for eight years. In 2007, when Grimsby Town Football Club transferred the commentary and interview rights for home games from BBC Humberside to Compass FM, supporters noted a plunge in the quality of coverage that was inevitable given the latter's complete lack of experience in sports journalism, lamented the sudden absence of Mariners news from the BBC's Look North, and complained at the new broadcaster's apparent inability to project a signal much beyond the Humberston Fitties. Nevertheless, Compass has been given a contract to cover GTFC for a further year. In fairness, thin-skinned Town supremo John Fenty (Con) - who is widely deemed to have cut off his nose to spite his face by handing Compass the rights and publicly squabbling with the BBC - acknowledges "some of the comments that we have received from our supporters" and promises "an improved service for the forthcoming season". It seems that Comeback FM will now "keep supporters all around the world in touch with the club's fortunes on and off the pitch" - so they've clearly shelled out a few quid on a considerably bigger transmitter.
Print media now, and the Grimsby Telegraph has made an early play for supremacy in the Punning Matthew Bird Headlines Stakes. The back page of today's paper leads on an interview in which Town's 17-year-old centre-half expresses a wish to "establish myself as a first-team regular and stay in the side" - the headline: Bird's Eye on Town Spot. Depending on Bird's fortunes next season, a range of follow-up headlines will be available along the lines of Bird of Paradise (player caps awesome defensive display with late headed winning goal as Town top league table on 1 September), Bird of Prey (player accidentally injures Jack Lester in hard but clean 50/50 challenge), Bird Watching (player linked with host of Premier League clubs as scouts descend on Blundell Park), Bird in Flight (player leaves for Premier League club) and Free as a Bird (player leaves club on free transfer to Crystal Palace following administrative cock-up resulting from club's ignorance of fine detail in Bosman ruling).
There's no word yet from Graham, the mystery driver who got half the Diary's readership lost on the way back from the Knebworth festival in 1978 - but Rob McIlveen has been back in touch to clarify his intention in earlier emails. "I wish I'd never mentioned bloody Knebworth and Genesis and 1978 for all the confusion it's caused," he writes. "As I wrote to Mister or Mrs Guest Diary after receiving an email reply from them, I know that the verse quoted in last Friday's Diary is not a Genesis song, and Clav, I know that Phil Collins certainly never sung it at Knebworth in 1978. I simply picked up on the word 'ripples' (which is the title of a Genesis song that Phil Collins did sing at Knebworth in 1978) in Friday's frankly redundant Diary, and tried to be witty in a Homer Simpson-like 'I've missed the point'/wrong end of the stick way. It obviously failed, and miserably so. I shall never do it again, honest. Can we consider the matter closed, and move on to Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in 1979, and Robert Plant's brilliant performance of 'Three Steps to Heaven'?" I'll think I'll leave it to Guest Diary this Friday, if it's all the same to everyone.