Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 2 June 2008

2 June 2008

Town's new season tickets are on sale at last, as of this morning, and when the Diary phoned up to buy one it only took the GTFC staff until half past ten to start answering the phone. While it is excellent news that prices are being held at the same level for a third consecutive season, and a range of attractive new incentives are available for young supporters and families, there is also dismay for those who (like the Diary) believe that the careless use of language is both a symptom and a cause of sloppy thinking. The letter from John Fenty (Con) accompanying the renewal packs sent out to existing season ticket holders begins:

Firstly, may I take this opportunity in thanking you for your tremendous support over the last 12 months. Obviously, I don't really have to label the point too much, to what the pinnacle of the Football Club's achievement was.

Either way, there is clearly cause for concern here - whether the above is further evidence of Mr Fenty's very poor literacy and communication skills or it's simply that a newly elected Conservative politician cannot bring himself to use the word 'labour'.

If the Mariners are traditionally one of the last professional clubs in England to put their season tickets on sale, then they are often just as tardy when it comes to summer transfer activity - hence Guest Diary's exasperated response on Friday, one presumes, to the lack of news surrounding the Mariners while other clubs forge ahead with their summer squad rebuilding. Shortly after GD filed his copy, the Black County-based Express & Star newspaper reported confidently that Town were "weighing up a move" for Ian Roper and Darren Wrack, two of the players released by third division Walsall this summer. If Wrack's relationship with Grimsby moved from boyhood support and "I'd walk on broken glass to play for this club" to flicking the Vs at Town fans in the Bescot, Roper in particular seems just the sort of experienced centre-half Town need to plug their gaps in defence - but it was only a matter of hours before Lord Alan Buckley could be found insisting: "I haven't looked at either of those players and don't expect to." Who was it again who shipped Wrack out of Blundell Park ten years ago?

"For the first time ever on a 30th of May," begins an email from Rob McIlveen, "I found myself (ignited Swan Vesta held high) swaying from side to side as I read Friday's Diary. Ah, Knebworth 1978, and an evening with Genesis (who were, if memory serves, preceded by what I imagine would be regular Diary's teasing link to a fine bunch of 'indies' called Devo). Pity, though, that our Guest Diary left out the amygdala-jerking chorus of 'Sail away, away, the ripples they never come back (no, no, they never come back).' Strange, though, that I don't remember a then hirsute Phil Collins singing the verse Guest Diary cites. Or is it a late Friday night, and the wonderful Leffe blonde has finally kicked in?

"Anyway, the last time I heard Phil Collins sing 'Ripples' (live, that is), the following season the Town finished runners up in Division 4 behind a similarly hard-up club called Reading. Whatever happened to them? Oh yeah, we also did the double over Portsmouth (winning 3-1 away in front of the MOTD cameras - take that, Mellor, you smug bastard). I also seem to remember Town being 6-0 up at half-time against a bunch of no-hopers called Darlington, having thrashed some outfit called Bradford City 5-1 a week earlier. We beat a team called Wigan 3-1 at home, having won 3-0 at their place in the second game of the season, and (of course) we lost at Aldershot. So in conclusion, as the regular Diary's indie band members would write in their plagiarised essays, Guest Diary's mention of a word that one of its readers heard at a concert the season before Town got out of the fourth division, must mean that we'll be promoted this coming year. It's almost local councillor Conservative isn't it?"

Note to self: must try Leffe blonde sometime soon if this is the effect it has.