Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 25 July 2008

25 July 2008

I was messing about on Wikipedia the other day, as you do, and ended up ploughing through the 500 greatest ever pop songs as voted by Rolling Stone readers a few years back. Now the top 50 was kind of OK given the expected predilections of the largely American rock-loving voters but when you get down below 400 it all gets a bit weird. I mean John Mellencamp? Rick James? I-believe-I-can-bleeding-fly? The sound of a barrel being scraped, methinks. And don't get me started on what's not there.

But we all love different stuff and that's why I shouldn't be shooting arrows at the Town 'dream squad' published on the superb new official site yesterday. But the names Brian Hill and Bobby Cumming are two omissions that will surely surprise more than just nostalgic old me. And Dave Gilbert and Joe Waters too. Perhaps Mr Boylen was deemed to be the token little man? Whom do I take out to make room, do I hear you ask? That's the problem isn't it? Let's just hope that the likes of Danny North or Andy Taylor make the squad in twenty years' time.

Town seem to play nearly every day of the week at the moment and tonight is no exception with a match at Throstle Nest against those Farsley Celtic boys. And the OS has told us that there are loads of niggly injuries reported from the Town squad: "Nathan Jarman (knee), Robbie Stockdale (groin), Tom Newey (back), Nick Hegarty (calf) have joined Matt Heywood (calf), Ryan Bennett (foot) and Paul Bolland on Town's injured list. Dave Moore is hoping to work his magic, and with the exception of Jarman and long term casualty Danny Boshell, most of the above are likely to be okay to face Farsley Celtic tonight." Which sounds a bit like the lads have had a hard couple of weeks and had half a thought to swing a bit of lead until they had to face interrogation from the redoubtable Mr Moore.

Stuart Watkiss(es) confirmed some of my thoughts at least when talking to the Grimsby Telegraph: "I the lads feeling the effects of a tough pre-season work-out. There are a few strains and knocks but it is to be expected - it's part and parcel of pre-season in my experience. Credit to the lads, they came back fit and in good nick and most of the hard work is done now." Whether he adopted a mock Geordie accent for that first sentence we may never discover.

Mr Watkiss also told the Telewag world that he and Lord Buckley "still have irons in the fire" and that we should not rule out the prospect of one or even two new faces before the season starts proper. The grade two injured Michael Boulding has finally stuck his finger in the pie and pulled out a Bradford plum. Boulding is splashing about in the pool instead of training at the minute and will miss the first few weeks of the new season for definite. Shame we don't play them 'til towards the end of October, eh?

"Keyboard anonymity is a real concern" to Councillor J Fenty (Con) who has chipped in to a Telewag scare story about messageboard criticism of the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust. Dave Otter, who chairs the trust, is a busy man, apparently, and only has about four mates to help him these days. So that is why not a lot has got done lately to raise funds or improve the profile of the trust with the public. Mr Otter said: "The meat of their argument is that nothing is happening at the minute and that we are not communicating well enough. Maybe not, but part of the reason why nothing much is happening - apart from the fact it is the summer, when nothing much happens anyway - is that when we do arrange things, they don't get supported and we end up losing money. What we ask is if these people want to improve things, why don't they come and join us?"

All I can say on this matter is if Mr Fenty acts upon his veiled threat later in the article to try and limit free speech, life will get very interesting because I will be happily detained at her majesty's pleasure before giving in to such thin-skinned and puerile poppycock. Yes, it is a sad indictment of the club's catchment area that people can't afford to contribute an even bigger slice of their meagre income to continually prop up a loss-making enterprise. But that is more to do with the failure of successive governments' regional economic policy and the profligate spending of earlier Town boards than owt else.

Criticism hurts, and yes, the internet gives everyone a foghorn, but there is no possible justification for telling people to shut up and keep their opinions to themselves. We all have to sift out the chaff that is negative bluster posted by the messageboard warriors but there are many grains of pertinent home truth to be found as well. So Messrs Otter and Fenty should stop whining about the people who aggressively point their fingers at the failing status of the GTFC and GTST organisations and should do some serious thinking about how to get a bigger percentage of their potential fanbase actively onside. Public whingeing won't do anything except alienate even more folk. The time you took to have a moan to the Telegraph would have been much more productively spent composing a press release to show the trust in a positive light. Like Gordon Brown you need a plan: and we need to know what it is, mate.

Oh, I forgot - I'm supposed to remind folk to join the Cod Almighty fourth division fantasy football thingy. It's free and it's fun apparently. Send us an email if you want to join. See yer.