Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 8 July 2008

8 July 2008

...so your Idle Diarist was explaining to a work colleague why I find Peter Bore so frustrating. This colleague isn't at all well versed in the ins and outs of Grimsby Town Football Club, so I tried to speak in a language he understands: music. "He's like Polly Harvey, you know?" Do you? "One day he could get to the polished, incredibly likeable, and critically acclaimed Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea stage of his career. But at the moment he's stuck at promising debut - Dry if you will - and has been for a year or so. Hopefully Alan Buckley will be his Steve Albini. And next season will be his Rid of Me, and," with more hope than realism, "maybe To Bring You My Love combined." Do you ever find yourself having to analogise to explain Town things to people?

Anyway, I can't speak for the whole of the Cod Almighty team, but I do so love old things. Hair wax rather than hair gel. Vinyl rather than CDs or tape. Those days when you could light up a fag in the middle of a three course meal and no-one would leave the room. Nana Stevens stuck in her bigoted, Sun-reading ways. Blundell Park. I like to sit back in my idle moments, wherever, and wish the world was black and white and everyone moved around in a jerky fashion to a jaunty piano soundtrack. Ahhh. Memories are made of this, and so agrees the Grimsby Central Library. During July you can visit a photograph exhibition plucked from the library's local history vaults, which will "provide a visual record of the history of the club from Victorian times to the present day." It's simple, it's genius, it'll be popular, and why the hell the club doesn't have something like this on show as a permanent fixture at Blundell Park? Because FentyDome exhibition boards lined up along Imperial Avenue would express the chairman's forward, not stuck in the past, thinking! Anyway, the exhibition's free, open 10am until 3pm during the week, 10am to 2pm on Saturday. Let us know what you think if you go, because I can't get over to Grimmo this month.

Talking of new grounds, want a laugh? The Franchise Scummers' plans for Premiership immortality have been stalled by the credit crunch. I bet they have a room set aside with loads of forward thinking exhibition boards as well! They're not alone in seeing their development plans stalled by the current financial climate, but not a peep from Town about whether their new stadium plans, and season ticket sales, are affected by this as well.

In typical fashion, we have to rely on another club to inform us of our very own home fixture changes. The Chesterfield game on August bank holiday Saturday now kicks off at noon, on the advice of police. Which, personally, means my first game of the season will have to wait a few more weeks. Ah well. Buckley teams always start slowly, don't they? Hang on. The club's just put this up. The Lincoln game in March is also a noon kick-off. So write that into your 2009 diary, if you're organised enough to already have one.

And finally, prime minister elect* David Cameron wants responsibility from the fat and the poor. Now if only he'd addressed that towards Ciaran Toner, preferably at any point during his Town career.

* not my opinion, merely that of newspaper polls