Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 7 October 2008

7 October 2008

GRIMSBY WILL BE UP FOR IT. It's true - I read it on the internet! And this time it isn't Tom Newey, Jason Crowe or Bradley Allen promising the Grimsby Telegraph that the Mariners' underachievement ends here: it's the headline of an item on the official website of Scunthorpe United about tonight's meeting between the two clubs in the second round of the Dulux Cup. The premise is that Town's hitherto comatose playing staff will be alert and on their mettle this evening as they seek to impress incoming manager Mike Newell, who will be assessing his new charges from the dugout as caretaker Disco Stu Watkiss chooses a team for the last time. "We can never underestimate the opposition. Grimsby will go out there and make it tough for us," says the verbally unspectacular Irons manager Nigel Adkins, who is personally responsible for a large number of deaths every year as his Radio Humberside interviews send drowsy drivers crashing off the M180. It is earnestly to be hoped that Newell achieves something approaching Adkins' success fairly soon, because if there's anything worse than being patronised by Scunthorpe, the Diary doesn't want to find out what.

The popular and promising appointment of Newell has left many desperate Grimbarians looking for a new scapegoat for the woes of their local football club. Watkiss remains assistant manager, so that's one in the bank for later, of course; but in the meantime, councils are always good for blaming things on, so the theme for this week is that our local authority should, um... er... 'support' the Mariners. Deadly John (Con) has been saying it so now some fans are signing a petition to say it as well. How, exactly, should the council support the Mariners? Funnily enough, people aren't quite so clear about that. As far as the Diary is aware, the council has already given planning permission for the Fentydome, and the main reason the project hasn't gone further is the developers' failure so far to find the mythical 'anchor tenant' needed for the shopping centre part. If DJ(C) or the petitioners should suddenly become more specific about how our local authority should support the Mariners then the Diary will, of course, report it; but in the meantime, as lethargic and insular as they are, it doesn't seem entirely reasonable to me to blame North East Lincolnshire Council for the social and ecological unsustainability of 1980s and 90s-style exurban retail and leisure developments, still less the crisis of confidence in the global financial system and the concomitant slowdown in the UK retail sector.