Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 18 November 2008

18 November 2008

The Diary's super-sensitive alarm bells were ringing yesterday afternoon when Town's superb new official website reported that "Carlos Rodrigues... a left sided defender who has been playing for Spanish Division One side Malaga" could be turning out for the reserves today and a Google search for "Carlos Rodrigues" and "Malaga" returned 1,060 results which had nothing to do with football. Happily for the world at large, the Grimsby Telegraph has proved itself rather more adept at the highly demanding job of getting somebody's name right. It is Carlos Delgado Rodriguez, apparently, who is supposed to be playing away for the stiffs against Sheffield Big Wednesday this afternoon, and the Telegraph very admirably shows greater restraint than the Diary in declining to mention again the SNOS's hilarious and entirely characteristic mix-up the other week between Town trialist and ex-Carlisle midfielder Neale McDermott and non-Town trialist and current Kidderminster striker David McDermott.

In the highly likely event that GTFC's skilled and knowledgeable backroom staff secure international clearance for Rodriguez to play in a few minutes' time, the player will line up alongside fellow trialist Mickael Buscher, who also turned out for the second string in last week's 4-1 win over Barnsley amid global conflict about his playing position. "I play left midfield but I like to play as striker, too," Buscher tells the Telegraph today, glancing at the Diary and the SNOS with an expression imploring us to settle our differences peacefully. Amid all the excitement there are two salient points. First, the arrival of Rodriguez, shortly after a trial for young Barnsley left-back Jacob Butterfield, suggests that Town no longer have a management team who believe Tom Newey should be exempted from competition for his place. Second, Mike Newell, despite not visibly smiling once since arriving at Blundell Park, clearly has a terrific sense of humour, having told Dave Otter of the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust that he "won't go looking abroad" for players and awarding trials to a Spaniard and a Frenchman approximately twelve minutes later.

"Well done to everyone who relieved the bookmakers of a few quid on Saturday," writes Mat Hare in an email to the Diary. "I did the same myself, but not in the way suggested by Guest Diary. I've been around long enough to recognise when Town are consistently inconsistent so even the 9/2 wasn't enough to tempt me. However, the bookies had priced up the corners market poorly, in my opinion. The stats for both sides indicated a match between two good corner winners but also sides who were known to concede a few too. So all in all the evens on over 11 corners looked like a cracking bet, and so it proved with Bury beating that total on their own. So it's not always the goals that count." Thanks, Mat. What about the market on two rubbish, half-arsed yellow cards being given to the same critically important player?

Martin Robinson is another who has emailed to share his happiness in the wake of THAT Saturday. "Unbridled joy in the Robinson household as my son rang his granddad to tell him the unbelievable news: 'The Mariners have won a match!' Text sent across the world to LA, where the St Pauli branch of the Town supporters club are presently residing. 'About time they won, when are the play-offs?'" Twelve points above the relegation zone but only 18 below the play-off zone... that's the spirit!