Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 31 December 2008
31 December 2008
Property being a sound investment. The banks being secure and trustworthy financial institutions. And Town taking three points from Barnet every time the two sides meet. Only a few short months ago all of these things were as certain as night following day, but... oh, hang on - professional football on New Year's Day has just been quietly abolished, hasn't it? And we're not actually playing until Saturday. Gah.
The forthcoming transfer window is being extended to 5pm on Monday 2 February - and I love the seasonal use of initial capital letters as Town's superb new official website explains the move: it's because of "procedures adopted by Foreign Associations", a charming Victorian touch for the festive period - but since it doesn't begin for another ten hours or so, the final Diary of 2008 is left to pick over the national media for scraps of anything Mariners-related. Many of you have probably already seen the Times's recent where-are-they-now job on Town's 1998 play-off-winning side: "Grimsby was better known for its fish than its football" until then, apparently, but it's worth a look for the discovery that Peter Handyside has now qualified as a lawyer while Tony Gallimore "works for a scaffolding company". There's a quip in there somewhere if you look hard enough, but there's also a pub down the road with a barrel of Timothy Taylor Landlord which has so far shown no sign at all of drinking itself.
When it's not using distortion and outright lies to victimise the most vulnerable groups in society, fomenting savage intolerance and promoting the far-right politics of sheer hate, the Daily Mail occasionally poses as a newspaper, and it is in this capacity today that it offers a second mention of the Mariners' famous exploits of '98. "When was the last time a team in stripes won anything?" begins a piece about when the last time was that a team in stripes won anything. "And we're not talking about Grimsby Town in the 1998 Auto Windscreens Shield," it quickly adds, because that doesn't count, because... er... fish.
After yesterday's foolhardy Diary challenged its intellectual superiors over their ingenious plan to save the Mariners, I expected a flurry of well-argued emails setting out in clear and uncontestable terms exactly why the best way forward is quite obviously to sack Mike Newell less than three months after he inherited a patently feeble squad and immediately before his first opportunity to work in a transfer window. Remarkably, these have failed to materialise. What we have instead is a missive from James Parrott, as follows:
Who are we to criticise the inane rantings of the local football philosophers, especially those whose insight runs so deep that their words are too meaningful to be spell-checked? Of corse Newl shud be sackd. After all, a dozen games or so should have been enough to perform the fourth division equivalent of alchemy, that is, turning the utter shit in the black and white kit into gold. I mean, my word! Who couldn't make Not-Gallimore at left-back look like, well, Gallimore at his best. Or even worst. And what manager worth his clichés couldn't turn [Straight] Peter Bore into a The Lad Done Good type? And bless the poor guy who I offended by daring to suggest that Phil Barnes is only ever good enough to lose more often than not.
If I was taking myself as seriously as the Fenty Out Brigade then I might even be moved to suggest that the internet has done more to discredit the arguments for democracy than anything other than the Houses of Parliament and prime time 'reality' TV. In fact, all in all, I carn't bleev its not betta! (Sorry - I couldn't help myself.)
Thanks, James - and thankyou all for reading the Diary throughout 2008, surely one of the rottenest of all Town's 130 years. Those who are still supporting the Mariners in a positive and proper way, give yourself a little pat on the back tonight. Not a medal, because supporting in a positive and proper way shouldn't be a huge deal, but after a truly dreadful twelve months just a little bit of recognition might be in order for those who are sticking it out. Let's keep fighting the good fight. Happy new year to you all.