Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 28 January 2009

28 January 2009

Phil Barnes - lightning-limbed saviour of many a game and point, or aerially challenged liability who's sulking his way to a Bosman? After a shaky first season with the Mariners the Sheffield-born-and-bred keeper seemed to have justified his acquisition last term with a string of eye-catching performances culminating in a spectacular display at the Dulux Cup final moral victory over Bastard Franchise Scum. In his third season at Blundell Park, however, Barnes seems to have been a bit of both, crucially keeping Town in the game at 0-0 against Rotherham last Saturday, but last night against Dagenham looking as confident as an arthritic nonagenarian crossing the M6 in a blizzard. It is perhaps with this inconsistency in mind that Mr Re-Newell has given a trial to Clark Masters, a 21-year-old netman currently being kept out of the first team at Southend by Steve Mildenhall, the best goalkeeper to have played for GTFC in the Diary's black and white lifetime. Masters was due to line up for Town's reserves away at Hartlepool this afternoon but the game has been called off because of two waterlogged pitches - the chances of which, you'd have thought, were roughly on a par with Phil Barnes signing a new contract with the Mariners.

"Oh Diary, you disappoint me," writes Mat in an email, and I'm going to assume it's Cod Almighty's Mat Hare because I don't know anyone else called Matthew who abbreviates with the single 't'. "I thought everyone knew that the road named after Jackie Bestall was only little as a nod to his diminutive stature. You certainly did if you were schooled in the area so one must assume that the Diary attended neither Matthew Humberstone nor Lindsey lower schools during his education." Well, I can't be giving out such obvious clues to my identity as that, Mat - but if the Diary has disappointed you, it's only the same thing I increasingly did to my teachers year after year as my secondary schooling proceeded. Still, a B and a C in my two A-levels still represented the best in my year. It's all about expectation management.