Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 24 March 2009

24 March 2009

Are we signing a player or not signing a player? In his most recent Mariners World interview, or possibly his most recent but one, Mr Michael Re-Newell said last week's triple foray into the transfer market would probably be his last this season. In some marketing copy for the club's text messaging service, however, Town's superb new official website says: "We are anticipating some activity before Thursday's deadline." It does not, however, elaborate on whether this "activity" will be the signing of Chester's two players who are any good or just Phil Barnes, Gary Montgomery and Tom Newey being given some colouring books.

Last week's very successful offer of match tickets for a fiver, which helped to generate a large and supportive crowd at Blundell Park for the first time since cavemariners landed too many pteroichthyopods down the docks and blamed their imminent extinction on the Pangaean Economic Community, is being repeated for Town's next home game this Saturday. More than 6,400 fans cheered on the Mariners to a resounding win over in-form Gillingham - the club's biggest gate for a home game in the league since part-timers flocked to a game against Wycombe in October 2005 to get ticket stubs for a cup tie against Newcastle. Same as before - buy the Grimsby Telegraph and cut out the voucher. The Diary is going to end this paragraph now because it barely contains any irony at all and my face is hurting from all this smiling.

Details have emerged of the Myspace Mariners' forthcoming cup final. By winning a penalty shootout against Tranmere on Saturday, Town's flourishing youth team set up a meeting with QPR to decide the Youth Alliance League Cup, and the SNOS has today let it be known that this fixture will take place at Loftus Road on Tuesday 21 April. No explanation is given as to why the London club gets home advantage, but I guess that's just what happens when London is involved, eh, small-timers?

Last up today, several of you have emailed to congratulate Radio Humberside's John Tondeur as he makes it a marvellous 25 years covering the Mariners: rather than cram them all into the Diary, we've set up a separate page for them, so go there for a read. In his email Alan Dickens also asked: "What is the insider standpoint of CA regarding the Humberside v Compass debate, argument, shenanigans or whatever it is? John's 25 years might be an opportunity for the Diary to comment on this." Not that we're insiders in any way, but it seems to me that if you pay peanuts, you get inexperienced and untrained monkeys trying to do the job of sports journalists and failing laughably, making the club look ridiculous once again. It's just a good job most people can't receive the Compass signal because they live outside a 200-yard radius of the Dock Tower.