Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 17 June 2009
17 June 2009
In football, as in life, everyone has their own ways of doing things. If you're an unscrupulous bastard in life, you might spread lies about a rival at work or have it off with the partner of your best friend. If you're an unscrupulous bastard in football, you might talk to the agent of a player you want to sign, rather than the club he's contracted to, and place a few stories in the media, in an effort to unsettle the player and lower his value before you lodge an official bid. Just because O'Peterborough United choose to conduct their transfer business in a certain way, though, doesn't mean Scunthorpe United must do likewise. Yesterday John Fenty revealed that Scunny and Blackpool were among several other clubs interested in signing Ryan Bennett - presumably because officials from those clubs had spoken to him about it. Today, however, the Scunthorpe Telegraph reports that the Irons are not in the hunt for Bennett - just because his agent says so. "I have not had any contact with anyone from Scunthorpe United," explains the all-seeing, all-knowing Darren Bossons, seemingly oblivious to the possibility that Scunthorpe or any other club might go about its transfer business legitimately and directly approach the club that their target player is attached to, instead of grubbing around insidiously with his agent and the media. Still, if they did, I guess he'd be out of a job.
And so to the fixture list. Town's first game of the suddenly very keenly anticipated 2009-10 season will be away at Cheltenham - which comes as bad news to the two clubs but good news for those of us who like football to be played at the time God intended, as they surely can't move the opener to a Friday night. On the last day of the season, says the Mariners' superb new official website, Town have "a home game against Burton Albion"; the Mariners' superb new official website is wrong, because it's an away game against Burton Albion. And in a break with traditional Boxing Day derbies against close local rivals Accrington and Macclesfield, the Mariners face a long haul to Notts County.
It's some time since the Diary went out for a meal in the Grimsby area, which has long been the final culinary outpost where prawn cocktails are still served (at least without a garnish of irony). And my absence from local eateries seems unlikely to be ended by the sheet of discount coupons for local leisure and retail businesses that is sent out to Town fans when they buy season tickets. One of these coupons is for a place called Sonargaons, or the Sonargon; both spellings are used, and both sound less like a place you'd go out for a bite to eat than a murderous race of aliens from Doctor Who. Another applies to an outlet by the name of Oscablax, which could be a restaurant but, going by the name and the frankly very scary typeface it's presented in on the coupon, could just as easily be a horror film about a virulent and terrifying virus which mutates from fish life to wipe out the entire human race. For crying out loud, Grimsby, stop being so utterly rubbish at everything just for five minutes - or DIE with the rest of your PUNY SPECIES!
If you've eaten out at Oscablax, Sonargaons, or indeed the Sonargon, if you're the horrified proprietor of one of these establishments suddenly acknowledging the terrible mistake you've made, or if you'd like to talk to the Diary about anything else that has or hasn't appeared on this page, please email diary@codalmighty.com.