Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 3 June 2009
3 June 2009
The good news? Grimsby Town remain very much an option for Peter Sweeney. The bad news? Peter Sweeney very much has other options. Perhaps the most effective of all Mike Newell's loan signings last season, the 24-year-old midfielder has a year to run on his contract with plucky Leeds but expects to leave the brave Elland Road underdogs next week - and, judging by his comments in the Yorkshire Evening Post today, has more than one Iron in the fire. "I've spoken to Mike Newell a couple of times and he's told me Grimsby are interested in taking me. I won't be ruling that move out, but I have to wait to see what options my agent gives me. But Grimsby is one I'm certainly looking to go to," said Sweeney, drumming his fingers and glancing anxiously at his mobile. Get yer trahsers on and come to Blundell Park!
Uninspiring pre-season friendlies against nearby clubs alert, woo woo, uninspiring pre-season friendlies against nearby clubs alert. The Mariners will face Doncaster at home on Tuesday 28 July, while Humberside Police will be pencilling in Monday 20 July for babysitting duties when Scunthorpe are likely to visit BP in the Lincolnshire Senior Cup and a few dozen thick-browed mouth-breathers on each side convince themselves that violence would be the ideal way to settle their differences if they actually had any. Town's superb new official website interestingly points out that the county trophy has been won 36 times by Grimsby since it began in 1884, while the Irons have claimed it 15 times and Lincoln 37 - the other 32 titles presumably having been whisked surreptitiously into the Boston history books by Steve Evans when everyone was looking the other way.
Thankyou so much, readers, for your emails this week - if it stays like this all summer we'll fill the Diary easily without recourse to Jason Crowe, let alone Nick Colgan. Tomorrow, following Martin Wilson's narrowboat to Stoke and David Elvidge's Lambretta to Derby, we'll return to the subject of interesting ways you've travelled to see the Mariners, but for now Jeremy Baily has a word of explanation for the Diary after my recent anxieties about the colour of the canal in Kidsgrove. Oh, do keep up. "Brindley built one of the Harecastle tunnels in 1777 and then Thomas Telford built one in 1827," explains Jeremy. "They are both in Kidsgrove. If you had been sat there stagnant for over 180 years you'd be a funny colour too!" Funny you should say that - there were times last season at Blundell Park when that's exactly how I felt.
Earlier this week, you might recall, we asked for suggestions to fill the itinerary of former CA contributor Andy Holt on his forthcoming visit to the UK; specifically, Andy will have a day free en route from Coventry to Derby. Unfortunately for Andy - who concluded, after guzzling vast quantities of nasty supermarket booze as a frail teenager and then spewing up, that he must be allergic to beer - most of your suggestions involve alcohol. Ian Jackson "was going to suggest the National Brewing Museum, Burton on Trent, but it looks as if it has closed. Otherwise I'm suggesting it would be worth a visit to any British real ale pub between Coventry and Derby before they all close down. It'll make a change from Speights, Tui and Monteith's." I'm assuming those are something to do with the antipodes, where Andy and Mrs Andy now live, but for all I know we could be talking about the firm of solicitors handling the sale of New Zealand to a Middle Eastern oil tycoon who wants them to field a team in the Premier League.
With a name like Loughborough Mariner you'd expect Loughborough Mariner to be quite good on things to do between Coventry and Derby, because if I lived in Loughborough then I'd spend as much time as possible elsewhere. "If the weather's nice and Mr Holt doesn't want to be cooped up indoors," offers LM, "then I can recommend a walk in Bradgate Park and a spot of lunch at the Wheatsheaf in Woodhouse Eaves. The pub has some decent real ales on (anywhere with Timothy Taylor's Landlord on tap is alright in my book) and the Woodhouse Smokies are divine!" The Diary is with you all the way on Landlord, Loughborough; if only Andy would see the light. Our final hope rests with Jeremy Baily again: "May I suggest a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum (just off the A38), a sobering place which as the grounds mature is improving as a pleasant wander around joint, especially if you like remembering our history and war dead." Sobering, eh? Now that sounds just the ticket.