Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 16 July 2009

16 July 2009

The players are new, the manager is new, but it looks like the same old struggle for Town to grind down inferior opposition in pre-season friendlies. Indeed, were it not for a bit of a blinder from the even newer Nick Colgan, the Mariners might never even have managed their blushworthy narrow win last night at Barnstaple against [*checks the Grimsby Telegraph website again*] Belgian part-timers RRFC Montegnee. Following a parade of fine saves from the 35-year-old goalkeeper, it fell to Jamie Clarke to secure the win, scoring the only goal of the game with two minutes to go with one of those excellent free kicks that he seems to score from all the time for the reserves and in friendlies but never quite pulls off in competitive matches. As Mr Re-Newell has already pointed out, though, his main priority in last night's fixture was to give a run-out to the whole squad, which he did, and chucked in half a game apiece for trialists Chris Jones and Nathan Arnold for good measure, so the outcome is not the important thing here and we shouldn't read any significance into the results of friendly games, especially so early in pre-season. Except, of course, when they're good.

Organisers of the Errea South West Challenge Cup, meanwhile, have been forced to deny rumours of interference from the very top of global football after the discovery of another weird rule in the tournament. Suspicions had already been growing among supporters after the announcement that losing teams in the group stage would receive one point if they failed to score and two if they registered a goal, and that all games would be settled by penalty shootouts, with both teams' goalkeepers being obliged to take one of the first five spot-kicks. When it emerged last night that matches in the group stage last only 80 minutes, officials hastily issued a statement to the media. "Following speculation by clubs and fans about the weird rules for our tournament, Errea would like to deny categorically that Sepp Blatter has had any involvement whatsoever in organising it," said a spokesperson last night. "Now, where did we put those skimpy bikinis for the women's games?"