Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 13 July 2009

13 July 2009

As the Diary pondered the weekend signing of Michael Leary two sensations were uppermost in my soul. One was gratitude that, according to Town's superb new official website, the 26-year-old FORMER Barnet and Luton player is "said to add a calm authority to midfield", because without that calm Leary would surely accrue yellow cards more often than his relaxed recent rate of one every other game. The other was amusement at the way football supporters copy pundits on the telly who use silly jargon to try and make themselves look like they know what they're talking about. So instead of just saying a team isn't good enough, which any old fool can say, pundits say that team "lacks quality". A player like Leary, similarly, is now described by pundits and fans who copy pundits as the "holding" or "anchor" midfielder, whereas it wasn't so very long ago that we would all just call him "the bloke who charges about in the middle kicking the shit out of people".

The players' entrance at Blundell Park, of course, has suddenly become the only thing in football wider than Ken Bates' gob, and gnarled veteran keeper Nick Colgan is likely to be following Leary in with the same two-year-contract. Colgan, of course, spent a quiet period on loan with the Mariners in the mid-90s but has more recently been noted for a decent spell as first-choice goalie with Hibernian of the Scottish Premier League and for the penalty save that took Barnsley up in to the second division in the 2006 play-offs. There will be grumbles about Town signing a 35-year-old - because it's not like any goalkeepers have ever been any good at that age, is it - but also concerns about Colgan's two-year absence from first-team football which, on the face of it, seem more legitimate. The Diary read somewhere or other this morning, though - I can't remember where and can't be arsed to go back and look now - that the player was recommended to Mr Re-Newell by Mr Roy Keane, Colgan's recent manager at Sunderland, where he seems to have played well in the Premier Reserve League as the Rokerites stormed to the northern section title last season - conceding just 13 goals in 20 games, which is not so tucking fusty, when all's said and done.

Lots of people have bought season tickets, apparently - I know they say that every year, but this year it actually seems to be not spin and bollocks - and so staggered and grateful are the GTFC accounts people by having received £50,000 more in sales than the club had budgeted for that they're saying "a huge thankyou" to the fans. Well, to the fans who (a) want to go and watch friendlies against Leeds or Doncaster; (b) have children who are in the right age range to take to the football; and (c) want to take said children with them to said friendlies. Should you happen to meet these exacting criteria, you'll be delighted to know that you can take your children with you to said friendlies for free, but probably a bit less delighted to know that adult tickets for these uncompetitive pre-season warm-ups still cost an eye-popping ten quid. Still, there's always the game against Scunthor... oh.