Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 11 August 2009

11 August 2009

Grimsby Town Football Club may take a distinctly primitive approach to administration, communication and media relations - not to mention a customer services culture that borders on the palaeolithic - but today's Mariners news has an altogether postmodern feel in that nothing has actually happened but lots of people are talking about it. Shaleum Logan, the pretty good Manchester City full-back who came to Town on loan the other year, is now on a season-long stay with Tranmere, and is looking forward to playing football, while Mike Newell and Robbie Stockdale have set their sights a little higher and apparently want to win a game of football. What do you mean there's nothing very postmodern about the Grimsby Telegraph? That report on the Cheltenham match was a masterpiece of self-parody.

The game Messrs Stockdale and Re-Newell have their sights set on is, of course, tonight's Stella Artois Cup fixture at Tranmere (so the Telegraph's bit about Logan wasn't completely random). The Town manager is hinting at an unchanged starting XI to "give players a chance to put things right", while his counterpart John Barnes - a very sensible choice to replace Ronnie Moore after a disastrous 2008-09 season saw the Wirral side miss out on the third division play-offs by two whole points - has spoken of changes after a 2-0 defeat by Yeovil on the season's opening day. Some are thrust upon 'em - Blackburn don't want Gavin Gunning, their defender who's on loan at Prenton Park, cup-tied - but Ian Goodison and Gareth Edds return after completing bans. Best of all, Tranmere have just signed Marlon Broomes - one of the goalscoring heroes of Town's epic win at Liverpool in the same competition in 2001. Yay! For more on the game, hit Cod Almighty's glorious technicolour pre-match factfile. Three fish on me shirt, I know we can't go wrong...