Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 29 October 2009
29 October 2009
"I do occasionally look at the websites," is the shock relevation in today's Grimsby Telegraph interview with John Fenty (Con), whose often mystifying kneejerk responses on the Mariners' superb new official website to the obscurest of online whisperings about GTFC have long given the impression of a man sitting up all night, seven days a week, poring over every messageboard posting even vaguely related to the Mariners down to the last semicolon. The overall message is pretty much the same as always: he's put a lot of money in to the club, therefore nobody should be asking questions about the departures of Mike Newell, Ryan Bennett and Jack Barlow. In particular, it's the deep textual analysis of his every word on the forums that's getting the councillor's goat this week: "If people want to pick holes in that and play games with it then I have to leave them to it," insists JF(C), continuing not to really leave them to it. Still, nice to see he's finally picking up on advice the Diary offered him several years ago. Keep reading, John!
Some of the criticism levelled at Deadly John is clearly unjustified. Contrary to the slop-brained toss peddled by doofuses such as "christopher, grimsbyish", for instance, the chairman is in no way on the make. But if it's the way fans interpret his communications that bothers him most, then Grimsby's most prominent Tory is his own worst enemy. When he tells you he won't sack Mike Newell, and then a week later he sacks Mike Newell, and Mike Newell had served exactly one year of a three-year contract, and JF(C) says: "Mike Newell was broadly 50 per cent through a three-year contract", exactly what are we supposed to think?
It's exactly this sort of thing that feeds through into all levels of the club's communications and administration, of course. It's a slapdash mentality that's ingrained into the culture of the organisation, the latest example being a 'kids go free' offer for tomorrow night's home game against Accrington Stanley - which was seemingly announced at just two days' notice.
With the possible exception of Paul Bolland's early blue period, an industrious midfielder sounds just the sort of thing Town have been lacking since the great Alan Pouton walked the earth. How promising it is, then, that just such a figure appears to have emerged from yesterday's reserve game at Lincoln. Despite goals from Barry Fucking Conlon, Jamie Clarke, Michael Leary (2) and Danny North, star of the stiffs' 5-3 win was Mark Hudson, 29-year-old former Chesterfield, Huddersfield and Rotherham midfielder, who has already played for Blackpool and Gainsborough Trinity this season, so the Diary has no idea whether FIFA would let him sign for us or not.
That just leaves some other bloody daft award to do with the Dulux Cup, on top of the bloody daft award to do with the Dulux Cup which we reported the other day, and the Diary is now feeling awards fatigue so we'll finish instead with an email from Rich Mills. "Cheese and broccoli quiche or a cheese and broccoli quiche?" he asks. "Either way, why weren't you making a pie? Call yourself a northerner?" No, Rich, I call myself a Grimbarian. Grimsby can't be in the north in any real psychological way without Grimbarians first developing a concept of the north, which in turn will be impossible until we develop a concept of anything outside Grimsby!