Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 27 November 2009

27 November 2009

Adrian Forbes, Adam Proudlock, Chris Jones, Michael Coulson, Barry Fucking Conlon, Danny North, Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro, Josh Magennis. Have I forgotten anyone? Has Straight Peter Bore played as an out-and-out striker this season? Did The Jarman go up front as well during his three minutes between broken feet? The reason the Diary is pondering the frankly ludicrous number of forwards fielded by the Mariners already this season is that, in what looks like a frankly ludicrous transfer, yet another one has just arrived. Ben Wright is the name you will struggle to remember during a pub conversation next summer; 21 years old, he has signed on loan from O'Peterborough United, who he joined in January of this year from Hampton & Richmond, where he - oh, just look on Wikipedia, eh? Good luck, then, to Ben, whose arrival begs three key questions. Will he play more than about 40 minutes before we send him back and forget he ever existed? What's the record for the most strikers used by one team in a single season? And what's the point in signing that many strikers when the rest of the team is unable or unwilling to get the ball to them anyway?

In what looks like a very sensible transfer indeed, meanwhile - in what could actually turn out to be the best acquisition Town make all season, perhaps - Neil Woodses looks set to complete the long and drawn-out signing of Mark Hudson, the former Rotherham, Chesterfield and Huddersfield midfielder who has rather strangely appeared this season for Blackpool in the second division and Gainsborough Trinity in the Conference North. After the interminable procession of no-impact loan signings who have stopped off for a quick cup of tea at Blundell Park in recent months, it is genuinely encouraging to at last see a GTFC manager address the shortcomings in the one area of the pitch above all others where the side has been weakest (although God knows the centre of midfield has had some serious competition for that title).

So what's the deal with Hudson? The player seems ready to join until "at least the end of Season 2009/ 2010", says Town's superb new official website, applying an initial capital letter to the word 'season' for absolutely no reason at all, just in time for the transfer to be blocked by FIFA as exceeding the maximum number of clubs a player is permitted to represent during a single transfer period.

Guest Diary has moved to Mondays, by the way. You don't mind, do you?

Good news as Town prepare for tomorrow's could-really-quite-do-with-winning trip to Macclesfield (read Cod Almighty's match preview here): the opposition manager appears to believe we are any good. After his team's game against Accrington was postponed on Tuesday, Silkmen boss and much-loved former Mariners striker Keith Alexander (what we wouldn't give for his like in the side now!) decided to check out the Mariners in their shameful shambles of a non-performance at home to Bradford, and came away with a very different impression from that received by the other fourteen spectators. "I watched the first hour or so and was quite impressed by Grimsby," Alexander says with no apparent trace of irony. "I had a good look at their shape and the way they play and we know it will be a difficult game." Two interpretations are possible: Macclesfield have somehow found a way to be even worse than Town this season, or Big Keef is unaware that he ended up watching Juventus instead after taking a wrong turn halfway along the M62.

The last word before the Mariners' sigh-inducing 3-0 defeat at Moss Rose tomorrow goes to Martyn Wyburn, who has emailed to say: "Surely the Diary can come up with a better nickname for Neil Woods than 'Woodses'. I know it's a bit of a mouthful but how about 'Out of the' Woods or even 'Can't see the' Woods?" Well, 'Woodses' is a necessary homage to Town fans' unique practice of adding an 's' to the names of some players, on a basis as random and arbitrary as the way we decide some assistant managers are the abject servants of Beelzebub, a la Bobby 'Cummings' Cumming, Graham 'Rodgers' Rodger and Joe 'Waters' Water. Oh, wait. "By the way," continues Martyn, "will Cod Almighty be making some nice Neil Woods dusters rather than T-shirts? That's how my Mike Newell shirt's going to end up!" One week later getting the Newell shirt to market, Martyn, and Cod Almighty Towers would have been repossessed, leaving us destitute and starving and forced to eat those dusters. Quite fitting really, what with Town eating the fourth division's dust.