Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Wednesday 4 November 2009
4 November 2009
If no news is good news, then Deadly John's eventual choice as the 39th manager of Grimsby Town Football Club in the last hour will surely be an inspired one. Sixteen days after the bizarre sacking of Mike Newell, there's little sign that an announcement is close, and the chairman is continuing to make delighted noises about the caretakership of Neil Woodses, which has so far yielded one point from a possible six, and even that needed a 95th-minute equaliser at home to Accrington Stanley. Supporters continue to be divided by the prospect of a return for Russell 'Sort It' Slade, who has not so much thrown his hat into the ring as pretended to drop it by accident in a vaguely ringwards direction. "If God had meant football to be played on the ground, he'd have put grass on the pitch at Spotland," said one advocate of Slade's direct style of play. "What does Slades know about football? He's just a bald schoolteacher," said a second Grimbarian, gazing enviously at the successful team just up the A180 managed by a bespectacled physiotherapist.
What would you all think about Paul Groves, anyway? Email the Diary and talk.
It's that time of year, meanwhile, when Town do the books and there's a nice sit down and a chat with the placeholder yes-men who rubber-stamp everything John Fenty (Con) asks them to. Directors, that's the fella. This year the AGM will be on 27 November, giving both of those involved a bit more time than usual to get their Christmas shopping done afterwards. The accounts for 2008-09 have been posted out to shareholders, but anyone who wants a look can apparently just follow this link and click on 2008-09. Salient points seem to be that the club lost £602,000 last season, following the £147,000 profit of the previous year, despite running costs barely changing from one year to the next: this is what happens when you're careless enough not to reach the final of the Dulux Cup. Overall debt is up from £1.7m to £2.4m - a rise of around £700,000, which the Diary seems to recall is around the same amount that the club has chucked away on consultancy fees and stuff for the Fentydome, coincidentally. The directors' shareholdings are unchanged, as follows:
| Director | Shareholding (£) |
| John Fenty (Con) | 212,889 |
| MC Chapman | 500 |
| J Elsom | 500 |
| P Furneaux | 500 |
Can anyone remind me why the supporters' trust isn't allowed a place on the board?
Lastly today, Town's much-vaunted youth team have been knocked out of the FA Youth Cup by York City, which sounds like a bad thing but in fact leaves them free to concentrate on the more realistic target of the Midlands Floodlit Cup. If you think the Premier League is a stitch-up for the rich, it's nothing compared to the FA Youth Cup. The Myspace Mariners have less chance of winning the FA Youth Cup than the senior side have of lifting the FA Cup. The FA Youth Cup isn't for the likes of us. It's for clubs that have the ability to get Jack.