Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Thursday 1 April 2010
1 April 2010
Armchair Diary writes: Unlike last time it was left to me to bring you the daily update on all things Grimsby Town there is bugger all to tell you. I was tempted to make up some amazing story that verged on just the right side of unbelieveable as seems to be the done thing today but I couldn't be arsed quite frankly. Would you believe me if I told you that in the wake of various professional football clubs going into administration this season that every club has had to submit their accounts for inspection by an FA-approved auditor and that irregularities had been found in Torquay's and Cheltenham's books and that each club was due to be docked eight points as a penalty? Maybe you would if I could provide a link to an independent website that carried the story. And if I had the technical know-how maybe I could have set that page up and linked to it. But I don't have the know-how, nor the inclination quite frankly.
Another reason for me not making up potentially believeable stories about our beloved Mariners is the fact that I bloody hate April fool's 'jokes'. The stories that the media churn out as their attempt at hilarity are always so obviously bullshit that it becomes tedious. I haven't checked the Telewag website but I wonder where they are claiming the viking longship is buried this year. It's been under the Riverhead Centre and Grimsby central library so far hasn't it? Maybe they are being inventive and slightly topical by suggesting Austin Mitchell will mount a Labour leadership challenge in a bid to become Prime Minister following the general election. Or have they gone with local schoolgirls to be sterilised at the end of year 10 in an attempt to reduce the teenage pregnancy rate? I'm going to have to have a look aren't I? Oh. I can't find it. Unless it's this story about shoring up the flood defences around the Fitties. Man dies in fire - nope. Tanning salon owners are con artists - that's probably true. A new ride at Pleasure Island. Sheesh, is that place still open? I've never been because it looked shit but for them to be investing more money it I guess someone must be going there, probably all those 'comforts'.
Even though neither me or the Telewag can muster up a decent April fool's story that doesn't mean they're not out there. And today they are the closest thing we have to news. Would you be taken in by a report suggesting Blundell Park is balanced on little more than a delicate layer of earth above a huge underground cavern? Of course not, because that cavern wouldn't exist, it would have been flooded by Chapman's Pond - duh! And if that story by Phil Friatters (an anagram of April The First) wasn't bad enough for you, how about the Mariners and Lincoln merging to form AFC Linby? The story was vaguely plausible right up till the point when it suggested that given the choice of chairmen the new club had chosen John Fenty. Are things that bad already? It got worse then the police spokesman they quoted called the local 'hooligan firm' the CPB. That'll be Cleethorpes Peach Batrol will it?
Some genuine, real, verifiable news now. Town are expecting a decent crowd for tomorrow night's fixture against Northampton. That's tomorrow night, not afternoon. I'm not quite sure why the club are emphasising this point so much. I thought if you played football on a Friday, even if it is a bank holiday, that it was mandatory to play it at night so it's inconvenient for everyone. Mind you, when was the last time Town could be accused of playing football on a Friday night?
One of the comments on that Telewag story about the crowd for the Northampton game suggests we get better gates for 3pm kick-offs, and especially so on bank holidays. I wonder if this is true. I also wonder if there is some way to measure whether there is any correlation between the crowd and Town's performance. If only our stats guru hadn't buggered off halfway round the world...