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Diary - Wednesday 7 July 2010

7 July 2010

Your original Diary has struck lucky today: the Mariners have signed a player. Scott Garner is a six-foot-two, 20-year-old central defender who has arrived from Mansfield Town. "Having worked with Scott for the past three years I know he has the ability to go to the highest level," Mansfield manager David Holdsworth says of the player, who he was unable to tie down to a new contract. Garner joins the Mariners seemingly without a fee but with an "undisclosed sell-on clause". He has already captained the Stags a number of times and chipped in with seven goals in his 52 appearances for our Conference Premier colleagues (and the closest thing we have to a local rival in this division). Town fans looking for a new Ryan Bennett, then, are quite likely to be all of a flutter today.

This is, for one thing, to forget about how we were all of a flutter on similar mornings last summer - and on many other occasions in recent years - only to be disappointed over and over again as the culture of failure that has become embedded under the chairmanship of John Fenty (Con) continues to pull down the club and all who sail in her. More specifically, the Diary can't help being a little alarmed at the ongoing callowness of Town's central defence. If Garner himself has barely put down the Clearasil, Rob Atkinson is still only 23, Mark Gray just 18, and Darran Kempson the old man at 25. Didn't the Mariners' many shortcomings last season include the lack of an experienced head at the back? Wasn't Atkinson all at sea without a seasoned partner? Will all of Neil Woodses' impressive squad building avail nothing without a big, bald, shouty bastard to wear the armband and crush the other team's knackers just by squinting at them?

Mark Hudson has signed a new contract. I thought he'd done that ages ago - didn't you? Whatever. It seems the former Huddersfield and Rotherham midfielder - whose short-term contract expired at the end of last season - will now stay with the Mariners for a further year, most of which he will presumably spend sitting on the bench and wondering why he's not getting a game when the club is about to be relegated and the manager is persisting with a midfield pairing that has utterly failed umpteen hundred times already.

Town's reserve team are going to play against second division outfits such as Leeds, Middlesbrough and King$ton Communications FC again next season, reports the Grimsby Telegraph. I thought John Fenty (Con) had announced a few weeks ago he was going to scrap Town's reserve team - didn't you? Whatever. It's easy to get confused with so many Tory cuts to keep track of.

Rather than drop a division by remaining with the Mariners, Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro has gone up one by signing for Rochdale. The exciting but very much out-of-contract striker has done one to Lancashire's newest third division side, signing a two-year contract and prompting hundreds of bemused shrugs of 'good riddance' from Grimsby folk who have been watching football for many years, perhaps even admiring players such as Peter Beardsley and Teddy Sheringham, without realising that a forward isn't necessarily shit if he scores fewer than a goal every two games.

All of this genuine news, alas, is not enough to stop the Grimsby Telegraph recycling stories from a week ago. Paul Groves has moved from Portsmouth to West Ham, apparently. I know, fancy that, eh? And top comic Steve Evans thinks his former player Charlie Ademeno has made the wrong move because Crawley will finish above the Mariners next season. Saying that, I'm not at all sure that these were picked up by the Diary, either, so there you go. People who live in glass houses shouldn't swing a cat. Oooh, we missed Tommy Widdrington becoming assistant manager at Southend as well.

Anything there provoke a thought? Take pity on the other diarists and give them something to publish by emailing said thought to diary@codalmighty.com. Cheerio!