Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 1 July 2010

1 July 2010

Your Idle Diarist was greatly looking forward to opening his email inbox today. The bank's giving me some money back, I'm waiting on some potentially exciting Job News, and no doubt there'll be info on Town's fixtures for the coming season. And sure enough, there was an email titled "Fixtures Out Today". Forget snagging £15 back from the Halifax. Forget the offer of moving up in the employment world. This - this! - was what I wanted.

I shouldn't have hoped so high. In keeping with the recent seasons' disappointments on and off the field, the club saw fit to send me this - this! - fucking pointless mailer.

'Today' in the subject line, 'this afternoon' in the emailer. When, Town, when precisely? We're 75 minutes into the afternoon as I type this and still they haven't arrived. And if you're going to get a sponsor for those "newsflashes", at least make some bloody effort.

Luckily the precise time is on the Football Conference's website: 3pm. Load up the SNOS in your browser ready, set your watches now, and hammer that refresh key on your keyboard come three o'clock, yeah? At least the club can then claim they had a stupid number of page impressions today.

While reading that did you absorb the reason why the Conference is announcing the fixtures early?

"Most football supporters will now have a free World Cup weekend, the Football Conference felt it would be prudent to allow fans the opportunity to have them a few days earlier and to look forward to the new season with relish, rather than bemoan England having already returned home from South Africa."

Aaaawwww, come on! Most real football supporters won't have a weekend free from the World Cup. Most real football fans will be taking in the World Cup quarter-finals. Come on Conference officials! We thought Town would be dropping to a level where there is a higher level of commitment to football supporting, leaving all those, erm, plastic fans behind to their Football League! Real fans who care whether "lesser teams" like Paraguay can make the semi-finals in South Africa.

Still, "Fixtures Out Today" is somewhat better than the "Charlie Set For Town" email sent out by the club earlier, an email which had this Diarist thinking that last season's rumoured drink-fuelled excesses would look lame in comparison to a sudden uptake of Colombian marching powder down at Cheapside. I'm above cocaine-related quips, but feel free to think of your own at this point.

Thought of one? Is it good? Let us know at diary@codalmighty.com, and let Guest Diary be your joke adjudicator tomorrow.

Anyway, the Charlie in question - you will be relieved/disappointed to learn - isn't Neil Woodses new-found need to have Town's players snorting a line before they run out to Up the Mariners next season, just the recruitment of "highly-rated young striker Charles Ademeno". The QT is that out-of-contract striker Ademeno started his career at Southend, before falling a couple of divisions to put in 31 games last season for Steve "Eyeliner" Evans at Crawley Town. He bagged 11 goals in those games, which seems a decent return. "[Crawley] offered me a new deal but I turned it down. I just wanted to play at a bigger club. Grimsby is a big club in this league," claims Ademeno, simultaneously instilling a sense of fear at all the "big fish" witticisms from lazy writers we'll probably now have to endure.

The Riby Square Rag also confirms Woodses has made a move for ex-Scunny defender Nathan Stanton, but apparently there's interest from League clubs. Which sounds more like a ruse by Stanton's agent to hike up his client's weekly wage from Big Fish Grimsby. Gah! See how easy it was to fall into that trap? Still, if Town put in a top drawer performance they could then be Five Star Big Fish Grimsby. Get it? Big Fish? Five Star Fish? No?

I'll get my coat.