Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 1 September 2010

1 September 2010

"We only had him for four games as I recall, towards the end of the '07-08 season. He was a bit 'all over the place' in his debut, a 0-3 panning at already-relegated Luton Town, then we played Millwall at home and he was stood at one side of the goal when Bas Savage was through on goal and he just rolled it past him into the gaping hole. He sort of redeemed himself in a decent display against Donny away (who went up that season) so I'd put the first two games down to massive inexperience and I missed his fourth game, an easy 4-1 stroll against Crewe. A mixed bag I guess."

Those are recollections of Richard O'Donnell, Town's new loan goalkeeper, from an Oldham-supporting acquaintance of your original Diary. The player has joined from third division Sheffield Wednesday for 28 days while Kenny Arthur gets better or the other two goalkeepers in the squad, er, get better. That debut spell at Boundary Park doesn't sound too bad considering he was only 19 at the time, does it? Oh, I don't know. He only has to be better than Tommy Forecast, right?

So that's the transfer deadline passed, with only O'Donnell coming in. Town - and indeed most other clubs, as far as the Diary is aware - remain free to sign unattached players, though, and the window for loans opens again in, um, actually, when is that? According to our friends at Vital Grimsby, sooner than you might think, with a "midfield boss" tipped to be arriving sharpish from Scunny, Nottingham Forest or Wednesday again. If you can shed any light on whatever the rules for loans are this week, readers, please drop us an email to the usual address.

Elsewhere in Grimland, the Mariners have released young midfielder Drew Rhoades and cheerful victim of racist stereotyping Adrian Forbes. The departing duo need not be too downhearted about their future career prospects, though, if the experience of another recent leaver is anything to go by. From redundancy at the fifth tier of English football, Nick Hegarty has landed himself a contract in the Premier League. Granted, it's the Scottish Premier League, and he's on a year's deal at St Mirren, but at least he gets to stay in black and white stripes.

An email to the Diary from David Elvidge wonders whether Hegarty is "treading on hallowed ground" with his new transfer. "What I'm really asking," he continues, "is for you to confirm the thought in my ageing rocker's mind that the great Matt Tees was signed from St Mirren? Come to think of it, was that the time when Matt was the idol of our beloved Blundell Park and Helen Mirren was bursting onto the silver screen? Over to Cod Almighty's archivist." Cod Almighty's archivist just wishes the Mariners circa Tees vintage had aged as well as Helen Mirren, David.

Next up, a quick plug for Around the Grounds, a new book which includes a feature by Cod Almighty's very own Pete Green about why it's better to support a rubbish team like Town than a successful one like Chelsea. The book is actually a guide to the 92 clubs of the Football League, but Pete apparently wrote the piece a year ago and the publishers didn't have the heart to chuck it out after Town got relegated. You can preview the book here and if that floats your trawler you can order it here.

Lastly today, could anyone who was listening on Radio Humberside to Saturday's game at Rushden please email the Diary to confirm or deny that George Kerr really reacted to the announcement of second-half stoppage time with the utterance: "Fuck me! Four minutes!" Goodbye and thankyou.