Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 15 October 2010
15 October 2010
It's Friday folks - a day for your Guest Diarist to clock off work early so I can tell you about the exciting football in prospect tomorrow. And a day to issue a dire warning about what the Tories will unleash on our poor nation next week. Yes, a day for footy and politics, for both are inescapable: as a Town fan you may be stamping your feet in sulky frustration at the club's inability to punch above its weight like it did fifteen years ago: as a person living in Britain you may want to bury your head in the sand and write emails to the Diary exhorting us to stick to football and keep our opinions to ourselves.
But you don't have to agree with us about anything at all, you don't even have to read this - as Mardy Diary recently reminded you, Town news scoops will be few and far between on here and we don't give a toss about ratings. We like football, we like music, we like strong drink and we love Town. Mostly, we hate politicians too and don't mind saying so now and then. And the lot that are in at the moment are about to send the whole country in to cold turkey. For every public service job that goes at least one person in the private sector will go down with them. So at least another million on the dole before a year is out - mark my bloody words. Some of your friends, some of the people you see at the match, some of the people who used to go to the pub, sons and daughters finishing their education with no job to go to. It's going to be rough, so in answer to Armas Best who wrote in - well you've had your answer, my friend. Take us or leave us but believe me, the politics are going to hammer us all one way or another.
Meanwhile the Town squad have spent the week working out where they have been going wrong. Neil Woods, in a pleasing-to-see free interview on the superb new official website, says they have worked on lots of technical stuff which boils down to correcting the players' habit of gambling that their colleagues will win the ball rather than make a mistake. Scoring five goals and collecting one point in two away games is rather self-explanatory really. But the injury and suspended list makes grim reading.
Seven of the first team out: Eagle(s) (suspended), Arthur (80% Woodses says), Ademeno (2-3 weeks away but training with the kids), Coulson (not ready - disappointing progress), Peacock (hamstring), Watt (out for 3 weeks) and Gobern. Poor old Lewis is having a rough time by the sound of it - variously reported as being injured, ill (frequent migraines) and having worrying family problems. On the other hand I found an interesting quote attributed to Mr Woods buried in the Grimsby Telegraph: "Nick Colgan is the same really - he's a few games short but will be back in contention after that." Rapprochement gentle reader? We'll forgive you Nick if you forgive us. Can't say fairer than that mate.
Garner and Atkinson are available so there are adequate choices in defence. And Fuller and Corner might get the chance to be back in the first team squad - especially after Corner scored a couple for the stiffs. But it is up front where you feel we badly need options. It's bad luck indeed to lose Eagle, Gobern, Coulson, Ademeno and Peacock all at the same time. Southport have been having a lean time of it lately but their joint top scorer (Matty McNeil, 3) is back after injury so they are bound to be harder opponents than we expect or want. To find out more I strongly advise you to leave me (see yer) and go directly to the most excellent Cod Almighty pre-match factfile which contains sixty seven per cent information, thirty two per cent jaunty humour and, ermm, one per cent politics.