Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 22 December 2010

22 December 2010

The cold weather continues, then. The snow still falls. The crystals of ice on the ground and the windscreens obdurately refuse to thaw. And your original/regular Diary's breath turns to steam in the freezing cold downstairs toilet of my ivory tower. I'm fortunate, because when it's my turn to write something about the football, and I can't because there hasn't been any, the amateur, free-wheelin' nature of Cod Almighty means I can pad it out with all this bumph about crystals of ice. Our professional counterparts over at the Grimsby Telegraph are afforded no such luxuries, and must instead hold fast to their imperative of producing Proper News - or, in the absence of Proper News, something at least resembling it.

So I might go on randomly to tell you, for example, that Baby Diary recently turned two, and can now respond to the question "What's our football team?" with the answer "Imby Town!" While I'm thus indulging myself, those straitjacketed pros at the Telewag have to run what is actually a quite nice piece about the Imby Town players being able to train on the new artificial pitch at Bradley and lots of other stuff that keeps them fit while there's no football. I don't know what a 3G pitch is, but if it's anything like the Diary's spanking new 3G phone, its battery must run out about twice a day on average.

Over on Town's superb new official website there's a free-to-watch video of Town's players making a festive visit to the children's ward at the Dead Princess Hospital. It's very good of them all to do this, of course, and bring a little Christmas cheer into the lives of poorly kids. There are lots of clips of the lads doing the rounds on the wards and then an interview with 17-goal top scorer Alan Connell, who explains: "We're more than happy to do things like this in the community." The video ends, however, before the players leave and the children can be seen asking each other: "Which one was he? The way Town get through managers and players these days, I can't recognise a single one of them from that lot who came round last Christmas."

As to when we'll actually get a game on, Neil Woodses sounds vaguely optimistic about Mansfield on Boxing Day, though he's the only one who does. That Christmas Eve inspection looks increasingly like a way of getting the postponement confirmed as quick as possible so the players and managers can have Christmas Day off, doesn't it?

And that's about that. I'm going off to make lentil soup and cheesy bread. Cod Almighty will do its level best to provide a diary as often as we can over the holidays (and if you follow us on Twitter you'll find out when the diary and everything else new goes up on the site). But from me, in the meantime, have a nice Christmas and I'll see you soon.