Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Friday 17 December 2010

17 December 2010

It's absolutely brass monkeys here in Lincolnshire. Your Guest Diarist, just in from an early morning expedition, has had his arse well and truly frozen off. The chances of a football match being played in the county this weekend are utterly utterly remote. Groundsman Phillips has no blanket of snow, just a pitch frozen solid. The postponement of tomorrow's game against sweet little Forest Green is a matter of inspection formality.

Which is a shame, because the lads who inhabit Cod Almighty towers had finally managed to defrost their own arses and construct an excellent pre-match factfile stuffed with, well, stuff you need to know, and other stuff you didn't know you needed to know. It's a poor substitute for a game, I know, but read it anyway folks.

Encouraged by my own reading of this almighty factfile, I journeyed to the Forest Green website. And came upon a picture of fish, chips and mushy peas to compare with the one offered by McMenemy's which we discussed in some detail the other week. Thankfully our fish is obviously better than theirs and, in fact, the whole Forest Green plate looks like a specimen meal prepared by a sports nutritionist rather than a jolly Grimbarian.

But I digress. More interesting really is the Forest Green statement about Russell Slade-era Town trial reject Lee Fowler, which explains that despite their putting up with his alcoholism stoically, and paying to get his knee fixed, the player has apparently done the dirty on them and talked to other clubs behind Forest Green's back. So they won't offer him a contract. Which sounds like a damn fine decision to me. Plus, if the Forest Green first team squad profiles are to be believed, both he and his brother were nicknamed 'Fowls'. Cue 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' or summat.

Speaking of fully-functioning alcoholics, Barry Fucking Conlon has hit the headlines again, with the Manchester Evening news reporting yesterday that the total bloody idiot has been caught driving while nearly double the legal limit (again) and without insurance. Conlon, who rarely makes the Stockport first team, no doubt went out for a few consolatory pints afterwards: good old Barry - full of yarns, full of escapades, full of beer. Lazy, full of shit and just about all washed up. Enjoy your retirement.

Elsewhere on the quite lovely Forest Green site is a piece which baldly but honestly explains that the team are not going to waste money by bothering to travel up to Grimsby on Friday as "the Grimsby pitch is currently frozen solid and not covered". Neil Woods laboured his way through another pre-match preview video in which he explained that he liked to spend Christmas Day with his family so would be trusting the players not to over-indulge and giving them the day off too. I will spare you, gentle reader, a precis of the rest of his preview - same-old same-old. As are the Telegraph articles where players (Peacock - "I'm a striker, I really really am and I have no plans at all to retire: Kempson - "I'm glad Watty is still crocked") explain that 'we've-been-a-bit-shit-lately but-are-raring-to-go, honest'.

The Boxing Day game, weather permitting, will be played at Field Mill as our opponents have finally managed to shame the ground 'owner' into allowing them to play there. Which, considering Mansfield Town seemingly paid him a huge dividend to facilitate him buying their own ground off them seems only fair really. You just can't make modern football up, can you? See yer.