Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 13 June 2011
13 June 2011
The Grimsby management duo arrived at the club in a hail of self-generated publicity, mainly created by acting like intense, driven professionals in a part-time world that had had the spirit leeched out of it by crookedness, punishment and failure. It's like a top formula one driver unexpectedly finding himself in last place - the first dozen cars he has to overtake are a relative piece of piss. Then it starts to get much harder. And from fifth to first requires the whole package. To have stayed and seen Boston promoted back into the Conference proper would have shown real class but, alas, we'll never know if the pair of them could do it.
Since they swept in to Town the managers have stomped on the training ground (too hard); they have ripped up the scouting manual (having experienced ex-professionals watch players at matches is 'antiquated', apparently); they have huffed and puffed about the need for a winning mentality (doh!). So their new challenge is similar to their last one, but with a bigger, dafter budget. And their 'refreshing', 'exciting', intense approach has bowled over the Grimsby chairman to the point where he can't wait to loan the club more money to invest in their kerr-azy ideas.
ProZone is passé; Scout 7 is where we need to be at. Forget those lower-league journeymen who audition well and clutch a well-worn footballing CV but don't stay fit enough or motivated enough to perform reliably. We need fitness, aggression, high intensity. Set the testosterone knob to eleven. Your Guest Diarist, you might have already gleaned, gentle reader, is not necessarily the biggest fan of some of these tactics. But I'm willing to admit I could be wrong. And desperately hoping that the next broken-down journeyman at the beginning of the end of his career might turn out to be the next Paul Futcher hasn't really got us anywhere good these last five years or so, has it?
And it is an ill-kept secret, it would seem, that the pair hanker after cherry-picking from the Boston squad. Why do they enthuse about the absolute necessity for a third goalkeeper at our cash-strapped club? Surely it's just not because they like young McKeown who did well for them on loan from Peterborough? I mean, OK, it's one thing to say 'Fingers' Arthur would benefit from competition. But then if you follow that logic then Chairman Fenty would benefit from some proper management competition in the boardroom. And he doesn't seem very keen to let that actually happen, does he? A third keeper, furthermore, negates all the serendipitous fortune from having the luxury of a full-time goalkeeping coach in Steve Croudson and a more than adequate reserve Conference keeper at the same time. Plus a bloke who has GTFC tattoed across every fibre of his body. Not, not like Danish bacon, you fool - you know what I mean.
The other player everyone thinks is on the brink of joining Town from Boston is that Shaun Pearson. A centre-half and a bit of a goal machine. A Roy of the Rovers type who wins player of the season where'er he roams (Spalding, Stamford, Boston (twice)). Pearson is out of contract and has gracefully declined the offer of a new, improved contract from the Pilgrims. But the problem is he's under 24 so Town can't snap him up without having to talk to, and pay, Boston. And that's a bit tricky because Chairman Fenty trampled all over honest broker Boston chairman David Newton in his undignified scramble to sign fifth-choice managers, ermm, wotsit and thingy last spring. It's karma, John, karma.
I used the word 'serendipitous' earlier, not something of which I make a habit. But just before writing that tricky penultimate paragraph I checked the Diary inbox only to find a delicious slice of polemic from none other than Pete Brooksbank, Boston fan. So I can disappear now to bake some bread and fulminate in the kneading while you, gentle reader, can enjoy this tale about the publishers of the Grimsby Telegraph. See yer.
Dear CA,
This isn't really Grimsby related, but I know you love your Superb New Websites so very dearly. Having seen that Steve McClaren has been appointed the new Forest boss today, I attempted to navigate to the Nottingham Evening Post website for some local coverage of the story and see how many Forest fans were angry that the club had failed to resurrect Brian Clough through the miracle of DNA cloning. What greeted me was Northcliffe Media's monstrosity of a redesign. I urge you to go check it out. It looks like a naff, and completely broken, generic Wordpress template installed by a brain-damaged Tellytubby hooked on ketamine. It's car crash stuff.
On the front page there are six, or maybe seven, links to the story - two of which are completely duplicated - placed at random points across the page alongside articles published days ago, adverts for a steakhouse, uPVC patio doors, out-of-date reader comments in 890-sized font on greengrocers pulled from unknown corners of the site and the occasional house listing. On the right there is what looks like a scrolling clickable news headline ticker. Except one of the headlines is entitled simply 'Layaways' and in fact links through to an advert. I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on. I doubt readers of any of Northcliffe's other 'This Is' disaster zones do either.
I know local journalists get a hard time on these pages but I think this absolute catastrophe of a website underlines what a demoralising job it must be at times. With paper sales plummeting and their parent companies making such a dreadful job of embracing the internet, it's not a job I'd fancy doing, especially if, thanks to a unfathomable content management system designed by complete imbeciles, my brilliantly written investigative story about how much Forest are going to have to pay off Billy Davies appeared second to a reader's 150-word blog about how stodgy the cake was at the recent Arnold Model Boating Club.
It's truly astounding and very depressing. I can only assume that, having taken something that was already pretty ropey and somehow contrived to make it even worse, Northcliffe Media have simply followed the trailblazing exploits of John Fenty. Whatever you say about the guy, don't ever suggest he's not got influence.