Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 5 July 2011

5 July 2011

Your Guest Diarist is belatedly here to guide you through the aftermath of the morning and, of course, the night before. We have fixtures, we have a midfield folks. The Town bosses have now signed eight players and got rid of a load more so we can say this is their squad, right? They've signed them early enough to be able to have a more or less full pre-season and they say the Chairman has accepted all their requests with alacrity.

The latest to swallow the shouty-shorty shilling for at least this next season is left-sided player from Brizzle Mr Frankie Artus. His name reminds me of a Tour de France domestique. He is tallish, athletic and comes to us off the back of thirty loan games last season for Cheltenham. The managers say he is versatile down the left hand side or in the centre so I have to say he looks a decent signing on paper. Having just dug and rotavated all morning in the full sun I haven't the energy to go trawling for fans comments but I bet they are split between well-rid-of and well-thought-of so let's just leave it like that shall we?

And I gather Rushden's final capitulation yesterday has led to some fixtures for next season being published. We play Fleetwood at home first. In fact we start the season at home, end it at home to Southport, play Lincoln on Boxing Day and New Years Day, with a total of six league games a month for the first three months. This means Chairman Fenty will know by the end of October whether he's minded for a six month manager change or whether he can go the full eighteen.

There we have it - new signings with the emphasis on ambition, energy, mobility, athleticism. And a big hulk up front. Those of you who asked for these qualities and attributes, well you've got them I reckon. They are a twittery lot too so you can submerge your mind in the banality of their house hunts, their in-jokes and all the other things folk tweet about if you are so minded.

OK gentle reader, my hands are soiled, I really smell and the Tour is on Eurosport so I'll love you and leave you until next time. Mr Diary is back tomorrow, so let's all look forward to that. See yer.