Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 31 August 2011

31 August 2011

When your original/regular Diary saw the headline "Mariners Looking To Bolster Defence" on the Non-League Daily this morning, my heart sang like a bird. But it turns out, of course, that Messrs Shorty and Shouty are in the market only for some temporary cover while their two first-choice full-backs are crocked. One of the bosses is in the Grimsby Telegraph today explaining that without Gary Silk and Lee Ridley (and centre-half Scott Garner), "(Bradley) Woody is being asked to play left-back and Charlie (I'Anson) is a centre-back playing right-back." It remains uncertain whether the sections in parenthesis were inserted by Telewag sub-editors, whether the Telewag even still has any sub-editors, or whether Shouty was doing air punctuation with his hands while he spoke.

Whatever. It's clear that the world should not be expected of a back four comprising I'Anson, Pearson, Kempson and Wood. But not just because two of the four are out of position. There's no settling presence there, no great years of experience. At 26 Darran Kempson is the oldest of the four by some way. The Mariners have four very able centre-backs indeed. But none of them have that ability to organise, to calm, to command. And, where necessary, to intimidate. That's why there's still panic and terror every time we lose the ball. It's no coincidence that over this decade of despair, the closest Town have come to not being shit was when Justin Whittle and Jones the Stick were here to chew up and spit out with aplomb any poor fool who threatened the GTFC goal.

So Tyrone Thompson has left. This frees up some of that fackin' money which Shouty says there isn't any of but Deadly John (Topcon) insists comprises a very competitive non-League budget. And what are the managers going to do with it? It looks like they're going to loan a full-back.

They shouldn't. They should sign some massive bloke to play in the middle of the defence instead. You know it. I know it. In their heart of hearts, too, I think Shorty and Shouty know it. With just a few hours of the transfer window remaining, the Diary's most earnest wish is that our managers turn all their fabled computing resources to identifying and acquiring some gnarled old bastard in his mid- to late thirties, with 400 games to his name for some shit club like Cheltenham, the few remaining functional follicles on his head shaved down into whimpering submission, a voice like a detuned air-raid siren, tattoos on his tattoos and muscles in his piss.