Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 18 January 2012

18 January 2012

So then, Town have players that other clubs want. More specifically, Town have Liam Hearn that Peterborough want. Posh director of football (whatever that means) Barry Fry has publically declared his love for Liam but doesn't know whether his manager - some guy called Ferguson who might be related to that bloke at Manu - will make a bid for him this month or not.

Fry is what some people call 'a character'. It's a nice way of saying he's absolutely crackers. Your West Yorkshire Diary remembers a time when my grandad turned up at someone's fancy dress party wearing a Nazi uniform with no apparent shame. Rather than ask the awkward question of whether he had well and truly lost it, guests simply accepted this anarchic fashion demonstration and put it down to my grandad being 'a character'.

The problem with 'character', you see, is that it negates credibility. So when Fry has something to say, in his right royal cockney barrel of monkeys accent, it's routinely dismissed as a load of hot air. It's hard to take him, or that mad Irish bloke who owns the club - or the manager - seriously. You'd think they'd be empathetic to our cause, in that we wouldn't want to sell one of our best players during this hideous transfer window, since they're not all that keen on selling lone of theirs. But empathy is missing from the Dictionary of Fry; it jumps from emotion to emperor.

With all this gossip over Liam Hearn's future, we're doing a disservice to other top performers in the Town team of late, one of whom is plucky Conor Townsend. It's easy to forget that before he joined the Mariners on loan in late October the 18-year-old had never played a senior game before. Three months and 17 games later he's only sampled defeat once. He's been there from the very start of this remarkable run, when he made his debut in the 2-2 draw at Bath. Now the Hully-Gully has even got his first senior goal - scored with his 'wrong' right foot (as opposed to his 'right' right foot). Aside from the first-half wobble at Lincoln, Townsend has been most impressive during his time with the Mariners and the deal that secured him on loan until the end of the season could turn out to be one of the best bits of business Shorty and Shouty have carried out.

Do you remember the episode of Father Ted in which Father Jack becomes fond of a brick? The brick ends up saving Dougal's life when Ted puts it on the milk float's accelerator pedal and the vehicle, which was carrying a bomb, crashes into the phone booth where Pat Mustard - the bloke who put the bomb on the milk float because Ted and Dougal lost him his job as the local milkman when they discovered he was the hairy baby maker of Craggy Island - was calling from. And breathe.

Anyway, now that tenuous link is over with, I can tell you that you can put your name on one of the bricks outside the main entrance to Blundell Park. It's the latest brainwave from the club, but it's in the early stages and they don't yet know how much they should charge, so they're leaving it to the fans to decide. At the moment of going to, er... print, the number of voters stands at 61 and just over half of respondents have suggested £20. If you think it should be more, or less, then let the club know on its superb new official Facebook (SNOF) page!