Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 20 June 2012

20 June 2012

The Mariners have today signed former Bradford City and Hereford United winger Joe Colbeck on a two-year deal. He comes with a good pedigree of Football League experience and, arguably, has his best years ahead of him. At 25 I'd say most footballers have the best years ahead of them - unless you're called Owen Hargreaves, of course.

So what do we know about Colbeck? Well, he hasn't scored against us. He has? Oh. Well, that was predictable - about as predictable as finding out that Tom Newey was named Cod Almighty un-man of the match in the same game, for allowing Colbeck the freedom of the Parade to smash in a last-minute winner.

So we don't know a great deal about him, other than he's scored against us - and who hasn't? The news of his signing stimulated a flurry of activity between various CA diarists during their day off as they scurried around to get comments from those who have seen the Bantams' former player of the year in action. In order to avoid the same fate as Tom Newey, then, it is my duty, as your West Yorkshire Diary, to stick to my job and bring you up to speed with what has been discussed.

Bradford fan Leon out of ace indiepop combo The Hobbes Fanclub says about Colbeck: "He's a tricky winger, quite slight, can't remember if he's especially fast. His best years at City came as I became a dad and stopped going I'm afraid. I think he should do OK in the Conference - he's played all his career in the third and fourth divisions.

"What I do know is he is a perfect example of what happens to promising (local) youngsters at Bradford City. They break into the team, we pin all our hopes on them, they turn out to be perfectly good players, they have a great season, usually winning player of the year (see also Luke O'Brien and James Hanson), then the crowd (or a large section of) turns on them for 'getting too big for their boots' etc when they understandably fail to play two amazing seasons in a row as a teenager." That sounds familiar (naming no Danny Butterfields - er, I mean names). Leon's biggest endorsement comes at the end, though, when he says: "I seem to remember liking him." Yeah. Our fans seem to like Danny Butterfield too now. Funny, that.

Meanwhile, Oldham fan Jamie adds: "I can probably give you just as good as an account as we signed him from Bradford. He was a bit shit. Headless chicken, big heart but certainly not Division Three calibre. Offload him after your promotion!" Heh, promotion.

The Colbeck analysis continues as various other diarists chip in with opinions taken from friends of clubs that have seen Joey C play. He's "fast but his crossing is poor", he "puts a shift in" and he's a "diagonal winger" - in that he brings the ball inside and heads for the box rather than the bye-line. In the end, he's his own player, whatever that means (I just said it because I had a Clive Tyldesley moment). Now that I've got my cliché hat on, and now that Colbeck is on board, in the building and moving forward, let's see if he steps up to the plate and comes to the party.

Maybe it's the angle from which the photograph was taken, or the shape of his face, but the Grimsby Telegraph's article on Town's second summer signing seems to suggest that he might be taller than 5'9'' and considerably bulkier than 10 stone 9. One thing is for certain, though - he's always going to be popular with the fans if he's going to say things like: "This is a massive club with great support so I'm delighted to be a part of that."

Supporters with a thirst for more signings should 'stay tooned', as those crazy cats at the superb new official website say, because a third signing could be unveiled at any time. When they say 'any time' we know that it'll be the minute after we click the publish button on today's Diary.