Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 29 August 2012

29 August 2012

It's time once again, ladies and gentlemen, to sift through the Grimsby Town cat litter tray in search of any juicy nuggets of news. The cat's bowls haven't been particularly active overnight, in all honesty, but there are one or two fresh bits worth picking out - like Aswad Thomas' and Sam Hatton's call-ups to the England C squad that travels to Belgium next month. The news is so fresh your West Yorkshire Diary can only currently find reference to it on the Luton News website (and Twitter, of course).

Just as I've typed that, the new superb new official site has pushed out a rather sizeable deposit and revealed that Town's youth coach Robbie Stockdale is to become a youth coach at Sunderland. I don't think any of us saw that coming. But Stockdale has performed an admirable job in difficult circumstances. He oversaw the development of Andi Thanoj, Charlie I'Anson and Dayle Southwell, who have all been given first-team opportunities - and one of them may yet prove to be our biggest asset since Ryan Bennett. We wish Sticky Robdale all the best.

It appears Shorty and Shouty are keen on extending loan 'star' Nathan Pond's spell with the club, according to the Grimsby Telegraph. Pond has formed a useful partnership with Shaun Pearson at the back, which is keeping Ian Miller out of the side and denying Simon Ford a chance to take us Town fans down a memory lane that looks less of a lane and more like a badly lit back alley, deep at night, with rats scuttling in between a couple of metal bins that were pushed to the floor by someone running from a knife attack. He partnered Tony Crane, you know. I suppose it wasn't Ford's fault that he had to cover for the one that did his best impression of squeezing two zeppelins into a pair of shorts.

In these times of austerity it makes many of us wonder what it must be like to have a job - and then enjoy it. I mean, really enjoy it. Stevie Croudson - the cat (but not the one referred to in today's diary, I must stress) - is loving life. Good for him. Has it really been more than 13 years since he made that debut against Wolves? Eleventh in the second division - now that is a memory lane I wouldn't mind walking down.