Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 17 January 2013

17 January 2013

The snow on the worldwide web is up to two feet deep. The wind howls mercilessly. The Grimsby Telegraph has published the most pointless article in the history of civilisation.

Good afternoon and welcome to Thursday's original/regular Diary. I dunno about you, but I seem to recall from somewhere that Town are meant to be playing Braintree tomorrow night? Well, there's a pitch inspection today. The Telewag says it's at 4pm. Braintree's local paper, the Daily Gazette, says it's at 5:30pm. It barely matters. Unless you've misread the whole thing and you think the inspection isn't happening until tomorrow.

This is the sort of weather that will have football's great and good calling for a winter break. Let's have a winter break, they say. It'll be good because REASONS. None of which will have anything at all to do with the wishes of supporters. They'll tell us the players need a rest. And then, of course, if they get their way, they'll be using the winter 'break' to enhance their global brand profile by jetting off for a sequence of friendlies in China and Qatar. Then, when they roll out that line "it'll benefit the England team!", well, that's when we know we're being taken for a mug. They used the same argument when they wanted to convince us the Premier League would be a good idea. And look how that turned out.

Richard Whitehouse has emailed in response to Tuesday's diary: "Whilst I quickly guessed who it had been the longest since we last played (Man U), I would suggest, assuming that friendlies do not count, that we have played Everton more recently that we have played Southampton, who according to the Cod Almighty database we have not played since 1978 (friendlies aside). In this timeframe we have played Everton twice. I was pretty confident in this fact as I first saw the Mariners in early 1984 after moving to the area and the only two teams I could never recall us playing were Man U and Southampton... does Stevenage count as a third? Along the way there are quite a few teams that I wished we hadn't played, but those have mainly been in the last few years!"

Thanks Richard. I suppose these kinds of GTFC-related pub quiz questions are made a good deal more complicated since the elevation of Stevenage et al to senior status, while Town (temporarily, of course) replace them in non-League. All the more reason for the Mariners to buckle down and get back up.

Finally today, in the least surprising news of 2013 so far, GTFC have made Greg Pearson, Frankie Artus and Anthony Elding available for loan. At the same time the club has moved swiftly to deny rumours of a bid for Elding by the Tesco butchery division.