Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 9 July 2013

9 July 2013

Your original/regular Diary likes it when a midfielder gets the number 4 shirt and the centre-halves 5 and 6. It reminds me of Joe Waters. Not that I harbour any decades-old misgivings against Clive Wigginton and Dean Crombie, but y'know. Joe Waters. Why am I on about this stuff? Because it's that day in the countdown to the new season when our football club announces which players will wear which shirts when the news season begins. Yeah, squad numbers! It's one of those announcements that will doubtless leave non-football supporters mystified as to what we see in the minutiae of the game. And to be fair to them, Gary, I'm as baffled as anyone as to why I should care which company manufactures the bloody kit.

But it's the squad numbers! Yeah! Complete with requisite cliché about "the coveted number 9 shirt"! (It's Andy Cook.) Town's official announcementshows no name against numbers 1, 6, 12, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 25, while Andi Thanoj's name appears in red. The blanks are doubtless because more players are yet to arrive, while red presumably indicates 'excellent youth team graduate likely to be frozen further out of first team due to budgetary constraints, relentless physicality of English football and supporters' demands for instant promotion, eventually to be released on free transfer, signed by Lincoln, released again, play for two east midland clubs on part-time contracts, and then jack it in to take a dual degree in physiotherapy and futsal'.

So, Alex Rodman. Who is he? He is Town's new signing. He is number 23. He is one of those players who did well against the Mariners in our first couple of seasons in non-League, who make you think "oooh, he's good, we should sign him". He is a goalscoring winger, previously of Tamworth and Aldershot, with a loan spell last season at York. He is going to play for us in a mystifying and endless sequence of rotation with Joe Colbeck and Scott Neilson. He is UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES GOING TO BE THE NEW LOUIS SOARES.

He is also going to take part in the Mariners' first pre-season friendly of 2013. Rodman may be upstaged at Cleethorpes Town tonight, however, by the presence of what the Grimsby Telegraph clearly relishes calling "a mystery trialist", who has got everyone else saying "this one must be a centre-back, surely?" Don't be so sure, people. On the evidence of last season the Diary still expects this evening's masked raider to be a striker, a further two strikers to be signed before the season begins, and another four strikers acquired on loan at various points throughout the 2013-14 campaign. See you at Bradley Community Stadium!