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And while we're at it, I need a new cardy

25 July 2013

Stuff! There's stuff happening! I like stuff! Do you like stuff? Stuff!

What sort of stuff? Player stuff. We all know Town are going to sign Chris Doig, don't we? It's been sounding to your original/regular Diary very much like Shorty and Shouty made up their minds on both he and Paul Bigneau straight away, and the trials have just amounted to the going-through of so many motions. "Doigy is an ongoing situation," says one of the gaffers, curiously. I think this means "we're still interested". A centre-half pairing of Shaun Pearson with Bigneau or Doigy will have its work cut out to outperform one of Pearson with Ian Miller, but we'll all keep an open mind, won't we? "It's no secret that we'd like another couple in – maybe three," adds Shorty, hopefully with a view to adding depth to the playing squad rather than spice to the bedroom.

So not just Doigy, then. There's that lad who was in goal for Scunny, as well, who will presumably be ready to sign up on some kind of internship arrangement to bypass the minimum wage. And beyond that? Have we reached that 20-man squad limit yet? Or was it 18? Are season tickets still selling better than last year? With no obvious back-up for Aswad Thomas and no left-footed wide midfielder in the squad, our management duo is clearly looking at a three comprising:

  • Doigy
  • that lad who was in goal for Scunny, or someone else who will wear gloves cheaply
  • Darren Barnard

What other stuff? Not only player stuff, but match stuff. The Mariners have arranged another friendly, against one of the 1,013 other clubs in Lincolnshire called GTFC. On Saturday 3 August our heroes will travel to the other end of the county to face Grantham Town. The newly superb new official website explains: "The game follows the friendly at Gainsborough the night before, but Town joint boss Paul Hurst says that it is just what the Mariners need and they will be fielding two different teams." What could possibly go wrong?

One of those two teams will, one imagines, be like the "strong Grimsby Town XI" which the Horncastle News tells us won 2-1 at Horncastle Town last night. By which I mean such a strong Grimsby Town XI that the NSNOS has not only declined to carry a report on the match but refused to acknowledge that it took place at all.

That's all from me, then, and indeed all from Cod Almighty in the design that has served us all well – or at least OK-ish – since 2002. Tonight, laaaaaaydeesangennulmen, we press a button and CA2.0 springs into life, dazzling millions with beautiful, cutting-edge, mobile-optimised design and prompting everyone to moan that they liked the old one better and they can't find the Diary. We've been working on it for ages (well, Mark has) so it's quite exciting and a bit nerve-shredding, like the night before you move house. So bear with us tonight – the site will be down for an hour or two while everything moves across (and maybe we'll tweet to tell you when the new one is up). We hope you like the redesign but, true to Cod Almighty's cherished traditions and organisational values and beliefs, we're not that arsed if you don't.