Cod Almighty | Postbag

In due course

12 September 2013

If I'm honest I wasn't going to do a Postbag until next week. However, having just received a fantastic letter about Buckley I decided to get off my arse and sort one out.

A right load of trottles

With reference to the mail from Steve, I used to hear the word 'trottles' for animal crap, not trockles! Haven't heard that word being used in nearly 40 years!

from Brian Haire

Fiddling while the pier burns

My father (see earlier about Jackie Bestall and Arsenal) was Grimsby-born and well travelled, often as far as Marshchapel. He gave me some words from the Wolds once. A kenspeckle was the local village idiot, and our doctor once asked a small boy to stick his tongue out – "he means your lollops," the boy's father explained.

On the docks they talked about "getting the cod end" – that was the narrow end of the net with all of the rough stuff, a bad deal roughly like being demoted to the Football Combination. In the days when a bag of fish was the return for a favour when cash would be inappropriate, a GY businessman told me that he only had cod to hand and that "only poor people eat cod, but your wife could make you some fishcakes though"!

"Iced back" as in "held in reserve waiting for a better price or when nothing much was landed" is another I remember. As in "I've got £200 iced back in case we don't sail next week". He used to say that the people who ran the fishing business and the docks were difficult to deal with over money. So no change there then.

Good to see the Pier in the background to the Postbag. I can remember sitting on the beach watching the old one burn down in the summer of 1949. Don't get free entertainment like that now.

from John Darnell

Bucko

I feel compelled to tell you about my life experience of enjoying the football life of the great Alan Buckley.

I was born in Walsall in 1968. My family were a full-on football-supporting family that used to trot off to the match every week. All my friends in the area used to follow the fortunes of Aston Villa, Birmingham City, WBA or Wolves. My family, however, had their feet firmly planted in the Wallows Lane paddock at Fellows Park, Walsall.

In 1975, as a small boy, I recall being taken to Fellows Park to see my first football match. My dad told me about a player that the Saddlers had signed from Nottingham Forest. A small fellow but a giant on the football pitch that would be sure to score a lot of goals. That man was none other than Alan Buckley.

Alan, or Bucko as the Black Country lot used to call him, even had hair in those days. Dad was right, this fella was small. Especially when he used to line up alongside giants like Bernie Wright and George Andrews. Dad was also right about Bucko's eye for goal. He was one of those players that you knew would hardly ever waste a chance. He was Johnny on the spot. Also extremely adept at scoring goals with the overhead kick.

So I grew up watching Alan Buckley as a great player. I enjoyed watching the vast majority of his 200 goals for Walsall. I was in awe of him when he became caretaker manager, player-manager and manager. I also shared the heartache when he left for Birmingham and also when Terry Ramsden bought Walsall from Ken Wheldon and brought in his own manager.

Years later in 1979, my parents purchased a business in the seaside town of Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast. This didn't stop us from watching Walsall. Indeed, we would travel back to the West Midlands every weekend to see the game. But it never really was the same without Alan Buckley, even though Tommy Coakley managed to get us promoted to the old second division for one season.

You might imagine my excitement when I heard that Alan Buckley was to be appointed manager of Grimsby Town, just an hour up the road from our new home in Skegness. That did it for dad and I. We popped off to Blundell Park to see the fantastic brand of football that Buckley believed in. Topped off even with smatterings of old Walsall players like Gary Childs, Richard O'Kelly and Craig Shakespeare.

We have been Grimsby supporters ever since and our enjoyment of everything that Bucko brought to Grimsby is immense.

Aged 16 I was a promising young schoolboy footballer. I broke my leg in two places in a county football training session in Lincolnshire. Back then I had a girlfriend in Skegness who knew of my love of Walsall Football Club and the way I had worshipped Alan Buckley as a player. Being upset for me, she wrote Alan Buckley a letter in Walsall, telling him of my injury and asking if he could organise a signed football for me. To her surprise one day when she got home from work, her parents' telephone rang and it was Alan Buckley who had read her letter. Through my girlfriend he invited me and my father along to Fellows Park as his guest. What a day it was. With my leg in full-length plaster, on crutches, I was greeted at the players' entrance, allowed in the changing rooms before and after the game and was gifted complimentary tickets.

I still feel Alan Buckley has so much to offer the game and often wish that he was Grimsby director of football.

All the best to Alan Buckley.

from Dale Houlston

Letters Ed responds: An outstanding story. Thanks for writing in, Dale.

The great Serge

Via the Grimsby Telegraph website I read that Serge Makofo was once a must-buy player in Championship Manager 4. I am guessing that's how he ended up at GTFC.

Edition: CM4
Position: Striker (mostly)

In the game: Every time you started a new game, Makofo – at then-new despicable franchise club MK Dons – played in a different position, but no matter where you put him he excelled. And thanks to his club's financial problems, you could get him for close to nothing.

In real life: Non-League journeyman, with seasons at such glamorous clubs as Maidenhead United, Potters Bar Town and Grimsby, where he was so awful even the club's chairman called him a "disaster".

from Richard Bull

Shipping Forecast

From the BBC website:

"We've been asked how much money Southampton will make from the Gareth Bale transfer. The answer is absolutely nothing (almost). Saints did have a 25% sell-on clause in the deal to sell Bale to Tottenham, but it was renegotiated when the south-coast club were in deep financial trouble.

"As part of the new deal, Saints got Spurs goalkeeper Tommy Forecast. Daniel Levy is some sort of arch-negotiator."

from Steve Evison

Letters Ed responds: Poor old Tommy. I feel there should be a permanent memorial erected in his memory at Blundell Park. Does anyone have any suggestions on what that memorial should be?

The Saints keep marchin' in

On 19 March 2005 a player by the name Jason St Juste scored against us while playing for Darlo. It was the only goal of the game (back when Darlo used to beat us 1-0 every frigging time and Sam Russell, their keeper, would play a blinder).

According to Wikipedia, that was St Juste's debut goal (and one that won the Quakers' goal of the season award). Mr Butcher didn't make much reference to the quality of the strike in his match report.

After Darlo, St Juste signed for Southampton – and there are plenty of Saints there!

His last known whereabouts were at FC Halifax (although he has played for Garforth again, but only after a short stint in Norway).

from Richard Lord

Letters Ed responds: Good detective work there Mr Lord. I think the 'saint' count stands at about five or six now.

Right... how many Greavsies are there?

That's it for this week. Get writing – you can email or use the feedback form. Come on, slackers.