Cod Almighty | Diary

The Mendonca Arms? Mine's a pint

23 October 2013

At the weekend your London Diary was chatting to a lovely lady from Doncaster who revealed upon seeing the Grimsby Town pin badge on my coat (hello ladies), that she used to date ex-Town player Marcel Cas. I asked what he was up to now. The Yorkshire lady said that he was now working with the backroom staff at "some football club in Holland". A quick Google search shows that this might be Feyenoord. Good on him.

Now, I have a little obsession with ex-Grimsby players and what they are up to post-playing. And I know that this has been covered briefly in the past by various CA diaries. But I'm going to reignite it. The fine blog Too Good To Go Down tweeted yesterday that ex-Town YT Giovanni Carchedi now owns his own coffee shop in Lincoln. He's not wrong – here he is showing his spread.

I also know that Ashley Hildred, a YT at the same time as Carchedi, is now a fireman in the Lincoln area while also playing for the English Fire Service. And surely you all know it recently emerged that Super Clive Mendonca now works at the Nissan factory up in Sunderland. I spent two years trawling pubs in the London area based on a tip-off that he had his own boozer down here. So, know of any ex-Mariners in new jobs? Seen Tony Crane pilfering stock at Greggs? Bumped in to Tommy Forecast at the Lurpak factory making a new set of gloves? Send them in here.

Hopefully we'll be able to keep Andy and Andi (Cook and Thanoj, come on guys) in Town tops for a little bit longer too, but they’re not playing and people are getting worried. I say calm down, but not in one of those godawful horrific "keep calm and ca..." I can’t even bring myself to do it. Yes, they're rusty, but we have oil. It'll all be fine. He says. Have a beauty of a Wednesday; it's nearly Thursday.