Cod Almighty | Diary

If I was 30 years younger, I'd want to date Evans of Cardiff who gave Grimsby as a wrong answer on University Challenge last night

21 January 2014

It's Tuesday 21 January 2014, and the hot news from Blundell Park is that there is no hot news.

There is, however, news that is pleasantly warm. The need for a new striker is the subject of a nicely nuanced analysis by Too Good To Go Down. The latest man to be put in the frame is Adam Birchall of Gillingham. The comments that the Telegraph has dragged out of him do not exactly amount to a "come and get me plea" (that phrase is like predictive text during the transfer window, apt to slip out unwarranted). They do suggest he's as happy to come here as anywhere, although Paul Hurst might have to offer a symposium on his footballing philosophy to seal the deal. Either that, or arrange for him to meet fellow Kent resident Alan Pouton for a drink or two.

Barristers, if courtroom dramas are to be believed, are told never to ask a witness a question to which they do not already know the answer. Contemplating an interview in which Lenell John-Lewis was asked how he'd respond to the arrival of Birchall, or any other rival for a first-team slot, one can only wonder if some local journalists might not have missed their true vocation. Suffice to say, LJL did not say he would go into a sulk if a new striker is signed.

"Hereford rearranged" reads the headline on the SNOS, the context making clear that this is not a word game. "Ref: Herod" is the best your Middle-Aged Diary could come up with, suggesting an answer to the question "What announcement in the next home programme would be less popular than Ref: Ross Joyce?" Nor is it news of an exciting initiative to relocate the Hereford Cider Museum next to the cathedral. No, it just means that we'll be playing Hereford on 11 March.

That rearrangement is necessary because of Town's FA Trophy quarter-final against our friends from Tamworth, a match you will be able to watch from the Pontoon, or anywhere else in Blundell Park. Please do not use this occasion to decide you fancy a change of view, leaving Miss Guest Diary and our roving match reporter in inglorious isolation behind the Grimsby end.