Cod Almighty | Diary

You can tell it's Tuesday when Cod Almighty publishes some complete rubbish

22 July 2014

Tonight, Grimsby host Doncaster. Kick off is at 7:00pm, presumably to save on the electricity bill. Coincidentally, this is also the start time for the school play of the son of one of the Cod Almighty team. If someone at Urmston Junior School rises to their feet and punches the air around 7:30, you will know that either a moment of youthful dramatic excellence has just occurred, or Town have scored and someone in Manchester has badly lost his sense of proportion.

New signing Nathan Arnold joins new trialist Jon-Paul Pittman and the two old (though not yet due a testimonial) trialists Joe Ironside and Craig Clay in being available for the match. As you'll have been looking them up on Google just as much as Middle-Aged Diary, let me make like a red-top and bring you 'Ten things you didn't know about Town's new faces'. In best tabloid tradition, these things split between being true but widely known and tendentious to the point of being downright false.

1. Nathan Arnold is "unrecognisable from [the] young Grimsby Town trialist" who took part in that abortive trip to Devon under Mike Newell in 2009. This may be (but, our lawyers are anxious to point out, is pretty well definitely not) because he has given up the strange hobby that led to a la(y)ne being named after him in 1967.

2. A keen student of Greek mythology, Arnold's favourite character is Sisyphus.

3. Denied the chance to spend eternity rolling rocks up a hill, he jumped at the chance to join Grimsby from Cambridge.

4. Despite being born in Oklahoma, Jon-Paul Pittman has an England C cap, won against Italy while he played for Crawley.

5. You will have worked out that Pittman has therefore played for Steve Evans.

6. Pittman's favourite biblical quote is "The manager who sins will die. The player will not bear the punishment for the manager's iniquity."

7. As well as being a professional footballer, Pittman might have made a living as a percussionist.

8. His precocious drumming ability, coupled with a family link to a southern state of the US, has given him the nickname Jon-Paul 'Georgian Ringo' Pittman (don't worry – I'm only here today).

9. Both Arnold and Pittman are quick wingers/strikers, apparently well suited to a 4-3-3 formation.

10. Bookmakers have named Saturday 6 September as favourite for the day the Mariners revert to 4-4-2.