Cod Almighty | Diary

They'll be dancing on the streets of Oole

17 May 2017

A stopped clock tells the right time twice a day; Peter Sweeney looked a good signing now and again; and the Football League appears to be doing some very good work with Stonewall to tackle homophobia in the game. It just goes to show you can't be too careful.

A new crop of players has moved up to Town's youth team, presumably from the various age groups that underlie it. These include the son of Terry Curran, the grandson of Alan Buckley, and some lads with the regulation baffling forenames that make you look up from your sandwich with a flicker of anxiety for the future of human civilisation. Your original/regular Diary looks forward to tracking their progress in seasons to come, be it to the threshold of the Mariners' first team or a season-long loan to Skegness Town.

Russell Slade, for his part, has given erstwhile youthers Josh Venney and Max Wright a chance to stay, which is more than most of us expected. A whole generation of Town's young prospects has been at best left in limbo, first by the urgency to bounce back from the Conference at the first time of asking, which went well, then by the resumption of revolving-door managerial appointments at the Theatre of Fish. Whether the new intake will get more of a look-in remains to be seen, but at least Venney and Wright will get a kickabout in pre-season and a chance for Sort It to sort them a new contract each.

What else? Sladeses is looking to bring in new players, and may allow some of the old ones to leave. I know. Bit of a scoop, eh. I read it in the Grimsby Telegraph heard this exclusively from my inside sources at the club.

Worrying talk, finally, reaches us from the east, where Sir John McDermott is rumoured to be leaving Cleethorpes Town, after only a short spell as director of football, to become the new manager of Alfreton. Should the move go through, Macca would follow in a medium-length line of football-type people who have been connected with the Mariners and the, um, and Alfreton in that order. Bradley Wood was there for a bit, wasn't he? I don't know. Didn't Mark Lever go there for a bit before he joined the Post Office? Anyway. Another bit of the Alfreton Town rumour is that colourful former GTFC director Lee Mullen will be investing some of his lottery winnings in the club. So that'll be interesting.

That's yer lot then. Oh, and good luck to Cleethorpes Town in the FA Vase final this Sunday. I hope they win and get a shedload of publicity to really irritate the "urrr, I don't give a shit about other clubs" miserable git collective. Cheers!