Cod Almighty | Diary

Show me my reminders

26 July 2017

The Greater Grimsby plan announced this week, if it comes to fruition, will see the greatest ever investment in our town's economy, infrastructure and housing, creating more than 5,000 jobs and more than 7,000 new homes. The potential boost to local industry could top £200million. There'll be a complete regeneration of Grimsby's long-neglected waterfront areas, from the town centre to the docks. Economic opportunities emerging through the port of Grimsby and the green energy sector will be optimised. Key heritage areas will be preserved with new developments on the table in higher education, sport and leisure.

The plan has been 18 months in the making at North East Lincolnshire Council, which has been building support through partnerships with influential figures in government and industry. During this time Grimsby Town Football Club, who are run by a member of North East Lincolnshire Council, have inched forward with plans for a new stadium out on the margins of the town, geographically disconnected from the Greater Grimsby plan in every way imaginable.

Still, you have to laugh, don't you? I enjoyed Makeshift Diary very much yesterday on the solemn ritual surrounding pre-season friendlies, which partly belies their insignificance. Normally you feel at least slightly impressed if an away team brings 800 fans to Blundell Park. If anything, though, your original/regular Diary felt a bit sad for them and the similar number of Mariners who ambled along the other week for that kickabout against Barnsley. Surely there were nicer things to be doing on a fine Saturday in July.

Then one of the Barnsley fans collared me on the Transpennine Express to tell me I'm a dead ringer for Ian McCulloch out of Echo & the Bunnymen. It was a strange day really. I think I laughed at some point. It's about ten years since I last went to a friendly.

So have we signed Karleigh Osborne or not? Town's newly superb new official website is keeping schtum on both this and the fact that his namesake Jamey was hobbling around BP on crutches last night. Karleigh appears to have a name and number on his shirt, though, and Slades is telling the Telegraph he has his man, so that'll do us. If you're anywhere near the Grimsby Road this afternoon, do your club a favour, pop in and share the news with their backroom staff, and they might announce it before the transfer window shuts.

Akheem Rose, Ahkeem Rose, what's going on with him, nobody knows. Except possibly Neil Woods. Town's newly superb and notoriously reticent new official website has not said a word about Rose's mysterious absence from the pre-season fixture programme. To its credit, the Grimsby Telegraph has at least asked the question – only for Neil Woodses's response to leave us deeper in the dark than ever. "He's not quite right at the moment," the youth team boss explained without explaining. "From different areas, it's got to be right for him to play at the right time." Don't know about you, but I'm keeping my stakes low if I'm ever round a poker table with Neil.

So the football club has been scooped twice by the local paper – and once by the Fishy, where fans started discussing the club's new security measures on the gate several days before the club itself deigned to reveal them. "Any supporter with a bag will be asked to open it and potentially remove items so that all contents are visible and can be seen by safety stewards," explains an item on the SNOS. "At least for the first game of the season, anyway, and then we'll just forget about it and carry on like before, because that's the completely half-arsed way everything happens in North East Lincolnshire generally and Blundell Park in particular," it should probably add, but doesn't.

In one final disappointment today, it is heartening to discover that in addition to the bag searches, "exit gates will remain closed for the full duration of the match" – only to then read that "safety stewards will cover these at all times so that supporters can leave at any time that they wish".

Here was a golden opportunity to end the regular humiliation of half the home support leaving BP with ten minutes of the game still to play. You can announce or not announce all the Karleigh Osbornes you like, but nothing would make me happier than a strictly enforced policy that anyone at a Town match in a Liverpool/Man U/Man C etc etc shirt will be forced to sit in the Osmond, and all the would-be early leavers will be forced to stay until the end, whether they like it or not. Those people are the real terrorists.