Cod Almighty | Diary

You may be able to see the future, but can you find anything on the official site?

16 October 2018

Readers of Middle-Aged Diary's age will remember Jamie Pollock quite well. He was a regular presence in the 1990s, for Middlesbrough, then Bolton, Manchester City and Crystal Palace. Whether his performances against Town were especially good I don't know, but naturally when an XI of fishy-sounding footballers was called for (and it was called for, often) he was the first name on the teamsheet.

It may have been the prospect of the "Mariners reel in Pollock" headlines that led him, after he had been training with Grimsby, to end his full-time career. Unlike Malcolm Partridge, who is said to have told his son Scott not to sign for us, he does not seem to have passed on any grudge to his son. Mattie Pollock is a youth and reserve centre-half who last week joined the squad that played at Doncaster. It is quiet at the moment, so the official site has devoted an interview to the experience.

It is very quiet at the moment. There is also an interview with Brandon Buckley, who came on as a sub in the same game. As an interviewee, Buckley reminds you that the foundation of his grandfather's teams' pass-and-move purity was a tight defence. Brandon gives nothing away.

In the 1990-91 promotion season, only George Graham's Arsenal conceded fewer goals than the Mariners in the Football League. One of the men responsible was goalkeeper Steve Sherwood, the subject of yet a third interview. From the moment he says how nice it is to come back to places where he had a lot of enjoyment, pauses, and then adds: "Most of it was enjoyment", Sherwood seems like a man with tales to tell. They don't surface in the constraints of a five-minute, on-pitch interview, but the stories are waiting to be told. If we can raise an audience for Tony Cottee, surely we could raise one for the man whose extendable arms saved civilisation against Exeter at the end of that 1990-91 season. An evening with Steve Sherwood would certainly have me hot-footing it across the Pennines.

More hot-footing is called for this coming Thursday. Riverhead Coffee (the Grimsby one) is hosting a Poetry Supper as part of the Best Words programme. Featuring as it does Cod Almighty's own Pete Green, and Gordon Wilson, whose poems have captured Town greats from McMenemy's promotion team to, um, Danny Boshell, it is a fair guess that there will be a little footy-related and Grimsby-related material on offer. Book your place at Riverhead Coffee.

To find out about another event, at Blundell Park, from the club site you need to select More > Commercial > McMenemy's, then select the link to McMenemy's own site. When you get there, ignore the link to Events. That just tells you about the evening with Tony Cottee you have already missed. No, without knowing at this stage what it is you actually want to book, you have to select Book Now to find out about a psychic night with Paul Humphries. The evening is obviously only intended for advanced clairvoyants.