The Postbag

The one with the all the links

26 November 2003

Reality cheque

Them letters disagreeing with me right, they'll be sorry when we either lose to Peterborough or go through and draw a tiny team and lose to them. Everyone expects us to get a big team and get the massive gate receipts but I bet we get crap teams and crap gate receipts. Going out in the second round is worse than falling at the first hurdle. By getting past QPR we have give the fans hope that we are 1 game away from playing Liverpool/Arsenal/Man Utd whereas we are actually 1 game away from being drawn against Torquay.

from Mat Hare

Geoff Who-ghes?

Why are you so mean to Geoff Hughes? I'm too intimidated to write anything more.

from Dylan

Letters Ed responds: The harpsichord maker or the artist? Actually, I just reread last week's letters and saw what you were referring to. I can only apologise and try to explain that the stand-in Letters Ed was having a bad day.

Stocking filler

In my local W.H.Smith is the "Match Complete Book Of Football". I checked the index at the back of the book, and under G is there 'Grimsby'? Is there bollocks. Complete, my arse.

from Steveoh

Sweaty tigers

Dave Chambers's letter about Hull and Peter Taylor is bang on the money. It led me to think are Scotland the national equivalent of Hull? Nobody can understand their supporters. Lots of overly expensive players. Lifting the hopes of their supporters with little glimpses, only to have the door slammed in their face just as they think they are about to go through.

from Dave Marker

Stick a stamp on it

Rich Dawson you mad impetuous fool you. The link between successful Town FA Cup runs and D-List celebrities was good but surely the other part of the link is missing this year. The weighty Miss Gee has no connection with the Post Office. There was the singing POSTMAN and Della Draper nee Dolan opened a philatelic counter in the POST OFFICE. Maybe Ms Gee could help the local scouts deliver Christmas Cards before slipping back into obscurity.

from Mr. B.L. Ackandwhite - Barmy

Batting for the chimp

Matt Hare's system predicted a draw:

"But Town should be leaving Griffin Park with a point if my system is to be trusted. In fact my system rates the match at bang on 0. Draws don't come much more definite than that."

Does Matt still trust his system?

from Gary Andrews

Letters Ed responds: Mat's answers: "Where on the site do I spell my name with two 't's, eh? Where? Nowhere, that's fucking where. Yes, Mat does still trust his system. Read the tips, I get about 60% of them right. Overall the system is 43% accurate and getting better as time goes on. I'm not binning a system just because it gets one result wrong. Although the issue of draws is one area I may be looking to improve over Christmas."

Deep philosophy

Why is it these days that everyone has to be an expert rather than just an enthusiastic amateur?

from Charlie Moore

Letters Ed responds: I dunno. Anyone know? Please have an answer?

Media blackout

The division two round up in yesterday's Observer neglected to mention - as seems to be the case every Sunday - Town's result. Is this some sort of north-south thing (a bit like the way Look North is split into seperate east and west editions) or is it just an attempt by the media to ignore Town until we disappear into obscurity?

from Nigel Parker

Letters Ed responds: Been a Town fan long, Nige? The media ignoring us is nothing new, mate. And it's not regional. Even Look North and Goals on Sunday try their best to do it?

What a load of cobblers

Do any of your readers remember Ian Atkins? Atkins was the dour manager of Northampton when Town squared up to them in the play-off final. Not a particularly likeable gent, moulding his teams into an expression of his dourness. Dull his teams might be, but I've just found out that Atkins is currently in charge of Oxford. Oxford are currently top of division three, one point ahead of the continually big-spending and big-failing Hull City. They might be dour but they're not exactly buying their way out of the divison. And pegging Hull back into any position below first place is exciting enough for me.

Another glance at the tables shows that level on points with Hull are Doncaster. Rovers have spent little money but have big hearts. There are some things money can't buy, Peter Taylor.

from Dave Chambers

Odd-shaped balls

Having endured the rugby union world cup final on Saturday I had to laugh when the referee apparently gave the last minute penalty that sent the game to extra time as he felt England had been gobbing off all throughout the match. "This will teach them a lesson." If only they did that in football.

And what is the difference between off-side in rugby union and football?

from Donna Howard

Letters Ed responds: Do you really want to know, Donna?

Monkey business

Has Coco been offered a column in the Guardian? I ask as last Saturday, it suggested Brentford to beat Town as one of its tips of the weekend, on the grounds that Brentford "won the corresponding fixture 3-1 last season". I guess he meant the corresponding fixture six years ago, when Town must have had at least two of the same players (Unless Butterfield was in for Macca) in the line up, so a very reliable form guide. I guess he got the score right.

from Pat Bell

Letters Ed responds: As yet Coco is not writing for the Guardian. But he does take bookings for weddings, christenings and bar-mitzvahs

Iconography

Would like to report two close encounters with cultural/historical icons of the twentieth centrury.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: family in tow, walking through Kings Cross station on a Sunday evening.

Carl Putnam from Cud: receving social security payments at a post office in Leeds.

Neither has - as far as I know - any connections with Grimsby; comparisons between parts of the town and Siberian wastelands being purely coincidental. However, Cud once played the Winter Gardens, as I recall.