Cod Almighty | Diary

Not even mentioning Gary Neville's Qatar £s

10 November 2022

With just ten days until the 2022 FIFA World Cup commences in Qatar, today's Glass Half Full diary can confirm that our own Harry Clifton, recently-ish of Wales Under 21 selection, has not made the Wales squad for the Qatar World Cup and thus will be available for the Mariners' remaining 2022 league fixtures. Wales have division four representation from Swindon and Wimbledon so Harry's inclusion may well have been decided on us not being called Grimsdon. Sort it Hursts - Ed. 

Also, Gareth Southgate is set to name his 26-man England squad for Qatar at around 2pm today. England having seen off Poland, Hungary, and Albania in qualifiers, now get to play Iran, Wales, and USA in their group games. Hmm. Underwhelming. Surely a World Cup in November and December couldn't get more so? Plus, much like transfer deadline day, the media seem intent on portraying the squad selection as an event, even though (a) it is a larger than normal squad, probably favouring the larger nations, (b) based on previous selections, Southgate seems unlikely to spring any surprises and (c) the sole tenuous Town link is ex-loanee Dean Henderson who might get selected as the third or fourth choice keeper.

Anything else new? Well, you may have heard the Mariners won on penalties in that trophy many of us boycott and they now progress to the next round. So far your diarist has mentioned two controversial football competitons to boycott, or at least consider boycotting, and say meh about regularly. Meh.

On Saturday we host Donny Rovers at BP in what is as close as we currently get to a local derby, and it is the first of two successive home Saturday 3pm games. Later today on all the usual channels we may find out whether any of the array of injured Mariners (Taylor, Orsi, Pepple, McAtee, Scannell; almost all of our strikers!) might feasibly feature this Saturday, but don't hold your breath. Experience tells us Paul Hurst will keep his cards close to his chest. Presumably Alex Hunt can return from being pizza cup-tied. 

Has Bim Pepple made the Canada squad? As far as I can see, it hasn't been named yet, but am going to predict that he won't. 

Ah well, UTM, ATAW, see ya Saturday!