The Postbag

Cod Almighty | Postbag

Looking a bit peaky

20 July 2012

We've a bumper postbag, turning from the usual close-season ramblings and pre-season hopes to the prospect of a new ground.

To appear on this page, please email postbag@codalmighty.com.

Is Soares still in the building?

Has anyone noticed that the wonderful official site does not currently carry a profile of Louie Soares (and I think never has)? I assume he is still with the club, bearing in mind he is attending pre-season training and is greatly admired by Paul Hurst.

from John Hicks

Letters Ed responds: The official site is now carrying some statistics on Soares, but no picture or biography. Not exactly a profile, but a silhouette perhaps.

This time, more than any other time

Well here we are again, the dawn of the new season. The fixture list is finally out and has yet again shafted us with some truly terrible away trips on a Tuesday night and a season opener against a team that beat us in our last competitive match. It makes me wonder in which and new glorious way GTFC will manage to implode, snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and ultimately fail in gaining promotion.

So on that positive note here are five things I would like to see happen this season: 1. An attempt to play the ball in midfield. Thanoj and Disley are good passers of the ball. Why make them run around getting neckache by hoofing the ball past them so often? 2. Rob Scott to be fined by the club ASAP every time he behaves like a moron on the touchline (should save the club good money over the course of the season IF he isn't sacked by October First). 3. To go at least 10 calendar months without paying off a player. This is a football club that employs COACHES and MANAGERS, try some coaching and management. 4. In order to streamline the all new supporters trust perhaps we can have John Fenty donation buckets in the bars that they will be running on a match day, so prospective new trust members can cut out the middle man and give money directly to John Fenty. That way His omnipotent presence can continue unchallenged. 5. Smashy and Nicey to come up with a formation and game plan in pre-season and then try it out in the friendlies we have arranged rather than the first ten games of the season.

AB caretaker manager by Christmas? He is already "in the building".

UTM

from Gareth Bonner

The boys from Brescia

Ivano Bonetti !!! Yes, by now there must be some kids about 15-16 years old who are descendants of IB. You would have hoped they (boys and girls) were born with that silky touch. I'm afraid if there are any, they have lank hair and are ugly. That's it.

Anyway the match Mariners v W Brom - I forgot how good we once played. Reminisce.

from Janusz Przeniczny, GrimPol

Letters Ed responds: Jan is picking up on the sighting of an Ivano Bonetti T-shirt reported in the Diary on 10 July.

An adoptive

Can we claim Robert Wyatt for one of ours? I know he was born in Canterbury, but for donkeys he and his wife, Alifie, have lived in Louth and for many years they had one of the Fitties. Don't know if he has ever been to Blundell Park though.

If you speak to him, you'll also find that there is a whole subculture of minor music/comedy celebs that have settled in the area.

from Chris Hillstead

Ashes to ashes

My sole link to GTFC is though your superb old unofficial website. Nevertheless, or perhaps due to my exposure to this lone source of GTFC information and opinion, this cannot be a positive sign for the future: "This site (FentyDome II) is not without complexities and substantial consideration has been given to the location and its relationship to the crematorium." Crematorium?

from Randy Denton

Letters Ed responds: Indeed, crematorium. Let Jan, eventually, take up the issue...

Funeral at 2.00 pm, football at 3

Those at the CA Soviet Socialist Republic who still believe that the last Labour Gov actually did something good, besides that is, starting two dubious wars, maxing on all credit cards whilst running spendthrift, so much that my granddaughter, now 6, will be paying it off when she trys to have a family, remind me of the old women in Russia who just "lurve" Uncle Joe, forgetting the 50 million dead his system generated. But hey, they are only foreigners so what?

Hell of a digression, but I'm allowed to rant once in a a Blue Moon, whilst thinking about OUR new stadium. The stadium must be true as the Grim Telegraph said so!

Whilst my parents escaped from the paradise that was behind the Iron Curtain, I escaped from much grimmer place, Sunny Scunny, and as boy I remember the roar from the Old Show Ground whilst my mum dragged me round the market EVERY Saturday. I could discern between a score and a miss you know. Now the Old Show Ground was about one mile from the market, and by coincidence, the New Blundell Park (or FentyFolly) will be the same distance from my house, so if I'm not at the game, I can open a window, and whilst painting the bathroom, I'll be able listen to the ROAR, and if the wind is in the right direction Bovril and Burnt onion smells will make me think I'm there whilst listening to the match on the radio. Ahhhhhhh.

But will Bovril, Hotdogs and Puking (Pukka) Pies be on sale? The gentrification of football is steadily marching on; forget the Kop as Pontoon End, it will be the Scartho End, the away end as the New Waltham Stand - much more genteel, do you not agree?

I also checked on the Crematorium hrs (yes I know, but...) and did you know you can be cremated between 10 and 2pm Saturday and Sunday? The 2pm Saturday is handy though, as it's 25 mins for the "service", 10 mins for looking at the bouquets, then you can nip round the corner for the match. Which part of the day you'll find more mournful is anyone's guess though.

Also my wife (nearly a Grimbarian) reminisces that when her Dad took her to the matches as a young girl, she remembers the Pontoon End "full" of people wearing white coats, I assume to do with the fish trade, not the Hospital Supporters Club. It would be real Cool for the kop end to be called the Crem End with people wearing black top hats, black frock coats, and rattles in the shape of little coffins. You've got have a larf eh?

from Jan Przeniczny, GrimPol

Letters Ed responds: My guess is that the Diary reference on 17 July to the Tory-worsened recession is what provoked the first paragraph. Let me just say it is perfectly possible to hate and despise both the current government and the last one. Neither has much to do with any kind of socialism. I think we'll have to agree to differ on politics, but the image of a Pontoon filled with formal funeral attire is enough to sell the new stadium to me.

Thanks to Jan and all our other letter writers. More soon - as long as you email postbag@codalmighty.com.