Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 29 April 2004

29 April 2004

Town fans who have 40 quid to spend, who don't mind Nike's links with sweatshop labour, and who aren't good enough at sewing to buy a Barca away top for £13.80 and stitch a GTFC badge onto it, can now pre-order the new Young's shirt online at the club shop. The new away kit is soon to follow, and word is that the design is "like Brazil but with black instead of blue". First, though, the initial consignment of 600 black and white beauties is on its way to Blundell Park as we speak, and it is to be hoped that somebody can answer the door so that they don't suffer the same fate as two of the Diary's birthday presents last Saturday, which, after I'd legged it up to Manchester for the weekend, were left sitting on my doorstep by the postman until I arrived home at about seven o'clock on the Sunday night. Sorry - it just really annoyed me.

"A young Grimsby Town Reserves side were easily overcome by Doncaster Rovers this afternoon," reports Town's official site, and if you go back to the main page from the page that says it then you will learn that it said it yesterday. The match appears to have taken place at Blundell Park, with Mickael Antoine-Curier again named in the second string - either because he still needs to prove that his ankle can withstand the rigours of a first-team match or because Nicky Law has finally realised that he's crap - together with somebody called Hackney. With Paul Fraser having returned between the sticks, meanwhile, trialist keeper Brett Chittock has either gone back to Spalding United or melted.

With only two wins in his ten matches as Town manager, Nicky Law may be teetering on the brink of a chasm of despair and nasty spiky things, but as the Diary's mum said when I cried all night after being dumped by Michelle Stewart for the third time, there's always somebody worse off than yourself. Hope for Nick, then, might be found in the salutary example of San Marino, who have just emerged from a far worse spell of form, ending a 14-year winless run with a 1-0 win over Liechtenstein last night. "I'm delighted to have scored the winner," says SM striker Andy Selva, who scored the winner. "It's a historic goal for San Marino and also for me." Mickael Antoine-Curier is believed to be already scouring his family tree for a Marinese great-uncle.

Email reaches the Diary from Séan Carr, who has been to try out the translation website that reveals a Danish word 'grimsby', meaning 'ugly, nasty, bad'. "I now have to send an apology to my learned friend Richard who has a 'proper' degree in archaeology," writes Séan, "although he has barely done a week's work in his 33 years." Much like the Diary, then. Go on. "He told me in 1997 that Grimsby was Viking for 'village of the ugly people'." Well, the Vikings clearly knew all about Nicky Law's preferred style of football.

Well, goodbye again. Guest Diary is away tomorrow doing his mum's garden, so I dunno who you'll get. It could be me. It could be you. It could be Mickael Antoine-Curier, for that matter; he can't be much worse at writing than he is at playing centre-forward.