Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 12 May 2004

12 May 2004

More overpriced text messages saying "Phil Jevons" have recently reached Grimsby Town Football Club than bore the name of any other player, and so for his half a dozen decent games in this heartbreaker of a season, the eternally popular Scouse forward has been named 2003-04 player of the year. The reliable defending of Mike Edwards, meanwhile - one of the few recent bright spots in this time of bleakness - saw him named Cod Almighty player of the year at last night's Winter Gardens awards ceremony. The least closely contested of the many gongs dished out appears to have been the young player of the year award, which was claimed at a canter by everyone's favourite variably-haired winger Graham Hockless. "It's been frustrating to be on the bench and only play a bit part each week but that's how it goes sometimes," said the allegedly Doncaster-bound 21-year-old. "I'd like to think I deserved a run but it didn't work out like that with either Paul Groves or Nicky Law." Hockless also scoops today's Diary award for most significant use of the past tense.

On the subject of Law's widely anticipated departure from Blundell Park, which was expected to be announced following today's board meeting, it will not be announced following today's board meeting. "There are no plans for an official announcement after this meeting," says an official announcement on Town's official website, right now. Just get it over with, will you, for heaven's sake.

While the world waits for Michael Boulding to score his first goal for Barnsley - and waits... and waits - two other former Mariners are on their way back out of Oakwell after just one season. Peter Handyside and Tony Gallimore, who both joined the South Yorkshire side on free transfers last summer, are not named on the club's retained list and find themselves free agents once again, raising hope among nostalgic North East Lincolnshireites that the defensive twosome might be persuaded to rejoin GTFC. Yea, even Gally, for after this season of watching shrugging, here-today gone-tomorrow journeymen, even some of the most fervent detractors of the lager-boy left-back can now be heard to utter: "Well, he might have been a crap defender, but at least he was our crap defender."