Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Monday 21 June 2004
21 June 2004
The bottom division is no place for the evanescent, as I'm sure Ian Atkins tells his players every week, and so it can be of little concern to Grimsby supporters that their team will kick off their first season in the basement for nigh on a decade and a half without the 'services' of two of the players who took them there: Phil Jevons and Stuart Campbell. Lazy bastard Jevons has rejected the offer of a new contract at Blundell Park to join the Mariners' fourth tier rivals Yeovil on a two-year deal after managing just 18 goals in his 63 league appearances for Town. Blah blah blah, 35-yarder at Anfield, four goals against Barnsley, la la la, whatever. Phil's fellow waster Campbell, meanwhile, is reported to have joined Bristol Rovers after similarly turning down a new deal to do carry on doing chuff all for GTFC. Bye, then, guys. Not missing you already.
After bringing in two defenders in as many days last week, Russell Slade is doing more shoring up than a flood-stricken equatorial coastal village as global warming continues to kick in, and a third such player has arrived at BP for a trial. Paul Gaughan, an economic refugee from Scottish football, has earned his month-long run-out simply by travelling all the way down from north of the border just for a chat with yer man Russ, who says: "He's one of them looking for a break. He's hungry, he's enthusiastic." A 23-year-old centre-half, Gaughan has played for Hamilton and Greenock and looks a sure bet to sow confusion on North East Lincs as to whether his name is pronounced Gorn or Gorgon.
Town's sudden preponderance of centre-backs will deepen supporters' unpleasant sense of foreboding as to Slade's intended playing formation, and a Grimsby Telegraph interview with Greg Young does little today to calm our panic. "The boss is thinking about a different way of playing to that which we were used to under Nicky Law," says Young Greg, "maybe with three centre-halves." Well, if anything is going to sell the new system to fans then branding it as some kind of Nicky Law antithesis will do the job, but the only way the Diary is going to welcome Town playing with three centre-halves is if they can still field two full-backs, two forwards, four across the midfield and a goalkeeper as well.
When bad things happen, weak-minded people who struggle to deal with reality often react by looking back to an earlier time and inaccurately reinterpret it as a halcyon age in which, by definition, no bad things could ever happen. Driven by misguided subconscious impulses perhaps moulded by the archetype of the Christian creation story and humankind's fall from divine grace, they will convince themselves, for instance, that children would never misbehave, burglary hadn't been invented, and every pop record released before 1975 was really good. Town's new "state-of-the-art restaurant and conference suite" to be opened next season is to be named the Lawrie McMenemy Suite.