Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 7 June 2004

7 June 2004

After emerging as one of the club's too few bright points of last season, young Mariners winger Graham Hockless showed recently that his grasp of the workings of modern football is as keen as his eye for goal when a story did the rounds in the media to the effect that Hull City wanted to sign him, despite Peter Taylor's protestations to the contrary. Oddly enough, this 'news' broke in the same week as Hockless demanded more money than Town were offering him with the new contract that was then on the table. Funny, that, eh. Anyroad, it's had the desired effect, as new manager Russell Slade reveals in today's Grimbo Telbo that "Graham has been offered a slight increase on his first offer." Slade "hopes to secure some new faces" this week, adds the paper, which sounds a bit Man in the Iron Mask; there's also a new contract for Greg Young if he wants it, and Phil Jevons, likewise, has only to sign his name for the chance to carry on winning player of the year awards for half a dozen decent games a season.

Those of you wishing to watch Jevons do just that and shuffle unconvincingly through the other 40 will doubtless have your eye on a season ticket. Guest Diary missed the announcement of next season's prices by scant seconds on Friday, but if you haven't already seen them then the tariff makes interesting reading. Regulars in the Upper Smiths can do their endless moaning and carping for just £304 next season, as opposed to £323 last, with matchday prices being cut from 17 to 16 notes (and from eight to six little quiddies for kiddies), and younger Town fans in particular have little excuse to let their youth go to waste, with a 'junior' season ticket cut from 75 to just 50 English pounds - one of the two or three cheapest such deals anywhere in the League. They don't know they're born, do they.

Thirdly today - it probably doesn't merit being a higher priority - the Diary is finally going to be arsed to mention the players Mr Slade has been alleged to be "set to swoop for" or "poised to capture", as crap writers are fond of putting it. If any credit is to be given to said whisperings then the oft-beaten path betwixt Blundell Park and Bramall Lane could soon be frequented again, as a trio of Blades feature strongly in current speculations. Colin Cryan and Danny Wood are a couple of random reserves, while frontman Ashley Sestanovich at least played on loan in Slade's Scarborough side last season, scoring three times in thirteen appearances. Despite Aidan Davison's obdurate insistence on not retiring, the name of Hartlepool's much loaned-out Welsh goalie Anthony Williams is also said to sit just above bread and baked beans on Russ's shopping list, though on what grounds is anyone's guess.

So there we are the other day, me and Mrs Diary, parking the car near my mum's house, when this Grimbarian in a West Ham shirt comes up and asks how long we intend leaving it there. Just overnight, I explain. We appear to be in front of his garden gates, and although there's no drive or garage, I ask him why, will he need to be using the gates or something? "No," says West Ham bloke, "I just want me car in front of me house like, if you can understand that." To which the answer is no, I can't. Why are people so territorial about their parking spaces in Grimsby? It's not like there's a shortage of them. Anyway, you know how you always think afterwards of what you should have said, when it's too late? What I should have said was: "Danny Butterfield had a good game the other week, didn't he?"

All of which indulgent anecdotery precedes an email from Michael Shelton on the subject of Mr Butterfield, the semi-farcical circumstances of whose transfer from GTFC to Crystal Palace we touched upon here last Thursday. "I remember reading at the time (that is the time Butterfield moved to Palace, and co-incidentally the time ITV Digital vanished) an interview with Groves (the then manager) in the paper," says Sir Mike. "And I take issue - they did know the rules about offering new contracts because I distinctly remember reading something along the lines of: to get any money for Danny we would have had to offer him a contract on at least the same amount as he was on before. Had we done this, he wouldn't have gone to Palace and got us some money; he would have signed the contract straight away and that would be the entire budget for new players next season spent already (due to the aforementioned ITV Digital fiasco)." There is that, I guess.

"PS," adds our correspondent, "clubbers in Yorkshire have taken to using dental syringes to inject ecstasy directly into their mouths. This dangerous practice has become known as E by gum. Ha ha!!" I quite like that, actually. The joke, I mean; E just gives me a headache.