Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Thursday 15 July 2004

15 July 2004

There was Tottenham under Ossie Ardiles. There was Newcastle under Kevin Keegan. And now there's Grimsby under Russell Slade. Well, that's the way it looks after Town's 5-5 draw in a practice match at Doncaster yesterday - although because the match was played behind closed doors, the Diary is unable as yet to ascribe the result to a new era of glorious, free-flowing, attacking football under Slade's innovative new 3-4-3 system; and keen though I am to believe that the side's verve and panache will propel Town to automatic promotion next season via a record number of gripping 7-4 victories, yesterday might have just been down to crap defending.

So who are the Klinsmann and Sheringham, the Dumitrescu, Barmby and Anderton, who will comprise Town's Famous Five? Town's official website announces that "Darren Mansaram, Darren Watson, Jean Gabbin and Yannick Kamanan were amongst the Town scorers", teasingly declining to name the fifth. Whether Gabbin is a new, 15th trialist or is actually the same player as the Jean-Gabin Moubeke reported by the OS to have arrived on trial on 1 July remains uncertain.

I don't know whether it's having to pack up all my things for moving house next Monday, or just the removal job being finished off on the promising team Paul Groves assembled last summer, but the Diary is swathed in melancholy today. Having only just recovered from the trauma of Ivano Bonetti running their team, Dundee supporters can look forward to two or three excellent long-range goals early next season and then six months of performances being sent in by text message after Iain Anderson was released from his contract with the Mariners to sign a two-year deal back at Dens Park. Do I want him to do well or badly? I don't care. I just want players who'll be around longer than five minutes, because I'm tired of not caring, and I'm tired of them not caring. Russell Slade, may your shoulders be broad and strong.

Here's some good news then. Town fans everywhere - but particularly in Nottingham - had the fright of their lives a few weeks ago when it emerged that one of the players on Russ's Big List of possible transfer targets was the controversial former Notts County and Leeds striker Tony Hackworth, by which I mean controversial and also crap. But the player has now been snapped up (into many pieces, County fans will hope) by Slade's old club Scarborough, where he eked out three goals on loan last season. Mariners supporters in the know will now be hoping the Seadogs can do likewise with the equally useful current GTFC trialists Marvin Robinson and Clint Marcelle. Or Bristol Rovers; we're not fussy.

In the apparent absence of information on the club's official website, it falls to the Grimsby Telegraph to reveal that Town's 15th trialist (or 16th, if we accept that Jean Gabbin possesses an identity distinct from Jean-Gabin Moubeke) is a French centre-half called Ludovic Dje. In a flurry of diligence, the paper also reveals the name of the Mariners' secret fifth scorer at Belle Vue as Amadou Konte (twin brother, remember, to Colchester trialist Amadou Conte), and insists the new boy Dje will figure in the squad for tonight's friendly at Brigg Town. Not so, says the Mariners' OS, where his name is suddenly conspicuous by its absence from a squad of 16 for the trip to the Hawthorns (no, not that one). And what's this? The BBC says there's another Ludovic Dje, on trial at... Colchester.

All of which sequence of lies, half-truths and contradictions is bringing back the Diary's headaches, and so I think it's time to lie down in a darkened room with a glass of warm milk and Radio 4 on. Because of me and Mrs Diary moving house next week, I will leave you for a few days in the loving hands of Guest Diary, who I believe is making the trip to Brigg this evening, guaranteeing some kind of equine oral validity for Cod Almighty's account of the match. You can continue to email GD at diary@codalmighty.com, by the way. Bye for now, then, and take care of yourselves better than Ashley Sestanovich, who is ruled out of tonight's encounter with a back strain.