Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Wednesday 7 July 2004

7 July 2004

Don't blame me for England getting knocked out of the Fascist Pig Bank Triangular Challenge! Yesterday's Diary was very kindly brought to you by Mr Simon Wilson, and a sterling job he made of it, but it should be made clear that he is the guilty party for the hex put on the nation's cricketers by the poultry-enumerating words that appeared on this page. I don't quite know where he was going with that Nikos Dabizas thing either, while we're about it, but there you go; Si was nice enough to let me crash at his last Thursday, so I won't publicly harangue him any more than is strictly necessary. Apologies, also, for my being absent again. Mrs Diary and I are moving house this month, and there is much stuff to do, so Diary responsibilities will continue to be shared around a bit while I'm otherwise occupied. I guess it's better to do it in the close season, anyway - like mending the M6 now while everyone's on holiday.

I think it was Guest Diary, in fact, who produced the splendid phrase 'colossally stupid' to describe the League's recent 'rebranding' exercise whereby the people of Grimsby are expected to suddenly begin supporting their local football club despite its relegation to the fourth flight of professional football - simply because that division has been renamed 'League Two' and prefixed with the name of a popular soft drink. In fact Town could seldom get more than 6,000 through the gates in the early 1980s to see matches in the real Division Two, and so the population is hardly likely to be stampeding to BP now for a clumsily faked version of the same tier.

The reason I mention this again is that the Diary's burning excitement at receiving my season ticket for the Pontoon in this morning's post is somewhat quenched by the news that I won't be able to use it at Town's home game with Cheltenham, which - like three away matches next season - has been brought forward to a Friday night. What was that phrase again? Ah, yes - colossally stupid. "We were approached by Cheltenham who wanted to play the game at Whaddon Road on the Friday night so we agreed a reciprocal agreement to have the Blundell Park fixture brought forward as well," Mariners chief executive Ian Fleming tells the Grimsby Telegraph. "There's no particular reason for it; we just thought we'd rip off and alienate season ticket holders who can't get to Friday night matches! Oooh, and it makes a pretty pattern on the fixture list," he doesn't add.

Oh Denis, be-doo, Russell's not in love with you. French trialists Denis D'Amico and Gilles Noto have returned across the Channel with their single currency between their legs after failing to impress Mr Slade. Only Jean-Gabin Moubeke remains of the continent contingent that rolled up at BP last week, though as Si reported yesterday he is now accompanied by former Tottenham trainee Yannick Kamanan. As of today, furthermore, they in turn are now joined by knackered old striker Clint Marcelle, once with Barnsley in the Premiership; most recently with Russ's Scarborough side in the Conference. It kind of eludes the Diary as to why a manager should need to give a trial to a player he was working with only a couple of months ago, but there you go. In his eight years in English football, the Trinidad-born frontman has clocked up no more than fifteen goals, failing to trouble the scorers during his spells at Stevenage Borough and Harrogate Town. Ladies and gentlemen: the new Steve Livingstone.