Fascinating Facts about Grimsby

Grimsby this morning

This is going to be a short one as the chances of us playing there tonight would appear to be slim to none!

Grimsby should be called Cleethorpes as that is where their ground is situated.  By the same token Corby should be called Drunken, Druggie FC, and the Direones should be called the Direones.

The town smells of cod.  Just imagine if the warm, sweet, all-encompassing weetabix waft we get from Burton was stinking fish... Eeeuw!

The most famous celebrity from Grimsby is the actress Julie Peasgood. No, me neither.  Just about puts Grimsby on a par with Kettering when it comes to producing glamorous celebrities!

Where Are They Now? No.2 Mark Cooper.

All homes sold, providing they benefit from
solid construction, with none of that arty-farty flair stuff

Cooper's quality as a Manager was based upon making his teams difficult to beat.  He made sure the entire team defended the goal when the opposition had the ball. 

Which, to be honest, was quite often as Mark's standing instruction was to get rid of it as quick as possible.

Nevertheless, when it came to protecting what you had, and being "as safe as houseses", Mark was your man. 

It can come as no surprise then to see that although he has left football behind, he hasn't had to change his outlook as an estate agent, where his no nonsense, safety-first approach will continue to bear fruit.  

We're all soft as s*ite! OFFICIAL

Today's game with Gateshead has been called off.  Just because the ground is a bit hard.  And there's a bit of snow on the ground.  Ah, diddums!  When did we become so soft?  When did we stop simply clearing snow from the lines around the pitch, grab an orange ball and get on with it?  And when did it become acceptable for players to wear vest, gloves and now those bloody silly neck warmers just because the temperature has dropped a smidgen?

When did men stop being men?

Jonny Graham crashes the equaliser into the roof of the net!

It certainly wasn't like this back in 1992 when on a bitter Friday night in January the Poppies lined up against Colchester United in a top of the table clash.  Cold?  It was the sort of night where even Polar Bears wouldn't have ventured out.  And yet over four thousand of us slipped and slithered our way to the game, only to see us go 2-0 down before little Jonny Graham struck twice late on to get us a point.  And I don't remember a pair of gloves in sight.  Except for the two pairs of gloves, dozen layers of clothes, hat, and thick woolie socks I was wearing of course!

Surely the only reason the game went ahead was because it was being televised by some micky mouse oufit called Sportscast (?).  They had secured the rights to televise Conference games to the uninterested patrons of the few public houses in the country who had the "foresight" to believe that a bit of third rate kick and rush would gather in the punters....Needless to say the company offering this service lasted not much longer than the cold snap. 

Should the game have gone ahead?  No, of course not!  But one can picture the Sportscast hierarchy badgering the beleaguered officials into letting the game go ahead, allied no doubt, by a Poppies Chairman, weighed down by the enormous gate takings, that he would have returned over his own dead body!

Bye bye Andre

Andre Boucaud links up with Jordan Hadfield

I thought Andre's departure would leave me affected more than it actually has.  Instead of being angry or happy all I want to do is shrug my shoulders in an all too Gallic way. 

York City may have acquired a star.  Or not.  It depends on which of the three Andre Boucauds turns out for them.  Will it be the devil-may-care rampaging midfielder of Maison's days?  Perhaps he will be Cooper's hard running, tough tackling lynch pin?  Or, unluckily for York, he maybe the current holding player who cannot pass forward, keeps getting dispossessed when attempting his 976th drag back of the game, and can only kick the ball straight when it is to Noubissie?

I just hope we bank the fee in January before he realises how far York is from London!

Where Are They Now?

Any football manager losing their job is sad. Actually, scratch that. Justin Edinburgh getting the boot for leading the Scum to relegation - that I could live with!

The Poppies hot seat has seen more than it's share of bosses getting the boot. And where on earth do you go when you are deemed surplus to requirements by us? Well, it would appear that most of our managerial cast-offs employ their talents away from football - and who can blame them?

No.1 - Lee Harper



At Lee's chippie thankfully only the fish gets battered!



Fascinating Facts About Wimbledon



Wimbledon cliche No.1

 Home of the most prestigious tennis event in the world, and yet access to the site is worse than trying to get in and out of Redditch’s car park! Every year the nation dares to hope that for once Johnny Foreigner is going to be knocked off his winner’s perch by a local lad, and every year we are disappointed.

Our desperation for a British winner at Wimbledon has become so acute that we are all, reluctantly, clasping a whiny, nasty little Jock to our collective bosom in the hope that he win it for Blighty! He will then be hailed as a true British Champion, as opposed to the miserable Scottish loser he invariably reverts to before the fortnight is over.

Wimbledon was the home base for the infamous “Crazy Gang” in the 1980’s and 1990’s. This motley collection of cloggers spent several seasons hoofing the ball, and opponents around in the Premier League. They were the footballing equivalent of the rough boy from the council estate let loose with the frail young boys of the lower third from the posh private school.

Foremost among their ranks was Vinnie Jones, who made his name by fondling future Poppies boss Paul Gascoigne. Perhaps it was this incident that turned young Gazza toward the comfort of the bottle?

Vinnie has somehow carved a career for himself as an international footballer with Wales (!) and an action movie tough guy. The Welsh bit is something of a stretch as he is about as Welsh as Tom Jones’s latest hairpiece. Happily the acting part is more natural, given that he usually plays borderline psychotics.

Wimbledon cliche No.2

Oliver Reed, the drinking man’s Hellraiser is a famous son of the Borough of Wimbledon, as is the weedy-shandy-drinking-wanabee Martin Clunes.

We are constantly reminded that the character of Brian Lane in BBC’s “New Tricks” is a tedious AFC Dons fan even though he, and Alun Armstrong, the actor who plays him, couldn’t be more northern if he had a flat cap surgically grafted to his head and ate nothing but black pudding.

The most famous residents of Wimbledon are of course the loveable do-gooders, the Wombles. Back in the early 1970’s they were decades ahead of their time with the recycle and reuse message. However, their green credentials were tarnished by the amount of oil used to provide the plastic used in the manufacture of the millions of novelty records they produced. Consequently their carbon footprint is roughly the same size as the one caused by the Gulf war.

Kate Humble also comes from Wimbledon. Even if she didn’t, I think I’d still try to use this photograph…..

I'm going to kick myself for not coming up with a caption which somehow
includes Kate and her ornothological career!

1981 and all that

Someone once said history always repeats itself, the second time as farce.
History seems to be repeating itself big time at the moment.
Country in the grip of a recession. Tory government. Riots. A royal wedding. An Ashes series we might just win. For anyone of a certain age, we’re talking 1981. Should you be in any doubt, switch on the telly on a Saturday night and there’ll still be a big chinned, low rent version of Sammy Davis Jr grinning back at you beneath his wig.
As for the farce bit...
Country heading for the most severe austerity measures since post-war rationing and somehow those behind the plan have dictated the agenda that they had no choice, even though they did and this actually suits their purposes.
Riots but in a very modern, polite sense, where students come back later to scrub off the graffiti and organise a facebook campaign to name and shame those responsible.
Another bloody royal wedding and after 24 hours already I’m sick of it, yet in this hi-tech multi media age there will be no escape, and those who refuse to enjoy it will be forced into exile.
An Ashes series we might win but compressed into about a fortnight which means that the team that recovers best in the 4 hour gap between the 2nd and 3rd Tests will have the advantage.
And Brucie is still reading the autocue like it’s an innovation he first encountered yesterday and delivering gags that in normal circumstances ought to see him arrested.
So what does all this have to do with our beloved KTFC?
Echoes there too.
The team’s fortunes have dipped after a successful manager left to join a League club.
Off the pitch there’s a general feeling of impending doom.
No one beyond a dedicated 1,000 appears to give a monkey’s.
And on a bad day you can still hear Buck's Fizz before a match.

This town... coming like a ghost town.