Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 29 November 2014

Conference Premier

Telford United 1 Parry (34)

Grimsby Town 1 Mackreth (57)

Attendance: 1849 (482 away fans)

It's like being asked to choose your favourite table mat. Pittman was a persistent pest to them, but his shooting had grown men shouting, while Disley was perfectly adequate throughout. But if in doubt, it's Shaun Pearson, for persistently not making mistakes and even doing three excellent blocks with his socks. Without him it is possible that Town may have managed to make the impossible possible and lose to the worst team in the division.

"It got a bit scrappy, but over the course of the game we should have been probably 3-0 up before they got the goal. You just wonder if it's going to be one of those days."

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"They are right up there and one of the best sides we have seen here all season and they did cause us a lot of problems... But we stopped the wing-backs getting caught out and the team came out in the second half and did really well."

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Obviously superior as professional footballers, individually and collectively. For a while.

Once the Buckers scabbed a goal, Townites again descended into rampant, narcissistic individualism. The collective ran rings around Telford for half an hour, but the inability to control their id led to the collapse of civilisation. Mackreth was woefully wasteful and terribly twee throughout, until he scored. Then he had a five-minute flowering of supercharged jinks and dinks, so off he went and on came Neilson for a pastiche of Mackrethian dwindlings. The chubby charmer effectively played himself off the bench and into some early Christmas shopping.

Magnay wobbled, Brown shrank, Lennie and Pittman were successful in many things, especially and particularly in avoiding scoring. The pattern is clear: too many snowmen on the jumper.

Yet more evidence to be presented to the court when charges are finally brought. This present Town are not good enough to beat the weak, which is why we would only get promoted by accident. Two strikers produced a series of gloriously golden chances but there is a lack of ruthlessness. It's in their minds, not their feet, that Town are failing.

They entered their field of dreams with a formation and a hope. That's all.

They left the field with a perplexing point and hope, that's all.

With the exception of the Alfreton Capitulators, this is by a distance the weakest collection of footballers seen so far this season. Their manager has done very well to motivate and organise them enough for them not be already floating free from Planet Bananarama. Their keeper looked OK, the rest tried hard and sometimes ran slightly quickly. They sometimes controlled the ball, and once or twice managed to pass the football to a similarly clad clod.

Their entire strategy was hope for a set piece to send up their chucky chaps and hope something turns up. A joke team? No, the joke's on us. Unless something wicked this way comes, Telford will be relegated. If they aren't I will suspect shadowy Shanghai syndicates.

The Grimsby generations are divided over one existential question of statehood. What do you want from a Town game: flair or flares?

Mr C Lymer (Surrey)

Was a perfectly pleasant chap from another age – he allowed tackles and snarls without being a box-ticking card flutterer. The non-penalty? Lennie missed and the Poku poked the ball away. I wasn't complaining then and ain't complaining now, but maybe there ain't no pleasing you. I'll tell you something for nothing and I ain't bluffing: 8.599.

Twirling, swirling, lips curling, smoke hurling. Huffing and chuffing, scoring and boring.

In a word: missing