Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Paul Ketchley

17 April 2016

Dover Athletic 1 Grimsby Town 1

Two weeks on from Aldershot and spring has arrived in spades in the south. You only have to go over the Dartford crossing to see it on the horizon over to the south-east – which is where we're heading, of course.

Ever been to Dover? Well, it's nothing like its more well-heeled neighbour of Folkestone. The ground is on a hill – the upper ground is for footy and the lower ground for rugger. Presumably the upper classes didn't fancy the hike up and the even more hazardous hike down. Electric golf carts buzz around carrying the less able-bodied to the upper level.

Town turned out in the blue kit and the 350 or so Town supporters found themselves penned in to the far corner. Seats were available for free and the travelling contingent were reinforced by a brigade of Belgian Mariners who brought with them an FC Aalst flag. In case you didn't know, Aalst play in exactly the same colours as our home strip – but zut alors, that would have clashed with Dover who play in white shirts and black shorts.

It gets you to thinking as to whether Dover would be better off following the example of Berwick Rangers playing in Scotland, and seeking admission into the Belgian league. It is but a short ferry crossing to Calais and there's a direct ferry to Zeebrugge for Cercle Bruges. Far more tempting than potential fixtures in Carlisle, Accrington and Morecambe?

Town's line-up came as quite a surprise with McKeown; Tait, Toto, Gowling, Horwood; Clay, Disley, Nolan, Monkhouse; Bogle and Pittman. On the bench were Pearson, Robertson, East, Amond and Jennings. Of Hoban, Arnold and Stewart there was no sign.

Horwood's return was a source of relief but Pittman looked two stone overweight and Amond's exclusion didn't go down well.

First half

Dover kicked off incompetently and passed the ball into touch. They are a typical hard-working, hard-running Conference side who are well organised and stand in the right places and do as they are told. They have an immaculate pitch – and they put a lot of effort in keeping it that way by making sure the ball doesn't damage the grass, if you know what I mean.

They also seem to get in each other's way a lot and it didn't take long for there to be a clash of heads and for Modeste to go off, presumably for stitches, and for Toto and one of the Dover players to require a clean shirt.

So they are down to ten men for a bit and we took advantage when, first, Gowling and Clay combined to give Nolan sight of the goal only for his shot to be saved. Then Horwood broke into their penalty box on the left where he was sent flying by some strong-arm tactics from a Dover defender. None of the Dover players complained about the penalty decision.

If we had any doubt who might take the penalty in Amond's absence, Bogle had none. He picked up the ball and, after some delaying tactics by the Dover goalkeeper, steadied himself, placed the ball into the opposite corner to the keeper's dive, and ran to the Town fans behind the goal to celebrate.

A number of fans jumped the fence to join him. Evidently the Belgians don't know that it's not allowed to go onto the pitch, or maybe they still have fences to pen them in.

Five minutes later it could have been 2-0 when Nolan got through in the box but hit the ball straight at the keeper.

From then on Town shrugged their shoulders and looked happy to defend a 1-0 lead. So Dover, who work hard and keep going, gradually came back into it, forcing McKeown into increasingly demanding saves at the far end and winning a series of corners in the run-up to half time.

Decisions started to go against us and, not for the first time this year, questions were raised about the competence of the officials. Is it just they don't like us or are they simply not very good?

Our midfield was being overrun. Disley and Clay had no time on the ball and became pretty invisible for most of the game. Pittman, who is said to have pace, looked overweight and less than fully match-fit. Half time came with a sense of relief for the Town fans who expected to see some changes for the second half.

Stu's half-time toilet talk

"Them Belgian lads went to the pub before the match and they're completely pissed."

"Why don't we play it on the floor? Why don't we play football against sides like this?"

"How can this lot be above us in this league?"

Second half

Unsurprisingly there were no changes at the start of the second half. Hurst clearly works on the principle that if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and so the only glimpses of Amond were when he was sent to warm up on the far side of the pitch. Every time it happened hopes were raised only to trickle away when he went and sat down.

Dover also allow their fans to move to the far end at half time and so there was a mass movement to fill the penned-off half of the stand occupied by the Town supporters, which seemed to generate fairly good-natured banter. Not allowing the away supporters the same privilege seems a bit unfair doesn't it?

Anyway, Town started well and were attacking the rather unoccupied far end – so there was a narrow escape for Dover after about five minutes when the ball looked to have been cleared off the line and nobody could put it back in on target. Once again the chance was missed to go two-nil up and silence their crowd.

And we were about to pay for it. Once again another poor decision deemed Gowling to have fouled one of their players on the edge of the box when it was plainly obvious to everyone in the seats that he had got a touch on the ball. Dover had clearly watched us play Cheltenham on TV because Deverdics simply chipped the ball to the edge of the box for Parkinson to head it down and into the net.

How many times have we conceded in that fashion? Of course we don't help ourselves by sitting back and letting teams play at us rather than adopting a more positive approach.

So the rest of the match was really no more than defending some very direct play from Dover which saw them hit the post with a fierce drive from Deverdics, who didn't win the Dover man of the match award, for some reason.

Then with five minutes to go it was obvious that Town were planning to make a substitution. Unsurprisingly Pittman jogged off towards the dug-out. "Thank goodness Amond is coming on," said someone in the seats, but was that a number 10 on the new player's shorts? And no – Podge stayed on the bench. It wasn't even Jennings coming on to provide more creativity in midfield. Danny East came on. Nobody was impressed by this decision and East was lucky not to concede a penalty when he shoved one of the Dover players over. On this occasion it was clearly official incompetence because there was a real sense of relief at the Town end that we had got away with it.

So here we are. Edging towards the play-offs. Will we get there though? Are we saving ourselves for Tuesday night, and relying on the magic game in hand to get us there? Someone had better remember that we have to win that game in hand for it to make any difference.

Anyway, Tony is doing Tuesday night's report although I may get down there if my jury service ends in time.

• See more of Paul's photos from this match in our Facebook photo album