Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

28 September 2017

Town 2 Colchester 2

On Cleethorpes Lower East Side early evening traffic is audible. As is the distant cry of the fishmoaners on a mysteriously misty night with 89 U-benders lurking in the murk. Have Town reached the u-bend in the season yet? Or is that our upcoming Saturday Superbore?

The collection of the disparate and desperate they call Town lined up in a 4-4-2 formation as follows: McKeown, Davies, Clarke, Collins, Dixon, Dembele, Berrett, Summerfield, Woolford, Hooper and Vernon. The substitutes were Killip, K Osborne, Rose, DJ Jinky, Cardwell, Matt and Jones. Ah yes, the ancient mariners that stoppeth one in three attacks. It comes to summat if Berrett and Summerfield are your strongest midfield pairing. This is what it’s come to.

Colchester turned up in camouflage green, blending into the murkiness like guerrillas in the mist.

1st Half – Incontinence and incompetence

Colchester kicked off towards the Pontoon. Of that there is no doubt. The rest…

Five minutes of fruitless payments and a Limester's corner. Reid coiled flatly and McKeown spectacularly, excellently punched away from the near top corner. Dembele fluffed around flappily, Reid retrieved, zigger-zaggered across the face of the penalty area and lambasted lowly through the hedge. The ball shimmered through Collins and, oh dear Mr McKeown. Perhaps blinded by the light he got down, but he never got tight, and the ball hummed through invisible hands and invisible legs. Reid. One shot: one-nil

Two minutes later. Nothing. Nowhere. Clarke hoofed over the top. A Limester stood and waited for his keeper to catch a falling star and put it in his pocket. What’s in the box? I dunno. Hooper swingled and swaffled lowly into the bottom right corner from way, way inside the penalty area. Terrible defending, terribly, terribly lovely terribleness. They're worse than us.

12 minutes, five lime passes, three straight to Townites, two straight out of play. They're terrible, Muriel.

I have no wish to cause you sorrow or pain, you deserve to be kept in blissful ignorance of the depths to which professional football in England has plummeted.

All we could hear was someone shouting "jellied eels" when the Limeys came near.

43 minutes of the most incompetent wretchedness ever inflicted on the paying public passed by, the only hope was the gathering gloom, the slow, slow creeping menace. With luck the game will be abandoned for lack of hope.

After 43 minutes and 30 seconds a Berrett cross dropped and pooped over the tallest ploppy in their non-defence. Dembele, the hitherto harmless puppy dog who chases after the ball chanting "sausages", volleyed across the face of goal. The ball hit the inside of the far post, boombled back, bashed the keeper on the bonce and bounced away. A minute later Dembele jinked through three for some almostness and then another thing happened almost and then, well, it's half time.

Sausages.

2nd Half – We haven't the foggiest idea what’s going off out there

Neither team made any changes at half time. Apparently. Or in reality not apparently as the fog rolled over the dentists, crept over the pitch and into the faces of the Frozen Horsemeaters. We'll just have to take it on trust that the same 11 mint cracknels and 11 bar codes came out.

Eh? What? Did you hear something? What's that moving there? Where? There on the stairs, right there. A little mouse with clogs on, going clip-clipperty clip down the wing. A slimey-limey cross hit the top of the bar.

And it's back to square one with Mr McKeown who sends the ball into the clouds of doubt. Where is it? Duck! Duck? They're herring gulls. I hear a rumble, then a grumble, as out of the mists of time Vernon emerged. The ball carried on regardless. A corner cobbled and Woolford wellied through the soup. Walker sank low and left to parry aside and all the distant Essexers heard was the sound of the underground.

Thicker, thicker and thicker still, we see no ships, we see no thrills.

I hear something. Shush. There can you hear it too? Ah, no, I must have tinnitus.

On the hour vision returned. We can see the ball, we can see past the half way line. And there's Mr McKeown too. Oh, oh dear, the scoreboard. There's something different about the numbers. Oh no Dave, they've scored. So that's what that sound was. The voice of the Mysterons announced Reid as the mystery machine.

Huffing, puffing, time-a-wasting. Ch-ch-ch-changes with old man Woolford replaced by DJ Jinky, the rinky-dinky slinkyman, like Dembele with muscles. A Limester felled for ages and out came the stretcher. Jones replaced Vernoon, Matt came on for Hooper. Puffing, huffing and wasting our time.

And back rolled the mist. C'mon down!

DJ jinking, winking and linking. A bit of this, a bit of that, a Davies foul throw and Davies cross looped off lime boots and snickled through quivering quavers across the face of goal. Matt lunged and missed at the far post and out flicked the fickle finger of fate. Jones calmly awaited the end of the shenaniganning and calmly stroked the penalty into exactly the same spot he always calmly strokes. Walker wailed as a he sailed away, sailed away.

Six minutes were added. They may have had a shot in the dark. Who could see anything more? Town abandoned that prissy Route One stuff and cut out the middleman.

Chug, chug, chug went the motor. Bump, bump, bump went the brake. Berrett blimped back, Summerfield scraped lowly through leglets and Walker squished upon the ball. Dembele danced delightfully and Matt swung low, swung wide at the near post. Ding, ding, ding went the bell. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

One team was worse than the other at attacking, the other team was worse at defending. Take your pick which is which and who is who.

One team was old and slow, one team was young and fast. Both teams were utterly useless.