Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 20 October 2018

Division 4

Grimsby Town 0

Exeter City 0

Attendance: 4038 (130 away fans)

Hail the bandaged hero with his double-triple bluffing and let's ignore the fly-kick fluffing. Hands, feet, shins and fingernails were all used by Gentleman James McKeown to keep the home fires burning for another few days.

Town would have lost without Jamie Macc's mind-messing manoeuvres, but the rambling Mitch Rose, the beating heart with fancy footwork, knitted Town's cardigan to keep that chilly breeze off our chests. Well done lad.

Delighted that his goalkeepers had done their homework and not blagged it during double geography, the Jolley Japester couldn't keep his inner Yorkieness suppressed any longer:

"We kept our shape"

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The Duke of Devonshire was genial, generous and gregarious as he reflected on a pleasant afternoon by the seaside:

"I enjoyed watching it… I thought the fans got their money's worth because it was a good game of football between two decent teams playing the right way."

Thank you kindly, sir.

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We're getting less worse every time.

Town clearly had a plan to neutralise Exeter by smothering Stockley and letting the rest go hang themselves with their own inadequacies. The plan worked.

Town clearly had a plan of score a goal or two through running at the Exeter defence. The plan nearly worked.

Hall-Johnson was flaky, and Hooper was shaky, but Hendrie was defensively decent. Vernam's attempts to be a smooth operator are beginning to bear fruit, as he sometimes moved in space with minimum waste and maximum joy. But the fourth division is no place for beginners or sensitive hearts. He's a work in progress. Hooper: there is no progress to report, just a sequence of fey lumberings.

For all the positivity, the reality is that Town ran out of puff rather alarmingly in the second half and were just as indebted to Exeter's determination to avoid scoring as much as James McKeown's determination to make sure he avoided conceding.

But they didn't dissolve like cheap tissue paper and, in the first half, occasionally played some saucy football. The glimpses of a better future are there, they just need to get physically stronger and a bit fitter.

Quick-footed and quick-witted in attack, simple and basic in defence, these Grecians earned their point. Fortunately for Town, they had enough slack to go with the slick to stop them nicking the booty.

It took two to tango with Stockley, an impressive rover, while Boateng really pulled the room together like a good rug. Ah, but Holmes was a constant thorn in their own side, prat-falling before custard pies, and Forte was typically profligate with the cream.

Shall we just compliment their defence on their ability to place the ball in parts of the world hitherto unchartered by mere footballers. If in doubt they got it out. They were always, yet at the same time never, in doubt. They passed the marshmallow test of a first-rate defence: the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Stop Stockley and Exeter will exit the gift shop empty-handed. Their strength is their weakness. The play-offs, at least, beckon should they remain whole and avoid a Stockley-sized hole come January.

A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.

Mr M Donohue (Manchester)

Blimey, where did he come from? His only fall from the towering heights of excellence was when he fell over his own feet avoiding lurking Townites.

Like Mary Poppins he was practically perfect in every way: 9.43. He loses the standard 0.5 of a mark for stumbling when tumbling.

Slipping and sliding but no-one was hiding in a juicy stalemate.

In a word: decent