Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Tony Butcher
26 August 2019
Grimsby Town 5 Port Vale 2
Well the taxman may not yet have taken all John's dough, and he's still in our stately home, so all we have is this sunny afternoon with one lonesome piper piping a selection of Scottish laments to a couple of hundred Burslem Boys.
They should know that the people round here are so nice, stop being naughty and take our advice.
An iconic white palm tree on the prom-prom-prom? Wow, classy Regeneration John, especially at around £610,032.
Town lined up in a 4-3-3 formation as follows McKeown, Hewitt, Davis, Waterfall, Hendrie, Whitehouse, Hessenthaler, Cook, Ogbu, Hanson, Green. The substitutes were Russell, Ring, Pollock, Clifton, Vernam, Wright, Cardwell. Poor old Rusty Ring demoted again after his promotion, but the Cookie Monster was rewarded for some enthusiastic bustling and barging. Town aren't bereft of hard working gnarlyness.
Vale turned up in their traditional yellowness and hopefully in their traditional flaky funk beside the seaside. Bennett and Legge matched Town for human bigness, and they had Brown in reddish brown in goal. Beyond that they were identikit men in a football kit.
OK ramblers, let's get ambling. Let's go to work.
First half – Pulp Fiction
Port Vale kicked off with a punt to… No let's start again… Port Vale kicked off with a punt to… No let's start again… Port Vale kicked off with a punt to… No let’s start again… Mr Fussypants couldn't stop a-peeping and wouldn't start the game.
A welly, a whack and the whistling wally managed to see a hack from Hewitt as a yellowman whined because the ball hit his ickle shinny-shin-shins.
Fifteen seconds had elapsed from peep to peep. In the game's host town the people getting angry.
Town practiced their Cowleyball, Legge up, up and away to head the balloon, Worrall dived and droned on to the ref. It's not surprising when you come to think of it just what it is that makes people swear. You only have to kick the wrong bleepin' thing, and there'll be bleeping every bleeping where.
Whack-a-day whack-a-mole, oh wakka-do-wakka-day, apparently. Amoo shot straight at Jamie Mack. There is no need to store this in your memory bank, press delete now.
Moses meandered across the middle, his legs in a muddle, his mind all befudddled and piffled to nothingness.
A yellowman plunged under the Police Box - emergency services were called after concerned residents heard a terrible shrieking coming from down the road. What awfulness had occurred? Well, you can read about it in the GT with its click-baiting fixation on the most heinous of crimes: "Boy drops ice cream!"
The dink was dripped into the centre of the centre of the centre of the penalty area. A ball of confusion. Defending? It's just an illusion. Legge up and bundling, the ball rumbling towards the bottom left corner. Hewitt toe-poked on, McKeown crawled along the line, slapped a tickle onto the shins of Whitehouse and into the net the ball did trickle. A right pair of raggedy old socks. Not much haute couture in Town's house of Elliotts.
Oh wakka-do-wakka-day, Whitehouse cleared a Town corner. Finally a free kick to Town, in the shadows of the Frozen Horsebeer Stand. A big man awaited bigly far away and The Hess cutely curled down the channel deep into the unmanned areas of the penalty box. Green peeled away and rocked a crock that was blocked on its way into interesting flower beds. A corner on the right, in, out, and Cook's tree was felled by a two-man bucksaw, or at least that's what the ref saw, that's for sure.
Vale threw together an art installation made out of old paper cups, yesterday's Daily Mirror, some cockles and muscles and we're alive–alive-o. Hess tapped, Cook slapped a slipper grubbling under and through the dissolving wall of confusion and straight down the middle as Mr Brown sat on the ground. In a bound we were free, the game was afoot.
Or rather the game was a hotfoot hoof. Pushin' and shovin', wishin' and hopin', thinkin' and prayin' that this half would end.
Waterfall wandered upstream and walloped wayly-wayly-wayly wide. Vale strung a sentence together and Worrall whimpled over the angle of post and bar. A chip and chase, Davis diverted Worrall who headed into his arms. Medium-sized Harry lay upon the grass, remembering games and daisy chains and laughs, Dave Moore soon got Davis on the path.
Quoits Scooby!
Weary wafting, shove that ha'penny, skittle that board there's a toad in the hole. Pub games for a pub game. It's football Jim, now as we know it.
Two minutes were added to the half, resulting in even more time watching Aunt Sally.
Tiresome, tedious British Bulldogs on a day fit only for a sun-lounging drift to the sound of leather on willow, the sight of old maids cycling to the local Tesco Metro and the Town crowd with their mild knobby faces, their bad feet and gentle manners. This is England, Football League Two.
Second half – Grindhouse
Davis was replaced by Pollock at half time. The boy wonder gets bigger every day.
Town kicked off with a punt to… No, let's start again. Town kicked off with a punt to… No, let's start again. Town kicked off with a gridiron punt. We may as well start again.
Oomph. Oof. Hoof!
Ogbu chased a chip down the right, outrunning, outshrugging his flailing captor to volley a dipper just over the bar from just inside the penalty area. Pinging and pranging, Hanson hanging in the air like an unspoken metaphor. Ogbu chased a chip, juggled his finances and invested smartly in a corner shop. Big heads up, big balls out, Cook hung around the 'D' to sizzle a smack across and over with Reddy Brown wishing himself luck as the ball waved him goodbye.
Full-backs flapping and lots of tapping. Moses marauded, Hewitt overlapped and swung a drooper into the centre. Big Jim cleared the forest of saplings and carefully steered a looper into a deserted highway. Fill your glass high, the time has come, Ogbu high-stepped forward to steer a poke through the yellow river.
Got no time for explanations, got no time to lose, they're giving us excitations, here is the news. Brown walloped a goal kick straight down the middle. Pollack brushed away some fluff from his shoulder and power-bonked straight back upfield. Hanson arose to flick on, Green surged with pace and poise to pass with precision into the bottom right corner.
With Ogbu dancing on the ceiling, Worrall dredged the deepest channel of the Humber to torpedo the good ship Moses. Yellow for yellow when it should have been red for the purple-faced poltroon.
The Valeites made a couple of changes and Clifton replaced Green. Little Harry could do no right for fifteen minutes, missing and messing up like King Midas in reverse. Sloppy Town, hot Town fans, isn't it a pity, back of our necks getting dirty and gritty.
A reel, a squeal, a meal deal made out of wagon wheels. A yellow free kick dunked into the D. Whitehouse arose under yellow, a flick on, Smith reverse scrunched slowly across the scrampling McKeown into the bottom left corner.
Woeful Whitehouse legged up a yellow to get a yellow after his wiffling waftiness messed up an attack. Cook surged, Ogbu urged, Hess clipped and Cook dipped his header over with Hanson lurking behind. He wore black and he wore white, he would always win that fight. Bang-bang, Hanson snipped a coiler over the bar after Hewitt had mugged a dispirited Valiant with some amateur ploughing.
Look at the power and smell the glory, this Town is a different story. Ogbu flicked and snicked to win a corner. With the big men gathering farly The Hess disguised a short drag back, Hewitt hung a dripper to the far post and Waterfall bullied his way above barely existent yellow to biff a header back into the left corner of the goal.
Oh happy day, has Jolley washed our sins away?
With a draw guaranteed under the law of four (to draw) Wright replaced Whitehouse. Push me, pull me, and a big lob down the right touch line. Maximum Wright sizzled past a Poor Valer, cut in along the bye-line, awaited the keeper and scriggled back for the awaiting Hanson to pass into the emptied net through flailing yellow limbs.
The rest was just a party in the park.
Apparently five minutes were added. That's just five more minutes of jigging and poking fun at Reddy Brown. Poor lad, fixed on the front of his Fassbinder face was the kind of a smile that only a rather dull child could have drawn. Just grin and bare it lad.
I love a party with a happy atmosphere.
Well. What a curious game where some second half oomph overpowered an underpowered Vale. Jolleytown (v.2) is full of everything that was missing last year. Height and hope, strength of body and mind. It's functionally adequate, and designed to crush grapes mercilessly. When Town realised that Vale were wilting on the vine they stomped all over them. It may be one-dimensional, but Town are, literally, heading in the right direction with it.
We're a big team and we are in shape, at the moment