Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 18 September 2021

Conference Premier

Grimsby Town 2 Efete (44), Fox (74)

Eastleigh 0

Attendance: 6051 (29 away fans)

He stops, he starts, he raids, he roams, and the sponsors choke on their garlic foam.

F in Efete, there's only one F in Efete. He's young, he's learning fast. I have to admit he's getting better, a little better, all the time.

After a satisfyingly early use of his catchphrase "albeit", the third Chuckle Brother wasn't gilding his lilies. He went straight down the middle with his mutterings:

"It was a good atmosphere, but I'd have liked to have given them a little bit of a better performance to get excited about."

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Well I started listening to his post-match interview but as by the fourth minute he had yet to end a sentence I granted myself parole. Striving Strevens did note the weird positivity seeping out of every pore of Blundell Park.

By Monday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins they may have bothered to put up a written version. Can you be bothered to look for it?

4-3-3. It's rubbish. It's always rubbish at home. At least the flirtation with foolish formations didn't cause any damage. Town got away with an hour of dire strodgings. And then McAtee came on, and we know that when that happens everything's going to be all right in the end.

You don't need a crystal ball to see how this unstoppable machine can be gummed up. The reversion to the old failed favourite formation resulted in the back four tapping sideways waiting for a friend, then lumping forward into the haze.

And as for the squad strength, well, perhaps we need time and space for our seedlings to sprout wings. Bapaga is immensely right-footed and has not yet adapted to adult football. Fox was ungainly, unco-ordinated and one-paced. Town's boiler room just doesn’t work well on Cokeless fuel.

Heh, look at us, being churlish over a summer stroll. What a time to be alive in DN35.

There was no home haunting by Hill and House. One wore a Jack Grealish wig, the other kept falling over imaginary twigs. They were of no consequence.

Let's not be beastly to Eastleigh. It's a long way to come to watch someone else have a stroll in the park before a little light lunch. They are a proper non-League team, not like the arrivistes with airs of entitlement and mysteriously long pockets. They are part of the Bananarama furniture. Which part? An occasional table.
They stood in the way for a long time. And that's it.

Eastleigh are what they are: a bog-standard mid-table occasional Bananarama skin who'll be happy to be on page one of the league table, occasionally.

Sausages!

Mr G Rhodes

He gave us a dodgy penalty, he didn't give them any dodgy penalties. Our kind of peepster: 7.321

Waiting for something to turn up; then it turns up.

In a word: ample