Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Tuesday 19 August 2025

Division 4

Walsall 0

Grimsby Town 1 Khouri (68)

Attendance: 5,619 (729 away fans)

McJannet and Tharme were the mighty monoliths of the M6, marvellously resisting the persisting tall poppies that pestered and festered, Pym was calmly sensational when required, but perhaps one man embodied the night: Keiran Green. Action Man with real hair. He's got a TV in every room.

The dour Tyke sought to dampen the dizzy dreamers with some cold hard stats, for the data set is too small to extrapolate:

"Four games is nowhere near a strong enough sample. There's a long way to go."

He was dead chuffed at his boys standing up to bullying though:

"Worst performance in terms of possession…but it's another box ticked. We're gonna get games like that and you've got to be good at that."

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He may be a moany sounding Midlander but at least The Saddleman didn't moan about the disallowed goal. He was, disappointingly, entirely reasonable:

"It looked like a good game of football to me, two different styles…Disappointed to lose but not disappointed by what I saw."

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They got knocked down, but they got up again and Walsall were never going to keep them down in this mood.

The defence and midfield stood in front of the charging Orcs and stood their ground, repelling repellent hoofs and clatters. The attacking was in fits and starts and Young Charles Vernam, a professional footballer from Caistor, England, will forever be indebted to Khouri for allowing his admirers to paint over the cracks.

Ah, now we see why Croudson skipped around the pool. Some are building monuments, others jotting down notes, but the local boys were in despair when the Mighty Pym got there to parry and punch, to slap and to slither away all manner of fiendish flak.

It's not all ooh-la-la party time, sometimes you have to clean the gutters and hunker down in a storm. The foundations are firm, no damage done and what a hidden treat on the telly.

Big, buffety and brawny Sadler's Sadlers were a bunch of big-balling hugger-muggers and chuggers. And they lost, how sad.

Having seen the light, they've abandoned any pretence at Pep-balling and strutting, any semblance of their ancient arts of Buckley-balling. Walsall have gone back to the dark side of hoofery and harry-hassling whirligigging. A bunch of hustlers.

They are big enough and strong enough to get back where they think they belong, but with Elvis and Matt the Knife leading their line, where are those goals coming from?

On that showing one can only say these playboys of the West Midlands will be play-offers. Scoff ye not.

In symbiotic sympatico with the stripeless ones and kettled in the corner, the massed choir did sing for their supper to scupper Sadlers' dreams.

Mr M Corlett

After a first half wobble, when push comes to shove the pastel peeper saw enough pushes and pulls to please the fair-minded fashionistas huddled in a heap or merely watching through their modern mediums. He was an ill wind that blew for Saddling sneakers. Medium to fair, veering east: 7.563

Exhilarating, exhausting, magnificent.

In a word: staunch