Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 11 August 2012

Conference Premier

Southport 1 Grand (87)

Grimsby Town 1 Disley (74)

Attendance: 1743

Only a handful of dusters came out of this with any honour. If you forget that one of the basic requirements of football is to kick the football accurately to similarly garbed chaps, then Niven and Wood were largely fine. Ah, except Wood's descent into ice hockey madness of course; that was extremely unfine. Shaun Pearson made up for Pond's life aquatic with staunch solidity and common sense. Only one man was excellent all round all through: Aswad Thomas. Zesty and full of zinging crosses, he's a good 'un.

I thought we played well and I thought for large chunks of the game we dictated the play. It's disappointing that we conceded from a corner and it's a free header. I don't want to be too harsh on them as I think we played extremely well and, on another day, we win the game."

For a five-minute period Town upped the pace and easily shredded the paper tigers. Five minutes, that's all we got, and they all stumbled, fumbled, bumbled and mumbled their lines at the point of delivery. It's all about delivery these days. A miserably defensive approach for the most part resulted in aimless whacks towards two isolated amblers. Colbeck was one-footed and an occasional presence, Niven hopeless with the ball at his feet, and Pond a total liability. Town were less unlikely to not score; they were the less worse of the two collections of tatty cast-offs. On the positive side, Town were defensively very well organised in open play. That's it -€“ they stood where they should, but didn't necessarily do as they should when the ball came near them.

Southport were completely mundane, one-dimensional and never looked like having a shot, let alone scoring what we often call a goal. Their tactics were exclusively to punt high balls towards their left and hope Wall-E got a run from the flick-on/accidental bumbling. He didn't. Their keeper looked OK though.

In the end you could hear a blob of vinegar drop on a chip.

Mr S Stockbridge (Tyne & Wear)
Was highly inconsistent throughout, superbly managing to aggrieve slumberers of all colours and all sizes. Adding four minutes just sprinkled sawdust on tragic, so 5.008 for needlessly prolonging the torturous ordure.

The tree-lined streets provided lovely shade for the walk to the ground.

The tree-lined streets provided lovely shade for the walk away from the ground.