Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Conference Premier

Grimsby Town 1 Pond (69)

Stockport County 2 Rowe (81), Whitehead (90+1)

Attendance: 3670 (173 away fans)

The world can look funny from behind smoked glass, but Pond shows signs of settling in. Has Blundell Park seen a better overhead-kicked goal since Muzzy Izzet's? We were hugging in the aisles.

There are a few OK footballers at Grimsby Town FC and three good ones. One wasn't fit enough to start. One, for no reason anyone can readily fathom, was omitted from the 16. The other was, of course, Aswad Thomas: it's already clear that he's too good for non-League.

"Obviously we're disappointed."

With just two victories in their last 13 games now, Shorty and Shouty's battlers have seemingly moved backwards some way since that dreamlike winning streak of 2011-12. No fluency, no confidence, no belief. From front to back, the players looked terrified. When Stockport visited last November Town recorded a swashbuckling 7-0 win. Last night? No swash and all buckle.

Stockport set up for a point and will be delighted with three. "If we can't beat these, we'll really be knackered against anybody good," was the general consensus in the home stands. Still, they've clearly moved on a bit from the shower that turned up last season. That's two wins from two now. Should stay up comfortably, unless they go in to administration again, in which case they'll stay up uncomfortably.

We weren't singing any more. Home support was strong in number, by the standards of these desperate times, but as subdued as their team. Or subdued by their team.

Mr C Knowles (Northants)

Well, if you didn't make bad decisions, then you wouldn't get dissent, would you? The CA team were as miffed at S Pearson's booking, and the accompanying free kick, as the player himself. Overall, however, the adjudicating official will rank among the less objectionable of this league, with a notional Cod rating of 7 and a bit. Nice one Cyril.

There are still 129 points to play for.

In this form we'll only get 21 of them.