Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 8 October 2011

Conference Premier

Mansfield Town 2 O'Neill (72), Connor (78)

Grimsby Town 1 Coulson (31)

Attendance: 2982 (589 away fans)

For about 20 minutes Eagle was soaring, with the whole game being his pretty knitting pattern down Town's left. Football, almost as we knew it, Jim. Then the ball stayed away and Little Bob became an endangered species, glimpsed occasionally as local ruffians stole his eggs and finally forgetting even how to fly. In the end he didn't even exist: the park rangers shot him. Repeat every week -€“ Craig Disley. It's not as though he's being brilliant, just better than the rest of them. Professional adequacy rules this skanky roost.

Really one has to put an apology upfront. We're sorry, so sorry, young man. We understand where you have come from, and what you could have been instead, but we must be objective and honest about what we see. Poor lad, Anthony Church. Continuous movement isn't enough. Against the dire he has been acceptable; against everyone else he has been lost and, at this point, out of his footballing depth near the bottom of the Conference. No pace, no perception, technical ability low and unable to go with the flow. Sorry.

Unlike the Home Secretary, believe me, I'm not making this up: a bit of a cat's purr for half an hour, than a lot of cat nap as catnip for the rutting Stags. For half an hour it was blissful passing and movement with professional control over their working environment. Disley kept sensibly kicking left for Eagle to roll and droll crosses that teased and almost pleased. When Town attacked through Eagle things happened. Then Town stopped passing and stopped playing down the left. They just stood there, waiting for the Mansfield maulers to hit them, indulging in wayward lazy humps and lumps to the increasingly distant and disappointed gruesome twosome upfront. The second half was a waste of everyone's time, for the grim inevitability was the subsiding mine of fool's gold, that capsizing ship in a state. We were treading water before drowning in our own fear and loathing.

They had nothing to offer but blood, toil, sweat and our tears It's nice to know that we made them so very happy. The Staggermen had all those things that the Shouty one extols as his holy football grail, which was just enough to grind salt into Town's afternoon tea. After looking a little foolish for half an hour Mansfield were handed the initiative and they took it when they finally brought on Connor, their wardrobe on wheels. They had a collective belief and fed off their supporters' positivity and Town's general negativity. Above all, their set pieces were delivered to where their players were moving. That's all it took, and that's little more than they did overall. You can't take a team with Ben Futcher in it that seriously, which rather reflects back on Town doesn't it. They had some swivel-eyed mad dogs and a couple of tricky-dicky wide men, but they were just Mansfield, only more so than usual. Mansfield look like one of those teams that wobbles near the play-offs. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.

A lot of people didn't make negative noise. We came, we saw, we're probably bonkers.

Mr R Merchant (Staffs)
Was wet, weak and woeful. He did make correct decisions now and then, but had no control over the occasion with his arbitrary and perpetual whistling and slapdash approach to bookings. He tended towards issuing yellow cards for things that directly related to him, not to any stud and elbow man-o-man action. His ego landed us in a muddle of a match. Mr Merchant was always a banker for a low score – 3.889. He had no authority for the serfs to defer to.

Town passed!

Town stopped passing.