Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Conference Premier

Grimsby Town 2 Connell (10), Eagle (34)

Gateshead 2 Offiong (86), Fisher (90+4)

Attendance: 2517 (24 away fans)

Showed he is a professional footballer by taking his goal well. Showed many reasons to dispute his professional status too. He's got a sweet left foot, but then so did Tony Gallimore.

Worked hard; well, most of the time. If we had won, the little sins in the centre of the park would have been glossed over. But there's no paint thick enough to cover the fact that players routinely carry the ball 30 or 40 yards through the centre against us. So it's a grudging award.

"Devastated. Disappointed. Shocked. Disillusioned. All of those things... Football will always kick you where you don't want it to. We have to be professional and see games out better.

We're sure he said something like: our persistence won us a point, we never gave up and I'm pleased with the reaction after Saturday.

They play frankly weird, surreal football. A bit like Town then. Kamikaze 'total' football in defence, neat training ground football in the middle of the pitch, but a lack of cutting edge up front. Until they deployed substitutes who rapidly realised the best route to a goal was simply to run through the heart of Grimsby. And they did that alright.

The Main Stand sang in the first half like sparrows in springtime. Some cuckoos had infiltrated the dentists and grateful we were to them. The Pontoon won us a penalty after the remarkable after-ball bully-shove from Deasy. So the Town faithful did their bit and the end hit so fast, so hard, and so late that we forgot to boo at the final whistle.

Richard West (E Yorks)
Not card-happy and brave enough to give a penalty which neither he nor his assistants saw. We quite liked the officials until they gave four minutes' added time when the trainer hadn't been on once. The sage among us knew we were doomed, and by golly we were.

Still tenth. Forever tenth. And, next, the Gruesome Twosome.