Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 8 May 2010

Division 4

Burton Albion 3 Pearson (10), Harrad (37, 58)

Grimsby Town 0

Attendance: 5510

To the very last moment he tried very hard to please us but this could be his last time, maybe his last time. He was everything and everywhere, with only the unfeasibly immense and immaculate Poole stopping him from making the end more painful with a most painful of pyrrhic victories. Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro was magnifique. We thank you for your efforts and wish you good fortune.

"I can't find the words."

"I was absolutely delighted with my lads. When you look at the game, we had nothing to play for but we worked extremely hard. The front two were always a menace, we put in the challenges in midfield and we had a 46-year-old keeper, Kevin Poole, who was absolutely immense."

Burton, like Aldershot, Exeter and Dagenham before them, provide a template which Town must follow. The emphasis is on intensity and attacking intent and just leave the defence to a few old bruisers. Football is simply about scoring more goals than the opposition (© George Kerr 1980). Without Poole, Town would have scored several, but every time Burton attacked they looked likely to score, not through Town's ineptness, but their own skilful application of tactics. Their strikers were goalscorers who worked hard for each other and the team, their wingers were wingers, their midfield was a bulwark of brawn and brain, while they had a bunch of experience at the back. Solid, organised with some brightness and pace. Perfectly decent and decent to watch.

Boisterous, belligerent, whimpering, simpering, bellicose, meek, defiant, and all in all confused as to what relegation etiquette was. The majority was grown up about it, delivering a moment that was a masterclass in provincial pride when the end was nigh, before that phalanx of pitiful pillocks, who came for a rumble rather than a grumble, emerged from their cesspits. These moronic 'Mariners' rescued disgrace from the clutches of dignity. That brief moment of collective pride was transcendent and utterly beautiful, as our last breath was exhaled. Nothing becomes as much as the manner of one's leaving, and a minority were a shambolic disgrace.

Mr A Bates (Staffs)
Was typically Francophobic towards Ak-de-Ak and rather diffident in alerting the world to his eventual decisions. Apart from an intermittent inability to see blue shirts in yellow hands he wasn't an actor or factor in the outcome. Why not give him a straight 6.000? I don't know, why not?

A new five-year mission to boldly go where no Town team has gone before.