Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 26 September 2009

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Atkinson (21)

Darlington 1 Main (81)

Attendance: 4014

Ah, Master Bradley Wood, a Macca in the making. The boy was marvellous, with less puppy fat too. After allowing a Lillis chuck to skip under his boots early on he was nigh on faultless – tackle after block after block after tackle, with some neat and nifty shiftyness in attack too. He saved Town on at least three occasions with last man-boy slides and swipes. The boy done good, real good.

Ah, the headless, legless chicken -€“ Audrey F-f-f-f-f-orbes was as bad as Des Hamilton. He ran in a straight line three times, hit one awful dinky cross and managed to stand nowhere useful when the Quacking Quakers had possession. Town had ten men for the last thirty minutes; Darlington's slap and tickle sending-off merely restored numerical parity.

"It feels like a defeat. As well as Darlington have done with 10 men, it's one we feel we should have won. We had the chances but we were not clinical or ruthless enough to take them. You always feel you should see a game off but we are not playing particularly well at the moment. We had won two games but it's all a bit disjointed; we're having to make changes because we have not got lads who are capable of giving 90 minutes and that's always going to cause you problems. "That's the way it is. Darlington kept the ball better than us and we could not kill the game off because we never had the ball."

"I didn't resign from the football club. I never resigned at all. A decision was made by the chairman that if we didn't win the game we would part company. I don't like the word 'resigned'. What that seems to say is I'm taking the easy way out. I haven't taken the easy way out. A decision was made by the chairman and it was entirely his decision."

Nice. Everyone will love to play them. Pleasing on the eye with one-touch passing and movement, they were performance artists in a world of crushing heavy metal. Their defence even painted their face white and mimed walking into a glass door. The serial insolvents were a theoretical exercise in coaching: eleven boys in search of the perfect goal for their cut-price Svengali, Colin On-his-Todd. It was like watching a practice session, or the practical exercise for a FIFA coaching exam. All very stylish, but what happens in real life? Big boys make you cry. Poor old Darlo: all the money's gone, nowhere to go. Any jobbing manager got the sack, Sunday morning turning back, the yellow death is slow, nowhere to go.

You can't fool a Townite. We've seen it all, so often, for history is a flagon of Irn Bru. It keeps coming back and you won't feel better for it. No-one expected anything but the avoidance of victory, and so we sat, we saw, we were a bit miffed but went home happy that Town had hung on grimly for a morale-boosting non-defeat to the dreaded Darlo. Noise was limited to pre-half time drumming for the bouncing mini-pops waiting to play their half time game. On the Seasonal Sob-o-Meter we're becalmed in the doldrums, dry-eyed and dangerous.

Mr S Mathieson (Cheshire)
He saw things normal people couldn't imagine. He was consistent, observant, conversant and competent. His baffling decisions were probably right: given he never fell for falling, he had earned trust. As North was slapped and tickled right in front of his eyes, there can't be too much to gripe about there. Would 8.342 be a bridge too far? No.

Bradley Wood? Bradley did.