Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Paul Ketchley
30 August 2004
Wycombe Wanderers 2 Grimsby Town 0
On a bank holiday Monday in St Albans there's nothing better to do than jump in the car, bomb round the M25 and M40 for 40 minutes and end up in the hell hole that is High Wycombe. The Scunthorpe of the South, with the Old Show Ground lookalike at the end of an industrial estate. What a dump it is.
I got there as the teams came out and saw the Humberside copper who still manages to hold down a job managing our turnout at away games. I hadn't seen him since those heady days of playing Crystal Palace in what would now be called the Championship. At this rate, I told him, we'd be down in the Ryman League playing Canvey Island and what would he do then for a job. He looked thoughtful and replied that the latest crop of players were far more committed than last season's so he wasn't too worried, and on that happy note I headed for the stands.
Town played in the yellow shirts with black side panels and lined up in what looked like Williams; Gordon, Whittle, Ramsden; McDermott, Fleming, Coldicott, Pinault, Crowe, Sestanovich; Parkinson. A sort of 3-2-4-1-type arrangement. Or was it 5-4-1? Anyway, it wasn't 4-4-2.
This being my first game of the season, I assumed the big gangling striker was Parkinson and the tiny nippy midfielder was Sestanovich. It's a fair assumption but a wrong one, and easy to make once the toss was made and Town played towards the away end.
First half
Town kicked off and the ball wasn't kicked out of play. I've read Tony's reports so often where he says that that I confess to being quite surprised.
And then for 25 glorious minutes it was all Town. Triffic, we all thought, as we lazed on a sunny afternoon. Overlaps from Crowe and Macca, Sestanovich proving that big gangly players have ball control and Parkinson working his socks off. Oh yes - more of this please, as we cut Wycombe to pieces at will and won a multitude of corners. Oh, I forgot - we never score from corners, do we, and we didn't here. Oh for that day when Richard Smith converted one at Wimbledon. Yes, it was that long ago.
So in one of those ritual 'cut the other side to pieces' moves that happened every couple of minutes, the ball went back to Fleming just to our right of the penalty spot. Some say he scuffed the shot, but I was right behind it and I'd say he deliberately tried to curl the ball in 2.735 centimetres from the right post (from behind the goal that is). Sadly he was 2.736 centimetres off target and the ball neatly bounced off the outside of the post.
We had a couple of free kicks when our superior skills forced the clodhoppers that were Wycombe to hack down our glorious ball players. This resulted in one of the few occasions when the Town fans influenced the referee and got Talia, in the Wycombe goal, to remove his bag from the goal line.
So it was all good value for the visiting fan. All the action was directly in front of us. We stood by for a very boring second half when we'd bombard the goal at the other end, although it's only fair for the opposition supporters - who were so quiet that we whispered our chants out of respect - to get a close-up glimpse of what the game called football is actually all about.
At this stage Wycombe were so utterly dire that they began to demonstrate the unknown art of deliberately passing the ball out of the playing area in a truly pinpoint way. Oh dear. They were dreadful.
Then Sestanovich got injured. I'd say it was a groin strain from the way he winced and held himself you know where. He tried to continue and then went off so we were down to 10 men. No problem though - just need to hold out for three minutes to half time. Er, hang on - the ball isn't down this end any more - oh - they've got a corner - well, we've had several of those to no effect - and of course it was swung in and, bang, they're ahead from Burchall. Did anyone know how we came to be 1-0 down?
How did that happen? Well, my dear, it always does at Wycombe; they always score from a corner at the far end. It happened in '98, and again in January. So it was today.
So half time gets blown and the Town fans stand and applaud the team off; well, they would, given that we were so superior in just about every position and you just had to believe we'd score five in the second half.
The half-time entertainment
The half-time entertainment was a penalty shoot-out competition from Penn Juniors, in which a load of seven-year-olds showed some variable technique in the art of scoring penalties. They got generous applause from the Town fans while the Town subs - Bull, Mansaram, Marcelle and (read this carefully) Reddy completely ignored them as they played keepy-uppy for ten minutes. Out of the feet of babes come valuable lessons, as they say.
Second half
So Sestanovich didn't reappear (well, he hobbled out 10 minutes into the second half), and Reddy - another tall, gangling newcomer with a heavily strapped knee - ambled out to replace him. Reddy was clearly practising the art of slow-motion running, and he ambled about quite ineffectively for most of the half. Not a six million dollar man in my book, whatever Peter Reid thought of him.
Anyway, after about 10 minutes Wycombe knocked the ball across the box, Gordon made a bit of a mess of things and the ball was put back into the middle and bundled into the net. Messy but effective. Burchall again, and Tyson lay in the back of the net for some minutes before being helped out by their physio.
And then we got double value for money as Wycombe bombarded our goal. Sestanovich's creativity was missed and Parkinson looked either subdued or just plain knackered.
Then someone played a nothing ball over the top to nowhere and up popped Stacy. "What is that?" some people asked. Stacy was promptly flattened in the box and the referee pointed immediately to the spot. "That was a good ball," replied a chorus of voices.
Reddy picked up the ball and looked authoritative. Well, actually, no - he looked idle, undisciplined and lazy. "Tell us Kevin - will he score?" Frankly, he didn't generate confidence. The girls in the yellow shirts at the front turned their backs and Reddy ambled up to the ball in a straight line, obviously going for the left-hand corner. He struck a not very firm shot towards the said left corner and Talia dived to his right, with the predictable outcome that he saved it, to the delight of the Wycombe fans and the misery of those who had looked forward to an easy win. You almost wished one of the Penn Juniors could have pulled on a yellow shirt and stepped up for us.
That was really it. From then on Town fell apart and Pinault was substituted, to boos of dismay, and replaced by Marcelle, who didn't impress. Macca was replaced by Bull, who isn't in the same league. We seemed to go to a 4-4-2 formation, which really showed up Ramsden and Whittle's inadequacies as centre-backs. Immobile, they were, leaving a yawning gap which Tyson seemed to recognise and tried to fill.
The final whistle came as a big relief. Contrary to what one enthusiast seemed to think, Town were not unlucky; they simply couldn't finish - and in this league you'll get bundled out of games if you play like that. We've got some good players - Gordon, Macca, Crowe, Pinault, Sestanovich and Parkinson, to name half a team - but some real journeymen as well. The names of Whittle and Ramsden might suggest why we have problems defending corners.
Nicko's man of the match
Of the half a team of good players it's a toss-up between Macca and Parkinson, and I'd say Parkinson shaded it for pure effort, hard work and a never-say-die attitude.
Official warning
Who was the referee? He had a good day, and on my interpretation of Tony's scoring system he gets 7.61528 and a quota of double Nectar points for the afternoon. You couldn't complain about any of his decisions.
Paul's final thought
Nobody got promoted who couldn't win away games. The numbers just don't work out. So we'd better improve by the time we play Cambridge in four weeks' time, otherwise someone at Humberside Police had better start thinking about other jobs for our friendly crowd manager.