Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Thursday 19 December 2013

Conference Premier

Grimsby Town 3 Disley (17), Neilson (30, 62)

Kidderminster Harriers 1 Gash (8)

Attendance: 3086

A cold, cheerless Thursday in the depths of December with fifty-odd secret Santas from the Severn down in the Osmond end. Do you want some whisky in your water? Some sugar in your tea? It's a three-sock night.

Emptiness all around, for no-one wants their football on a Thursday. It's the Hoary Bikers Christmas Party on BBC2. How can Town compete with a cultural highlight like that?

We'll, we're here now. Is it worth it?

First half: The magnificent two
Off they kicked towards the emptiness. Eek. OMG. A kaleidoscope of redness blurring Town's lines. Stretching, fetching, retching and wrenching closer and closer to McKeown.

Gash, gnash, smash and grab up off Pearson's toes in a loopity-loop of death over the stranded Jamie Mack and high-high-high into the netting. The Santas sleighbelled down the steps.

Kerr. Ticking. A midfield metronome spreading calm. Hannah hooked, The Happy Shopper cropped from afar. Things happening: every second counts. Marvellous football. And Town were playing too.

Hatton hurled, Burgerboy confused vegans in cardigans and Disley spectacularly hooky-swivelled into the bottom right corner off Lewis's fingertips.

Faster. Faster, the Kiddy kids splurged faster. Lolley popped, Malbon cropped across Jamie Mack. A save. A super save from a super shot. Super dooper stuff. What a game.

Ping-pong, nothing can go wrong, left and right, one touch, two touches, a dummy and scrummy swipe that skipped into the bottom right corner. Neilson, you chubby little beauty you!

More, more, more of the same. Kiddy upped the pace and Town laced daisies into their hair. Thrust, parry, en garde! Touche! Brilliant. And Town were great too. Hannah! No! Veered wide, steered into the side netting.

Just superb. What a game.

Second half: That riviera touch
Neither team made any changes at half time.

Neilson chipped, Hannah walloped, Hatton scalloped and Lewis scooped away. They did things, I can't remember, a whirl, a twirl, a whizzing whirligig and nearness. Lolley's the boy, can't he go and play with his toys?

McKeown flat wellied, John-Lewis grazed, Neilson scuttled and dinked into heaven. An hour gone, the season started. Redheads flopped, they started to shoot from afar rather than clip-clippety-clop on Town's stairs.

C'mon, it must be Colbeck time now? McLaughlin replaced Neilson and a standing ovation for an outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. Cook replaced the Happy Shopper. Town coasting towards Christmas.

Thomas trundled and rumbled, Hannah messed from a yard. Does it matter?

Added time, red men slipped in between the sheets. A crimple wide, a swimple into the area. Utterly-butterly brilliant savings from Jamie Mack.

Football. It's coming home for Christmas. 358 days of hurt and now Hurst's boys are dreaming.

Jingle all ze vay – the cheeky chubster of chintz, the prince of the prance, the Cockney nabob of knees-up: it's Scott Neilson.

Whirling like a cyclone in the Kiddy defenders' mind, could it be magic Alex? Oh yes it could, the swirling sultan of ping Alex Rodman was dead acemer indeed, mesmerising his markers into the nothing box.

"I thought that Kidderminster played well and they're obviously disappointed to lose... We got the goal back pretty early, and that settled us down, and I thought it was a really good advert for our league."

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"I thought we got the ball down well tonight and passed it around. But we were really disappointed with the goals we've conceded and we've got to be better defensively from set plays."

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By several time zones the best collective performance of the calendar year. Much wobbling in the starch as the Kidders steamrolled over the Town tarmac, but the wise owls and cool heads kept calm and worked out how to deviate the Kiddymen from danger.

Offensively the wonderful wispy wingmen wrapped up the Kiddymen in swaddling and put them on their straw bed in their house of straw. Rodman was poetry in motion, Neilson a flickering flame of festive fun. And all the while Disley and Kerr quietly hugged and mugged the Midland maestros into shrugging and chugging impotence.

Absolutely fantastic. Town overcame really excellent foes with professional persistence and skill.

Marvellous mass pass and move megastars with a hint of brittleness. My, they swirled and whirled like a hurricane with a calm in their eye and Town were blown away for the first ten minutes. They were just superbly coached and constructed as an offensive force, just fantastic. But when they didn't have the ball they were just another team.

You could choose any of the their front four to drool over, but Gash and lolloping Lolley, in particular, caused minor chaos. Only after the third goal went in did they cease to act as a cohesive team.

They will thrash a few teams and were by far the most inspirationally fearsome side Town have played this season. If they had a better defence they'd go straight up without touching the sides and end up in League One.

We're walking down Blundell Avenue to a winter wonderland.

Mr B Toner (Lancs)

Ain't he cute? No he ain't. Ben Toner is much too young to be booking Captain Dizzer when he should be having fun. Lost his nerve and lost the chance to get above 5.863. There'll be tears on his pillow this Christmas.

Faster Kiddycats kill-kill, loopy luck, long chuck, a bagatelle of ballroom dancing, Neilson prancing and old boils be-lancing, tra-la-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la.