Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Friday 1 April 2016

Conference Premier

Cheltenham Town 3 Dayton (35), Pell (58), Wright (77)

Grimsby Town 1 Monkhouse (52)

Attendance: 4003 (542 away fans)

Pearson was manfully staunch, and Disley had all his fingers in all the dykes, but the one consistently calm footballer on view was Jon Nolan.

"When I put a team out, it's obviously to try and win a game of football. I thought Toto did very well at right-back. That is certainly not what cost us the game."

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"Our two strikers were unplayable, our defenders got on the end of things and I was very, very proud of the team as that's what they can do."

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Town nobbled themselves before the referee plopped that rancid cherry on top of the cheesecake. Hobbled by Hoban, hamstrung by our own hang-ups, Toto at right-back sent out the message, loud and clear, that Cheltenham were feared and any initiative was ceded. Town could not compete physically and were, effectively, intimidated into hacking and whacking.

Gowling was overwhelmed and overpowered, while Toto was haphazard. Arnold was an ephemeral presence under the flightpaths of the inter-Cotswoldian missiles. Amond is nothing with Hoban. Town are nothing without Amond.

Town were inferior, physically, mentally and tactically.

By far the strongest physically and mentally in this league. They simply wear opponents and officials down with incessant bargeball and bawling.

Johnson has assembled a bunch of giant, gnarled old pros who are on the snivelling side of gamesmanship. They want set pieces, they'd do anything to get set pieces. Never have so many big, strong men fallen when a butterfly flutters by. They are bigger than Forest Green, and better at bigball than Forest Green, like Mansfield on steroids.

Make no mistake: they are very good at what they do. They have a manager who has assembled a team that fits to a template, and has the collective determination and discipline to carry out his plans all game, in every game. They play with intensity and are intensely dislikable.

They will go up as champions, but with immense ill-will for a supreme lack of grace in playing and victory. They have no style whatsoever, in any respect.

Squandered our resistance for a pocketful of mumbles about BT.

Mr M Coy (Co Durham)

Like all weak men, he showed one moment of defiance and then crumbled when nasty brutes sneered and shouted. Still, a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. He facilitated failure: 3.923.

Nasty, brutish, and Town came up short.

In a word: inferior