Cod Almighty | Match Stats
Saturday 22 December 2018
Division 4
Grimsby Town 4 Clifton (4), Davis (37, 66) Thomas (88)
Notts County 0
Attendance: 4946 (436 away fans)
The Prosecco plonkers recognised reliability and rewarded Harry Davis with the coveted employee of the week award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence.
Clifton, Davis, Cardwell: energy, calm, persistence. Triple Harry, triple joy.
'Tis the season for Jolley to be jolly with the saintly John Tondeur, for he opined: "We've got good energy."
Raising an invisibly arched eyebrow and nodding towards Nottingham: "And you have to make sure that if there's a ball in your box, you head it or make a block and do the defending you need to do."
Tra-la-la-la-la la-lah la la.
Shuffling round in circles the latest Meadow Lane mitherer is disappointed. So disappointed he's lost anatomical perspective: "The soft underbelly we've had throughout the season has reared its head again."
Just like last week Town ran around in an orderly fashion, making the most of the crumbs that fell from the table of toshery.
Town are a team of slightly misshapen, misfiring parts which grinds its way through to the end. Whitmore was comfortable when the ball was in the air, but there's always a 'but' in life. He benefitted from the presence of serene Medium Harry and the uncanny inabilities of Pieman. Foxtrot Andy was slightly sizzled in the sunshine but enjoyed life without Nathan Thomas.
But Town are still reliant on the kindness of strangers and obligatory, ubiquitous Maccanificence.
Far from perfect, but far from Sladian sludgeball and slouching. The bottom of the U-bend looks to be behind us.
It's hard to believe they're second from bottom. There's someone worse?
With a non-entity keeper and four non-League defenders, there really is nothing nice to say to our distant doppelgangers. We feel your pain, we've been there. We know. As things stand right here, right now, the simple Piemen will be on a slow boat to Boreham Wood, Bromley and Barrow; they're ebbing away towards Ebbsfleet.
They even took off Thomas, their only decent, dangerous player.
Can't defend, can't shoot. Utterly atrocious in both penalty areas. Poor Piemen, the ghost of Christmas past is stalking you. That be Chesterfield. You are Chesterfield. Those three billboards outside Ebbsfleet, Kent say:
You're.
Going.
Down.
Good luck and goodnight.
The only tension was in the choice of half-time biscuit.
Mr D Webb (Co Durham)
The pastel promenader had run out of Christmas cards, for the season of goodwill to all clod-hoppers was in full flow. The Webbmeister was most reluctant to book the flying Fox, enraged Embleton and Turley the Terrible for unprovoked street assaults on occasionally innocent passers-by. The leniency towards legging up was so nostalgic, it was like 1973, the acme of Yuletide, all over again.
All the right decisions, not necessarily in the right order, sunshine: 7.777.
Strike the harp and join the chorus, County's defence is very porous.
In a word: jolly
Town: McKeown, Hendrie (Hall-Johnson 55), Davis, Whitmore, Fox, Cardwell (Woolford 77), Hessenthaler, Clifton, Embleton, Pringle (M Rose 61), Thomas
Subs not used: Russell, Pollock, Buckley, A Rose
Booked: Thomas, M Rose
Notts County: Fitzsimons, Hewitt, Turley, Ward, Hewitt, Milson, Vaughan (Husin 89), Davies (Tootle 84), Hemmings, Stead, Thomas (Dennis 62)
Subs not used: Pindroch, Brisley, Evina, Etete
Booked: Hewitt