Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

17 March 2019

Grimsby Town 0 Northampton Town 0

Oh no, form a support group! What happened to the iconic paper towel dispensers in the Pontoon toilets? Each day a little bit of our shared history is lost. Generations of Grimbarians will follow us never having to pull the lever down for a torn corner of unabsorbent blue paper.

And they call this progress?

Wind. Windy windy wind of great windiness blowing, blowing, blowing our houses down and umbrellas inside out as nearly 400 Cobblingpeople huddled together waiting for an alibi for coming all this way north.

Town lined up in the ghostbusting 5-3-2 formation as follows: McKeown, Hendrie, Davis, Ohman, Collins, Ring, Embleton, Hessenthaler, Woolford, Thomas and Cook. The substitutes were Russell, Hall-Johnson, Whitmore, Clifton, Dennis, Vernam and Rose. With Northampton being officially "very big", the Jolleyman was heading for a fourth division cliché – big balls need big blokes. Not a daft theory, but what about the appliance of this pseudo-science? You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Who is the iron man in the mask? Rosemary, the telephone operator? No way man. Goode, the mild-mannered centre-back? Could beeeee. Aha, it is the Plucky Scunny loanee limbering up in old goldish, not yellow.

Hold on to your hats and stand by for the most excruciating 90 minutes of your lives.

First half: Losers, cheaters and six-time litterers

Town kicked off towards the Cobblers against the swirling wind that swirled and curled and curled. And balls that curled out of play, oh what a day.

A tree fell in a distant wood, the free kick flew and Foley flopped the clearance widely wide of nowhere. It is only when we look back on our lives that we will recognise that this was one of the highlights of the day. I can't lie to you about either side's chances, but I have seen Alien. I'm not sure if you can admire Curle's tactical impurity.

A Cobblecross fizzed across the face of goal near tipping toes and dumpy Hoskins stumped himself when chasing caterpillars under the Police Box. Look out kid, you're gonna get hit! Harrumphing Hoskins forearm smashed Ring under the nose of the linesman. The flag did flutter and local oaths were uttered as the referee wafted yellow towards this cowardly custard tart.

Thomas turned and underwhelmingly underwellied from afar. A raid, a roam, all roads lead to Mont Pierre, the man mountain that lay in the way.

Northampton knuckleheading route zero wiffleball. Long, long, long and long again

Northampton knuckleheading route zero wiffleball. Long, long, long and long again, the unmolested Hendrie ducked under an aimless punt and headed a yard or two wide of the clawing McKeown's right post.

Town triangles and cobbling trebuchets as the siege of Blundell Park entered the first dimension. Long chucks, long chucks, long chucks and panic rucks as Öhman ascended Mont Pierre. Scrambles and candles at the vigil for the death of logic and proportion. An amberish shot hit Collins' hands from a micrometre away. Go away.

Taylor toshery and Thomas was terminated by the outrushing keeper in the middle of nowhere. A few moments of football as the ball remained on the ground. Ring sliced so slicily the ball never went out of play. Thomas retrieved, rolled around their ropeybacks and Collins drop-kicked up above the roofs and houses.

Oh Danny, if they shout don't let it change a thing that you're doing. Just keep heading them munchy-wunchy long chucks out.

It's mesmerisingly metronomic. Punt, chuck, clear. Punt, chuck, clear.

A cobbblercorner glanced over the angle of post and bar by Thomas. Jamie Mack punched a couple of chucks and chips. Collins’ head, Öhman’s head, Collins’ head, Collins, Collins, Collins, it is all a dream?

Keeping it simple, keeping ball and feet on the ground and making their keeper keep. Cook clapped straight at Cornell, Embleton bedrumbled widely, The Hess hit hard and wide. Embleton almost sneaked in when ricochets rebounded but Cornell flew out farly to smother-swamp.

Chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck off.

One minute was added and the half ended with their captain booked for legging up the promenading Hendrie on a half-term break.

Forty-six minutes of big cobbling, chuckling and occasional Town passing into the bluster. What a load of windy tatterings.

Second half: Don’t look, Ethel

Neither team made any changes of personnel at half time but the wind changed direction so Town were playing against the wind again.

The Hess was booked for kicking the ball away. There was some kind of header from them that some kind of missed some kind of way some kind of time. Some kind of blunderful.

It started raining. It may have been now, it may have been later. The fact is that rain fell and the wind blew harder. Facts. Just the facts.

Slicing, slopping, shanking, long chucks, long chucks. Aw shucks, the picket fence has fallen down, Huckleberry.

Even the rubbish is rubbish as a Twix wrapper and burger box chased a paper bag along the front of the Pontoon in dishevelled, disorganised, disorderly fashion, each going their own way as they headed towards the toilets. The rubbish is all over the place.

Even the rubbish is rubbish as a Twix wrapper and burger box chased a paper bag along the front of the Pontoon

Town temporarily took back control. Someone almost crossed, someone else almost passed the ball inside the area. Cook acted as a wallflower and Embleton carefully placed a shot around the old oaks and wide of the left post. A collaboration and infiltration. Hess coiled a corner in from the left, flappages and cabbages as Cook ducked a yard out and backed the ball up over awaiting monochromers, looping temptingly, teasingly across the face of goal. And that's that.

They wanted a penalty. They didn't get it.

And then they had their single, solitary shot on target. Hibbling and hobbling in the nether regions of nowhere and Foley, from the halfway line, tried to catch McKeown off his line. Jamie Mack staggered back to pluck-flop aside from under the bar.

I suppose speculation's what you need if you want to be a record breaker.

Vernam replaced Embleton. Nothing changed.

Dennis replaced Thomas. Nothing changed.

Long chucking, long chucking, long, long chucking. They have nothing to declare but their deviousness. Big balls and big falls – Pierre flabbed wide when narrowly beyond the far post that may have been the near post. Who cares about the details of a void? There's nothing there, it's a void.

Three minutes were added during which or just before Pierre knock-kneed wide when offside anyway. Who cares about the details of a void.

Imperial China had a particularly unpleasant form of execution which Keith Curle decided to inflict on us unfortunate shivering souls on Saturday: death by a thousand long throws.

But Town survived and that's the long and the short and the very tall of it. Town coped with Northampton getting all medieval on our grass.

Town remained intact with barely a gutter fluttering. The foundations are stronger than we thought. Let's go fly a kite and buy a shed and put this season to bed. It's dead.