Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 19 November 2022

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Maher (90+1)

Stevenage 1 Reeves (79)

Attendance: 6,022 (128 away fans)

Milo and Granny Jean took at trip to Blundell Park and saved the Asti Spumante for Niall Maher. Joining the old and the young ones, joining the black and the white, they will remember him for saving their day against the Purple Gang.

Well, as a wing-back, not a full-back, Danny Boy was decidedly and decisively dashing. He put an end to his stress and strife as he's back to living a sporting life.

Poor old Amos was alliterated and obliviated by Amoo when Town went to a back four. Let's gloss over that and remember the good times. He was chic today.

To be or not to be happy with a home point? That is a question. With arrows slung, the leader of our pack folded his arms against a sea of trouble:

"In the end, I was pleased with certain aspects of the performance"

Slimline Steve was his usual cheery, magnanimous self, full of the joys of spring rolls. And what did he see through his single sour eye?

"They didn't have a clue today…It doesn't matter whether you are at Grimsby or the Red Lion, if you make a big error…I think they swayed the referee to be fair to them"

There's only one way really brings results for Mascara Man. He's sailing in a Sour Milk Sea. You do belong there.

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However we attack we always find our way back to the same conundrum: no matter what they do, what we want to believe is rarely true.

As in every home game this season, Town were in a confused tizz for 20 minutes, ground their way back into slight, but benign, ascendency, then flipped and flopped around in quiet desperation after the opposition nicked a goal on the counter-attack. This time more than many other times, this time they sort of got it right with the comedy gold of Maher's twisting by the pools of sorrowful slouchers slinking away as time ebbed away.

The back three was holey, Efete awfully timid, Morris and Green stodgy rock breakers, Khan an ephemeral, ethereal butterfly, Clifton all shins and garters. If Town had a moment, McAtee was the swinging pendulum. Just don't let him take a penalty again, eh?

They kept on going, they didn't give in. A point won. That's all.

These medieval stiff oakers are competent, committed and organised. That's it. That's all there is to them. They hit it long and chased, they knocked it shortly and scampered, they kept it tight, kept us shape and relied on the kindness of strangers to fall asleep.

Bog-standard lower league professional football.

The Purple Gang have the cynical manipulative mien of Mascara Man running through them, forever falling, forever mauling, forever moaning, forever groaning, forever wasting everyone's time. But most teams do down here.

They are like Town ended up being last season: nothing special, but a formidably, consistent core of an adequate team that doesn't give in.

Without Sweeney and Reeves they'd be back down in the basket-case zone. They have no depth, so a couple of injuries more and they'll be floating down through the clouds, and memories of early-season frolics will come rushing up to meet and greet their sighs by May.

They are the epitome of 10th.

Gruntles almost dissed and chagrin suppressed.

Mr T Reeves

We'd have got more sense out of a wet lettuce. We're not content to be with Tom the Terrible in the day time or at all in the night. Incompetent. Utterly incompetent. Barely got a decision right, being immensely kind to the foul fallers from far-off Hertfordshire: 4.371

A bodge, a stodge and a bullet dodged.

In a word: peeved