Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 25 November 2023

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Pyke (19)

Sutton United 1 Smith (45+5)

Attendance: 5,456 (75 away fans)

If they really wanted to meet Ringo it would be far cheaper to hang around Tescos or the leading local hairband emporium.

Holohan and Mullarkey had fine first halfs, though both faded, Gav much sooner. Toby was in the frame until the last ten minutes of minor turmoil as head and legs fled in different directions. So who?

Hey, c'mon, it's gotta be Big Luke, he did what it says on his tin hat. His mere existence kept the giants atop their beanstalk.

He may wear a woolly hat but he does't try to pull the wool over your eyes. The players didn't do what they told them to do and it was rubbish. Chapeau!

"Frustrated, really frustrated…not enough energy, not enough belief…flat and lacklustre. It just fizzled out. Poor. Just rubbish"

Say what you see Benjie, it's your catchphrase. We weren't close, but you were right.

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The Gray Man was suitably bland, chucking out the usual guff about "This is a tough place to come", although he may be talking about the state of the nation's road network after 44 years of the neo-liberal consensus. For those playing cliché bingo, today's multi-ball prizes were "Response. Attitude. Character. Good areas" with the bonus ball phrase "maybe it was the conditions with the wind".

But then, right at the end, Dull Matt threw in a classic one-liner: "We looked a threat from set pieces all afternoon"

He's a cheeky one.

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Let's start with positives, we're all about positive thinking these days. Err…trust what tomorrow may bring?

Perhaps thricely all game Town played with snap and crackle and Sutton popped. The rest of the time Blundell Park life was a dirge. Nobody was individually terrible, but they were just themselves, mostly all right until they do that thing they always do sometime during a game. Andrews sees football as an artistic endeavour, solely about creativity, Ringo doesn't block crosses, Holohan runs out of steam, Conteh is a tremendous road sweeper but can get dispirited by gusts of wind, Wilson is a an impact screwdriver, not a jackhammer, and so on and so on. Pick a player, choose a character imperfection.

Big Luke did what he does. He headed the ball and shouted a lot.

Collectively there was nothing, just men going through their motions.

Enervating, desiccating, new life, new life. We need new life at the top.

Sutton are a club with a long, proud history in the non-leagues of English football. One should never patronise or dismiss offhand those who have worked their way up through determination and hard work.

But these Gray Men are a cliche of a non-league team who just happen to be playing in the league. Big Men playing Big Ball. And they aren't even very good at it. Terribly ordinary set pieces, a long throw that is barely Maherian in length and velocity, and corners that don't even scare the local pigeons.

There are enough half-baked teams of strolling drones in this division to give them hope that bully-balling will keep them close enough to some stragglers so they can surge in the spring, when half the division has Balearic dreams.

It's a grim life, but it is a plan. We can grind our teeth at these grinders but at least they know what they are doing and how to do it.

The occasional snuffle and cry was heard amongst the silent majority’s silent reflection. Welcome to the cemetery.

Mr M Corlett

An utter and complete disgrace, this man needs to be struck off the list immediately. He simply doesn't understand his job. He was competent and completely in control.

Shocking, positively shocking: 9.133

There is nothing to digest, it was utterly inedible.

In a word: curdled