Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

2 April 2024

What else have we got to do on a Bank Holiday? It's a world of fun for everyone, it's a holi-holiday. Easter Monday at the seaside, it's traditional for young men to put on their finest frocks and grease their locks and have a ding-dong.

Town lined up in the 5-3-2 formation as follows: Cart-Wright, Smith, Mullarkey, Rodgers, Tharme, Hume, Holohan, Thompson, Andrews, Obikwu and Rose. The substitutes were Eastwood, Khouri, Ainley, Wood, Vernam, Eisa and Wilson. In this bright future you can't forget the past. No Harry, some cry. Dry your tears I say.

Bantamweights: footballing flyweights with some who need to watch their weight. But wait, they've left their Cook at home. Ey-up, don't worry, there's loads of chips around here. On both shoulders.

One day these chickens won't rule our roost. Is today the day our teddy bears have a picnic?

1st half – The long ride home
Town kicked off towards a measly 778 miserable Bradfordians. What else have they got to do on a Bank Holiday?

Chug, chug, chug went the motor, bump, bump, bump went the brake. For goodness sake, won't anyone do the hippy-hippy shake? Or pass the ball?

It's hardly Mods v Rockers.

It's a shocker, a non-aggression pact between two stuffed parrots. Look there, it moved.

No it didn't. Testing, testing this is your 1 o'clock alarm call!

Oh no, he's stunned. Cartwright down and out in Hubbards Hills. A couple of hours later, after checking the fridge light was on, turning off the central heating and completing an on-line survey about fence panels, on came Eastwood to rictus smiles and polite applause.

Knees bent, arms stretched, woah-oh it's Ogeyoke, shaking it all about and turning around. What's that all about? A bedraggler, bedraggling wide.

Is it April Fouls Day? Plunges over lunges as the sponsors scoffed their lunches. Free kicks freely tossed and possession turned. Duck Farm chucked flatly, grazes grazed by. A bumble break, Hume groping as a long-legged man was loping. A yellow card, and nothing to get hung about. Duck up there in the nether regions of the Pontoon.

What's up? What's down? What's-a-matter-you? Hey, gotta no respect? In my memory there is confusion, was that Holohan or just an illusion? Thanks for the times that you've given us but was that once, twice or three times your shot was charged down?

Now and then. Now and then what? Now and then them be moving vaguely towards us. Hume diddled and addled, a dink, a wink from their Smith and Eastwood scooped.

Oh yeah, Duck Farm header over from a corner.

Four minutes were added. Has anything happened?

No.

2nd half – Whose are these boots?
Neither team made any changes at half time. I suppose it's time to start talking about Richard's lucky sausage rolls as our world begins to burn.

Thoughts drifted, passes drifted further. Pointon coiled over. He's one of their own, much like Kiki Dee, or those blokes from Smokey. So who goes on the fourth plinth in Forster Square?

Corners, throw-ins, throw-ins, corners. Ah, the rhythm of life in the slow lane. Hume, for once not instructed to elevate by the distant call of a fishmonger, unelevated flatly. A swiping knee-knocking swish ballooned out to the middle of the middle of the D. Thompson slapped and we're happy, hope you're happy too.

Are the Bradford banjo pluckers XI familiar with Ermentrude?

Changes by the horrible hoops. Flinging and swinging, ducking and diving and the ref won't stand for that, oh no, no can do. Moments, Celebrations, Heroes and Creme Eggs. Eastwood smothered an intruder, Platt poked overly from the corner. Thompson blocked a hanging volley, Thompson picked a pocket or twenty two.

Once in a while stripes approached. Obikwu, more a giraffe than an antelope, chewed the cud and underwhelmed a thwibbler rolling wide of the left post as stars aligned afar.

And off he went, replaced by Big Don for his golden minute. He scored, he was offside, he was rarely seen again.

Yorkists saw yellow wafting as they felled strolling stripers. Again and again and again. They repeated their tree felling, but no red cards appeared. Ah, yes, the ref's determined to avoid big decisions. That's fine by us, do carry on.

Eastwood caught a cross, Eastwood punched a cross, Eastwood scuttled across as Junior Walker skittled wide from wide.

Five minutes were added. Everyone knows the score, they've seen it all before. They just know, they're so sure, that Grimsby’s going to throw it away, to blow it away.

A bit of the old in and out, a cross looped off Smith, drooped over and beyond all. Halliday and Hume wrestled at the far post as the ball squiffled along the back of the back of the net. A peep, a point, a red card and Smallwood slapped straight down the middle after Eastwood headed off for Humberston.

Just when we thought we were out of the woods they pull us back in.

The end.

Or is it?

Never stop dreaming.