Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

8 September 2024

It's misty, it's murky and we're goin' where the sun keeps shinin' through the pourin' rain. Ah-ha, it's Chesterfield, again, back where they belong. Is this another day we're gonna sock it to the Hipper Valley PTA again?

Town lined up in a 4-3ish-3ish formation as follows: Wright, Warren, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, Khouri, McEachran, Green, Svanthorsson, Rose and Vernam. The substitutes were Eastwood, Cass, Carson, Tharme, Ainley, Wilson and Barrington. You've heard it all, yes you've seen it all, but tell me, what has changed? There’s no change.

And in the blue corner, blokes in blue.

Seconds out, round one.

1st half – I’ll come back later for the little sauce pot
Town kicked off away from the near thousand Town fans shoved in a corner of the side stand. We're on the money and on the nose as McEachran chipped onto Svanthorsson's toes. A shot blocked, a corner swung and Rodgers thighed wide from beyond the farthest post.

Tricking, treating, teasing, easing through blue jelly. Warren scrumped a scruffler straight to their Boot boy in goal. Action Man with real hair hared down the right, once, twice and thricely, sizzing a cross and Rose stretchy-poke-volleyed straight into Boot's midriff. Wee Janet dripped longly, Rose nodded and Green's slap was blocked.

Gorgeous George on an ever-spinning show reel of turning like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream. Feels so right, can't be wrong, a goal in this game can't be long. Oh happy days are here.

Chesterfield? Balls in the air but not enough air in the balls.

Ah that's nice, they've had an attack, they've had a shot! Dobby The Elfman sneaked and snaked through striped legs, slithering straightly at Wright. What was this? Merely a blip on an uninterrupted trajectory towards Danny, the name of our Rose.

With Town ticking, Oldaker was booked for a Khouri dredge. Ah poor lad, he's in need of the restorative power of the Dave Moore Death Stare. Slim Charles Vernam plopped the free kick ploppily over the wall and gently into the arms of the waiting Boot boy. Khouri awaited a return, Town dishevelled and discombobulated, Warren woefully wafted way out right. Berry watched and waited, saw bodies jigging and his crinkled drooble wandered lonely through the crowd and through Wright's legs. High o'r hills, vales and in the stands I saw their crowd fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Wright. Wrong. Feet again.

Dadi nodded, Green, shootin' the pier and walkin' the nose, surfed along and through the deep blue sea and Boot clawed away the narrow wallop.

And after 35 minutes Mr Denver Hume walked back into our lives. A tackle. Better late than never I suppose.

Dadi cool runnings and Rose beyond arising to noddle wide. Mariners wheel-clamping, hustling and hassling, strangling and dangling crosses. Local scythes were brought out for a late harvest of this crop of sweat peas. In their eyes there's something lacking, what we need's a damn good hacking. A free kick dropped and Rodgers miffled softly through the local hedgerows straight down the middle, straight into the middle of Boot's gloves.

Blue bargeball and hoofing, Town disturbed by noises off. For that, dear Dobby, no-one I think is giving a penalty. A corner or two, a cross or three, I think they must be high or low. Heads up, heads out, slashing and crashing. Sturm und Drang but no bang for their rucks and mauls.

Three minutes were added for the airless balls and artless falls amidst the jeers and cat-calls at the official ignorance for all things blue.

Minds drifted, feet jogged, eyes stared right and the Cookie cutters cutely crimpled leftly. Well, rightly for them, wrongly for us. A cross arced midriffly, bumbling softly as Rodgers held off Griggs and the ball plopped between unmoving monochromers eight yards out. Markanday moonwalked through the black and white forest to toe-poke past the static Wright.

And there we are. Town deflating quicker than the balls themselves, victims of their own timidity, forgetting the first rule of non-comic defending: if in doubt, get it out. Ask the local gentry and they will say it's elementary.

How did that happen? Town are Town, turning fine wine into waste water at the drop of a hat, forgetting that they should never swing a sword in a gunfight.

Dominance and dithering: this I tell you brother, you can't have one with the other.

2nd half – Grazing in the grass
Neither team made any changes at half time.

All town, are we happy? Can we be happy? Yes we can. Crank up the Vernamator, give me warp speed, Mr Sulu. A misshapen muffle from The Wolds Panther was swiftly smothered and returned to the man who would be king. Vernam va-va-voomed down the middle, swinging his hips hither and thither, scattering blue shorts across the Hipper Valley, to canoodle and caress a cracking coil into the top right corner with Boot's gloves flapping in the wind.

Oh, my my, what a sensation. Oh, my my, what elation. Listen dads, we can still do this.

There's more air in their balls now. Incoming! Longly hoofed and half headed by Rodgers the ball dropped into the inviting void to a lurking Blueite. Bunny Warren sleeping and a parting of the non-red sea of socks. Dobby, on the edge of the penalty, opened up his body and very precisely curled around where Wright's fingers would have been and a yard or so wide.

Huffling and shuffling, pushing and rushing, moaning and a-groaning, the ground in tumult. Everybody's talkin' at him, he can probably hear every word they say as yellow followed a bellow in his ear from Uncle Tom Cobley and all. See that there, Gordon's a dive!

A home chuck in deep down under the Town fans. Rose pickled Oldaker's pockets and plunged under the hot breath of the chunky challenger. Down he went, up went a yellow, then up higher went a red. Off he trudged to the scowls and howls of the seething Spirietes.

Hume whippled the free kick ballooningly off the wall and what followed is of no use to man nor beast. Tricks and flicks as Town flew down the flanks, Warren flinging himself turfwards after some Dadi coolness. He shouldn't play the fool in a six-man move, what a waste.

The outnumbered but inspired Spireites found holes in the colander, kicking at a broken door. Wright went walkabout under a corner but fortunately found the ball dropping into his hands. A straight pass into a huge expanse of nothingness and Wright skipped out to flip away from gambolling Grigg. Campbell burgled past the bunglers on the left, Wright patted down the narrow slap and, well, it's that man again. After you, Claude, no after you Cecil. Amidst much faffing about in the mist Rodgers joined the Gentle Giant in some slapstickery.

It's being so cheerful that keeps us going.

Wakey, wakey Town. McEachran bumped and barged and Rose was booked for an illustrative discussion on the nature of being. A Green surge, but instead of blinking he started thinking, don't do it Ethel! Infiltrations but hesitations. Town overthinking by thinking.

A Town free kick taken shortly and are you thinking what I'm thinking? Where's the ref? Down the tunnel chatting to his chums, perhaps he forgot his handkerchief.

Arthritic advances, Rodgers slimpled a slice slowly into the empty seats behind the goal. Athletic trances, Vernam jinked and jigged and winked a dink deep into the centre of the penalty area, Green swingled around an errant blue boy, ducked and steered a flashing header over the bar.

With about ten minutes left Hume and Khouri and Green were replaced by Carson, Wilson and Ainley. Two strikers. Two! Now we're cooking.

Who turned the oven off? Jiggling and juggling, bluesmen buggling. A coil six inches beyond the far post and Gordon hopped above the barely bopping Bunny Warren to head agin the post and Grigg swiped the rebound against the bar.

Fancy that? Figure-hugging stripes mugging some chugging blues. Wilson on the charge, tickled behind the retreating homesters but weakly rolling into the blue socks as many Mariners awaited. And Rose arose beyond the far post to highly noodle the big drooping corner wide. Or was that widely noodle high? Isn't that a teen comedy on Netflix?

With a minute left of this abnormally normal time Vernam trotted off and Jonah Barrington skipped on.
Seven minutes were added. Nicking and knocking, crops rotated and Dadi crossed. Wilson sneakled in front of his marker, dead centre and flippled a floppy header straight at Boot. Carson once, Carson twice, sweetly crimpling a cross across the face of goal, but no-one attacked the nearest post, all stripers sliding farly. Their Boot was made for baulking.

It's defence against attack but the Blue wall's intact, barely bothered, barely breached as Town cycled through their process. Back and forth, left and right, rock and roll but there's no goal, no sight of goal, no real expectation of a goal. The goal is a goal isn't it, not points for artistic merit?

There we are, you can love the superficial shine of the slick and quick tiki-taka Town attacks but the bottom line is it's another game where we mugged ourselves through indecisive dawdling in both boxes. Three points tossed away.