Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

22 September 2024

Where's the blue plaque? Do we need a National Trust membership to get into Ye Olde Dentatores Pavilion of lost minds and lost souls? Have you lost yourself in nostalgia for the floodlights just off the end of the A46 reading the Elegy Written in a Football Stand?

Town lined up in what is, for the purposes of this sentence, a 4-1-4-1 formation as follows: Eastwood, Warren, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, McEachran, Svanthorsson, Khouri, Green, Vernam and Rose. The substitutes were Wright, Cass, Tharme, Ainley, Barrington, Gardner and Wilson. Duck Farm for Carson at least means we have some scaffolding on the back of the van just in case the roof falls in. Carson's more a skirting board sort of person. We all know that Bromley are the same wherever they go as they learn what they need to do to survive. We all know we'll be looking up not down today.

If you got there early you could see him arrive. He stood six foot six and weighed 345. Kinda broad at the shoulder and broader at the hip, that's Big Bad Brom's Big Bad Bossman. What tripe will he serving up today?
That'll be beige tripe today, how very 70s. From far away, they'll stay for a day, so maybe they'll claim it to be golden brown. It's beige to me and you.

Breathe, breathe in the air. The old home town looks the same shall we just get on with the game?

1st half – Particle man
Town kicked off towards what was claimed by crack internet sleuths to be a total of 112 roosting Ravens nesting in the corner of the Osmond Stand. Ah ravens, those tricksters of myth and legend. What's a collection of ravens? An unkindness, a treachery, a conspiracy or, being kind, a flock. Do you feel kind? No, me neither, the party pooper's party poopers are in town for our party. It's our party and we’ll cry if we want to. Ooh, here's a birthday surprise.

Passing, movement, Rose spinning and shinning straight to Smith within 29 seconds. A full-court press, beigers barged, the Wolds Panther slunk through the bushes but passed too slowly, too far behind Dadi and a South London duvet wrapped itself around the Iceman.

You can "oof" if you want to, it's ok to oof these days. It never ok to hoof though for they art Bromley, the hoof of the undead. Unthinking, unseeing, unbelievably basic, a grotesque stereotype of non-leaguers, one-eyed and barely one dimensional, all long throws and long balls, chivvying and chasing, barging and blocking.

Eastwood caught a catch, a lump and dump, a push and shove and Odutayo volleyed nicely wide from far out, man. Warren caught the bug and hoofed on the roof of the Frozen Horsebeer Stand. It's a special day, so maybe there was a special prize for the longest lump, the highest hoof, and he'd win a cuddly toy if it landed in the hatch above the TV gantry.

Khouri twisty turning, Vernam coiling vaguely near the farthest post. The Denver Boot booting slicely with Smith toiling to contain his mirth as the ball sailed away. And on the half hour the Wolds Panther lay down in the grass, licking his wounds. On came Barrington.

They're holding us down, turning us round, long Bromley balls, bigger beige balls, shrieking near untouching stripes. Head tennis and a header plopped, Svanthorsson chased a laddie, smothering danger to cover for flanking flummery, that repository of jelly and evaporating full-backs. Hit and hope, long shots bumbling and bobbling, ricobounding off stray socks here, there and everywhere but yet nowhere. A hurl headed on and on and on and a Topalloj volley, Eastwood plunged and pawed aside.

Get in to them, get stuck in. Green, the Pouton of the Fourth, slid and missed, failing to topple Topalloj as he tip-toed down the touchline. A whistle and a waddle. Will you pardon Green? Out came a yellow.

The tide was turning back towards the righteous. Town pressed with Town pressure, blocks and blocks and Grant sliced atop his own net. Infiltrations on the right, Dadi dancing, Green bumbling through the candyfloss and Smith swiped away the cross that was a shot that was a cross.

Two minutes were added. To what, for what? For nothing, for nothing happened.

It couldn't be worse, but in a good way.

2nd half – They’ll need a crane
Neither team made any changes at half time.

A bit of cut and thrust, Bromley on the back foot. Green chested down a barren hoof, retrieved from the errant Arthurs and barundled forward. With many distracted by Dadi being slapped across the chops, Green carried on but, like Bromley, was going nowhere. Not now Arthurs! Too late, a barge and striped stumble and the ref pointed the way to home happiness. Smith hopped and hoped, Rose hopped and coped with the pressure, precisely placing low to Smith's left as the keeper plunged lately. That's handy.

Immediately Bromley made two changes, bringing on some sprightly lads with a spring in their step.

Somersaulting through the hoofs, Bromley Boys leapt to beat the clicks that kept on coming. Up and under, backwards and forwards, left and right, big boys ahoy! Mickey Cheeks header over from nearby. High balls, higher balls, desperation in the nation, McEachran dredged, and the free kick flicked off the hedge as Bromley's duffers kept hitting our buffers as they scrimped and scraped against the monochrome wall.

Town broke, Green…thought. Don't think Special K, just do. Left leaning Town pushing back the brown wall, Khouri and Dadi denied by near-post knees. Dadi sprinkled, Khouri clapped eyes on a prize, and tried a shot for size. Smith allowed it to pass his fingertips on its way into an unsuspecting pie. They're dead hot you know, you need to let them cool down.

And Town began to fade, ground down by wrestlers. Warren was weak and off they sneaked but they never got a peak of goal. A tickle and tease and Eastwood hared out to scoop off Kentish toes. Fading, fading, fading.

Ref distinctly unimpressed by their snidey, sneaky cheek in diving and crying under the slightest gaze, seeking out Green, targeting Rose, feigning clatters that never existed. Much tutting and finger wagging at Grant and Imray for their incessant schoolyard antics.

They'll need a crane, they'll need a crane to take the house we built apart. To make it break it's gonna take a metal ball hung from a chain. Yes, they'll need a crane to change the game. And here they came, the tallest structures in the league, Amantchi and Sowunmi. It's boom to doom time, big Bromley balls and chucking, home cheeks sucking as Cheeky Mike leant back and steered a volley wide.

A hooking hoof, the booming bomblet drooped, Green missed, bounded after the bouncing ball and hauled down a fleeing Raven. Yellow card, red card, now it gets hard.

Bring out the scaffolding, the roof's leaking, we need a quick fix not a slick fox: Duck Farm replaced the diddier Dadi as Town brought out the old Escapini Defence. Well, Artell does like to play four dimensional chess with his dominoes. There they all are stood on each other's shoulders in the goal mouth, back to back, backs to the wall, backs to the Bromley Boys. Here's to the Grimsby lads in the billowing deep, here's to the Bromley Boys with their heaving and hauling mis-shooting at the net. There's cutting and cleaning and gutting below.

Three down and ten, yardage! Long chucks, foul chucks, chucking it into the mixer and chuckling in the Dentists Stand at their knavish tricks narking the referee and tomfooling no-one.

Seven (SEVEN) minutes were added.

Town seizing up and under siege. Call the cook! The Beige Bomber offside once, offside twice and three times a lazy lad wandered offside. Except when they weren't. Welly-wallops and Town all over the shop down the left. A dink and jink and a cracking cross-slop steered by Dinanga (available in all good bookshops) against the underside of the bar. A big booming bounce but Eastwood's sprawling star-slap flipped away from a pair of lurking Beigeboys as Rodgers and McEachran scraped the barnacles away.

Boom, boom, shake the room, get out the broom and heads it's Hume. Heads be a-scratching as Artell was booked for simply assisting the authorities with their enquiries, pointing out facts amidst the fiction.

And then finally the Reynolds Boy, appropriately their number 2, passed straight out of play. Our boys fighting until the whistle goes and Bromley can now go back home to their spam sandwiches.

Well that's one less bell to answer, one less egg to fry. You can only beat the eggs in the bowl.

Bromley tried to mug us with gridiron and mug the ref with amateur dramatics. They just forgot the wise words of Alan Latchley, the Sage of Scunny: football is about nothing unless it's about something. And what it is about is football.

Town dining out, Ravens whining about fairy tales of foul misdeeds they made up. Beating Bromley. We're made up about that.