Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Tony Butcher
20 October 2024
The misery of the morning rain turns to the joy of an afternoon delight of scintillatingly sizzling sunshine. We're surfing the wave, hats on the side of our head. Nothing can go wrong now for the form team of football!
Ah, but nothing is so good it lasts eternally, perfect situations must go wrong. Hello Walsall, Town's bogey team you say? Aren't Town Town's bogey team?
Town lined up in a misshapen diamond formation as follows: Smith, Cass, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, Svanthorsson, McEachran, Barrington, Khouri, Gardner and Rose. The substitutes were Auton, Warren, Carson, Tharme, Ainley, Wilson and Obikwu. Barrington in the hole and Rodgerseseses' return raised eyebrows amongst the highbrows.
No-one could be bothered to boo Jammy Matt, but many were shocked and stunned by Steve Sherwood's absent moustache. Get the Mariner’s Trust on it, send out a search party to scour the land. These football artefacts need to be preserved for future generations, we need the Museum of the Mariners Moustache for future generations to understand their cultural heritage.
Time just rolls on and on. We can't avoid this any longer can we, close your eyes and hold on tight to your dream.
1st half – We know them so well
Walsall kicked off towards the Pontoon and kicked out of play straight into the Dentists Stand. Ah, that'll be the English Opening, where Walsall will aim to control the d5-seat, with the help of a bishop on g2, a prawn sandwich muncher on e4 and another on d3. Classic!
Ooh, black and white counters with the Birmingham Gambit - a pressing prawn advance. It's human chess where more is less. It's more or less stale, mate.
A Walsall winkle and a chinkle chased. Wee Janet wooed watchers in the Sky with a hippy-hippy-shake. He shook to the left, shook to the right but Lowe hitch hiked around Britain's coastline and made a bee-line for Smith, fortunately fluffing his pillows with a scrumbled muffle-cross.
Mazel Tov!
Fiffing and faffing and striped knight to Red Queen two. Barrett cantered through and bedraggled wide. It's all very fascinating, I bet it looks good in a spreadsheet.
With Marcel Marceau Cass, our interpretive mime artist at right-back missing, McEachran chased a laddie and failed to foul enough for the interloper to fall. He fouled enough for the stumbler to stumple his cross into the ground and Smith plopped and Matt flopped afar as Hume shoved him over. Warming lights flashed on our map. I opened my eyes and too my surprise there was Danny Rose charging down their keeper.
Ah-ha, Town's tippy-tapping triangulators have breached the eager beavers from Brum's dam. George gorgeously gavotted through a hole, tickling Rose free. A whack, a parry, and the ball batted back between two striped stools. That was lovely. That wasn't a goal, which isn't so lovely.
And on Town slowly lovelied across their land. Lovely. And slow. Slow. And lovely. And laterally lovely and slow. Barrington pirouetted and plastered a plonker into Simkin's waiting arms off a red bottom and…and…and? It was very lovely. It was very slow, but eventually Walsall would whack it back up to Lowe.
After half an hour of wallpapering, Walsall's keeper succumbed to that terribly modern mystery ailment: Crocramp. The clans gathered, huddles were huddled, whispers were whispered sweetly, arms pointed hither and thither, and Town's neutral domination did dissolve.
The Saddlers adjusted their stockings and things were never the same again in our little lives, for they were back to normal. Their wary sidesteps turned into assertive and direct duelling. They'd seen things you people would believe. McEachran was clattered. Smith was surrounded by corner boys and Town's full-backs had been…noticed.
With Town creaking and the crowd shrieking the imperceptible yet inevitable collapse of Western civilisation occurred before our very eyes. Walsall explored the canyons of the full-backs' minds and the canyons of space available on each wing. Stripes bounced off sturdy redsters, a shot deflected off the spinning Matt and McJannet dived to deflect wide. A corner half-panicked aside, a red pass slashed slap-dashingly, slap-happily avoiding lurking Midlanders. Almost, nearly, not quite.
Four minutes were added. Town's egg was slowly boiling and in the end there's no yoke. Denver the dancing chicken was spit-roasted as Barrett coasted by to the bye-line, drizzling across the face of goal. Matt missed the ball, Lowe didn't, but the good ole boy with the whistle didn't miss Matt exhaling too loudly during daylight hours. The pleasant and perfectly professional peepster had found a reason to make us cheerful. Thank you, sir, we appreciate your consideration for our feelings.
And still they come. A corner dripped and Smith was swamped, an old fiend playfully tickling him when no man shall pass and Okeagbue succeeded in failing by glancing inchlets wide from yardlets out.
Stop, that's enough. We can see where this is going and we'd rather not.
It was all perfectly pleasant and superficially fine, for Town appeared to be ascendant, appeared to have control, but every now and then Walsall broke through the façade. There was an uneasy feeling that this game was like a 1970s BBC Light Entertainer. If you look behind the smile there may be something nasty in the wood shed.
Keep smiling everyone, keep smiling, that's entertainment.
2nd half – Half sunk a shattered visage lay
No changes were made by either team at half time.
Hang on, didn't we start off playing chess? When did we change to Kabbadi?
Yes, here we are, the deceptively flattering beginning to the end of it all. Flurries of fluffiness in front the Pontoon. A smattering and clattering, free kick drippled, a cross droppled, McJannet headed vertically, the keeper swatted away from dead insects as a gaggle gathered and the straying ball was wandered away from the line.
Triangles, Barrington wouldn't shoot. Denver did, having a dig and dragging wide of the left-hand post.
Town building up a head of steam you say? Ah-ha, but from where? Your ears? With some very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin' the calliope crashed to the ground. Look, another runner on the right! Oh Denver, we know you so well now: you seem so far away from your man though you are standing near. Hume, chumped again by some basic dance move, their little dinker dinked and Matt arose inside the six-yard box. The rest, they say, is history. Our history with Walsall ain't pretty.
Have we got a plot? McEachran off, Ainley on. Did anyone notice?
Shapeless, hapless, hopeless, Lowe fizzed a fizzler o'er the mountains as he drove his sheep to market down the Town left. Was it just by chance? Something in my consciousness told me you'd disappear. The Town left, left untouched by your presence, Denver, Denver.
Near things down in the distance, a left leg in, a big head out, in out, in out Town shaking all about. Boxed in by the covered corner, Cass's crossfield vagueness ached straight to an idling redster, dead centre. Jellis, one touch, one big dipper into the top right corner, one giant leap backwards for Grimsby fans, one giant leap forward for the Walsall kind.
As three substitutes awaited a bit of Saddling up resulted in a corner or two. A fancy flick up at the near post arced to the unmarked Knowles at the far post, who tapped in from a yard. The game's gone, and so has half the crowd.
And now changes to shore up the defence, as off came the dilapidated Rodgers and drowning Gardner, on came Tharme and Wilson. Can Walsall stop the cavalry?
Something off the line, sometime. McJannet blocked a break. Tharme's head and legs got in the way. A long throw, a corner, a break left, a break right. We're waiting for more pain, it feels like January again.
Now then, (insert name of player of choice for raging and railing). He was clearly present, he could be seen down there on the grass, we saw his shadow on the pitch, he was often near the ball, he certainly gave the impression of involvement. There were definitly eleven striped shadows on the pitch.
Oh yes, ambassador of Artellball, you wouldn't ever wanna see us frown – all four full-backs together, forever! Carson and Warren replaced the rare spotted Icelandic painted butterfly and our Brighton Belle of the ball. If looks would thrill it would have been us instead of him. Ah, all the children sing: "In four full-back falls, in four full-back falls there's always magic in the air."
Wilson did a drive-by mugging in broad daylight, in plain sight, taking Simkins' ball off him in People's Park and running away with a spoon. Some people stood, some people sat, some people cried with laughter, everyone knew why.
Warren. Shot. Hit Wilson. Don’t worry, he's only grazed. It takes more than a slug from a Smith & Wesson to keep this man down.
Five minutes were added.
Someone, does it matter who, did something, does it matter where? A chip to the farthest, furthest post. Ainley rose above Rose, his header was shovelled sideways and Ainley's re-hook was patted out against side-netting.
Listen lads we can still…lose this by more.
From the goal kick that shouldn't have been the ball was pumpernickelled forward. Don't worry Denver's there! Doh! Denver's been diddled again by devious dribblers. Johnson swept in between the static caravans. It's the end of season, no–one in their right mind looks for pleasurable shelter at the seaside in a static caravan during October. It's October, locals rarely look for pleasurable football at the seaside.
End it, end it all, end it now. And now we have an end. But the end of what? Time will tell.
Dave, we're looking upon your works and despairing again.