Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

27 October 2024

Terms and conditions apply: to participate in the Football League you have to play the entities the authorities permit to enter. Please pass me the nose peg and those industrial-standard rubber gloves. That's the Realpolitiks of football for you, the virtuous shall be punished for principles. Football: governed by incompetence and the EFL a child of that immorality.

Never forgive, never forget. It would be handy if Town found the net. Are you set?

Town lined up in a 5-3-2 formation as follows: Smith, Warren, Rodgers, Tharme, McJannet, Hume, Barrington, Khouri, McEachran, Obikwu and Rose. The substitutes were Auton, Cass, Svanthorsson, Luker, Ainley, Wilson and Gardner. It works away so why shouldn't it work at home? Big Dave's always telling us there's no difference, it's still a patch of green surrounded by sullen supporters glowering down from the stands wherever you go.

Hang on a tic, there's something strange in our neighbourhood. It's the lesser-spotted Luker, the tassel-haired tiger from Peckham! And there you were thinking he was the new Glen Downey. He does exist, he is real, but is he the real thing? We have been getting by without you. Is there anything more to say?

First Steve Sherwood, now Gary Childs. Who's next in this erasing of history? Where's your moustache gone, where's your moustache gone? Far, far away. Yet another missing exhibit in the Mariners Museum, and there's no update in the search for the holiest of Grimsby Town Grails: Dave Gilbert's missing garden spade.

This story is an adventure in search of a hidden truth, or at least a truth hidden plain sight. Are we weaker on the left or the right?

1st half – Any which way you can
Was Diddy Dave's spade bigger than him? Sorry, got distracted. Ooh, nice, Town attacked the Osmond, attacked the low block, and attacked the killer tomatoes. Hassling and hustling, nicking and a-knockin' there pop-pickers. Warren shazzamed to shemozzle Tomato legs in the shadows of the Frozen HorseBeer Stand. A cross, a corner, a little bit of je ne sais quoi and Leighton Buzzard's very own Leapy Wee Janet headed vertically.

Wahey, the linesman really doesn't like their number 32. Their number 32 really, really doesn't like the linesman. Is this a meet-cute set up for a romantic comedy? The Case of the Solid Key's got nothing to do with me. The case for the solid home defence is here and there for all to see.

What do you see? I see the sea and I see fantabulous football flowing as Town summoned their cosmic powers, passes glowing from their toes and Obikwu fancy flicking at the near post. A yellow clad alien clung to life in an inhospitable climate. And the ball.

Rose clipped and spiderlegs scuttled down the left. A wiggle, a waggle and jaunty Justin Obikwu bobby-dazzled past some rotting Tomatoes and passed into the centre. To where Rose would have been had he not been dredged in the making of this movie.

Barrington. Shot over. Promise and delivery mismatched more than my old geography teacher's socks.

Rose flung himself against a red wall way out west. Oh how we chuckled at this audition for the Caxton Players' upcoming Norman Wisdom season. As the Big Lads awaited afar the Denver Boot reverse swept off a tricky pitch and Rose darted and dashed across a startled dawdler to conventionally sweep across The Thing in yellow at the near post.

Oh how we chuckled at how they buckled.

Them. They still exist, they are still out there, somewhere, lurking in the shadows, all false trails and false number nines with deep runs and deep dinks behind where Rodgers no longer was as Warren watched his winger waltz by. Number 29 near. Number 18 far. If you want to know their names look up their numbers.

Obikwu chased a lost tortoise into the open corner, crumpling like an old chequered shirt. Hume coiled high and far and their number 1 flip-flapped from the toppest corner. Hume coiled the corner and Spiderhead upon Spiderlegs misnoddled straight to the yellow peril.

All Town, are we happy? Yes, on balance, as Obikwu kept his balance chasing a hoiky punt in the shadows, brushing a speck of dust away from his shirt sleeve and scraping across the face of goal.

Them. A long shot. It wobbled straight to Smith. They still exist, they are still out there, but they are stilled.

And still Town till the land, ploughing this field and scattering the weeds as their keeper was hassled into a gross grubber. McEachran espied glory and lobbed from John O'Groats. Alas George resigned himself to failure and was not their assassin, providing their nemesis. The ball sailed on and on and landed with the sentimental singers in the experimental free-fire zone behind the emptied net.

And on the half an hour a switch was flicked. They did unto Town what Town had done unto them, no longer stilled, beginning to play as billed. Tapping about, dawdling and dithering, Smith's flykick boombled off their flying 29. Mild pandemonium, dishevelled and disorganised and only the intervention of Duck Farm's magic thighs saved various faces. Words were spoken between men. Town shrivelled to the sound of snivels as Tomatoes swivelled and swerved with a dash of verve. Who'll hold their nerve?

One minute was, like a sachet of salt, added.

Textbook Town: half an hour of fun-filled football, fifteen minutes of sink ball.

2nd half – Every which way but loose
No changes were made by either team at half time.

Diddly-doo, this and that, cuts were thrusted and Hume suddenly sashayed up the left, slaloming through rotted vegetation. A sweeping dink dropped upon Barrington's chest and off he skedaddled down the centre, unmolested. As their Number 1 crept out the Grimsby Grealish slashed early and smashed straight at the keeper, making a slapdash hash of it.

We knew. We all knew at the very moment that the game had gone.

Of course it had, who doubted it? A minute later some slap and tickle in the Frozen Horsebeer's shadows and McEachran slide-tackled the ball straight to their waiting winger. George lay down licking his wounds for a second or two and watched the man he'd tackled run on, wink a rinky-dinky chip into the centre and their little NUMBER EIGHT dart in front of Warren to head in.

Can we head off further disaster?

Nah, this is this Town. This is what it is. This is our new normal.

Three, some say four, minutes later with not much going on nowhere in particular and McEachran momentarily musing upon his post-match meal choice, their number 24 ambled into vacant space. And kept going. A delicately slid rule released Glennon's Destroyer behind Hume. The cross slippered and slithered between Smith and the near post, skittled along the line and NUMBER TWENTY NINE tapped in.

Well, there we are, it was what it was expected to be and, as you'd expect, the procession of plastic ploppings began.

We had an attack. We had a cross and the cross people were still cross - Obikwu headed over and they hadn't yet headed out onto the mean streets of Cleethorpes. And this be our universal truth: when Town go behind down those mean streets a man must go who is both tarnished and afraid.

Ain't got time to wait, something better change. And change it did. Luker and Ainley replaced McEachran and Barrington. Ah-ha, Luker for Luca! Well, that amuses me. Just don't ask me what it was, it's none of your business anyway.

Where Luca was lightweight, Luker's passing was overweight. Perhaps he's overcompensating.

Like it or lump it, that's the choice. Do you like Town lumping it? Lumping and dumping and Duck Farm chucked a long chuck after some mucking about near the water. Obikwu spidercrawled, slithering along the edge of a razor. No sorry, the edge of the penalty area. Is it your dream, is it your nightmare? It was neither. Khouri's shot bamboobled back and his dipping volley dripped into the keeper's plunging hands.

Moments of almostness lost through misshapen passing, underhit, overhit, badly hit; it was all very hit and miss. Luker passed to the last Tomato caught in the Spider's web. Ainley ignored the waiving Denver Boot, but here it is, the last chance in our saloon. A smothering duvet and two Townites broke free. Ainley dribbled on, and on, to the last defender standing, distracted by Luker on his left. C'mon Calum, please release him let him go for goal. To waste this chance would be a sin.

Oh laddie, when you look back on this moment, it will always be with a sense of shame. Ainley ignored the possibilities and ensured the probability of failure by deciding to seek fame and fortune, bedraggling a scrubber woefully wide. It's a sin.

Wilson came on for Obikwu, it says here. I was there, I didn't notice, did you?

And Town did disintegrate further into that familiar shapeless, formless mess of artless long balls and long chucks. What looked like a Ferrari was now a clown car, wheels falling off, horn honking and engine spluttering. Another Smith dawdle was charged down and ballooned towards the covered corner. The ball was left to go out, but didn't, and a persistent pest scraped along the bye-line and scraped into the side netting, possibly even off the post. Does it matter, who cares? What's the point?

Minutes passed, no-one passed the ball. Hoof, head, scramble, stumble, we can't even be bothered to grumble. No, no sir, this isn't a library, it's not that raucous. Gardner and Svanthorsson replaced Rose and Rodgers with two minutes left.

Seven minutes were added, theoretically stressing the Tomatoes. They lay down like lambs, they scratched their nose, they tied their shoelaces and they fiddled about in the covered corner. A Town throw-in was, as we say in these parts, thrown in. Amateur pinballing and the ball squittled to NUMBER TWENTY FOUR, deadish centrish who placed a shot into the right side, and the wrong side walked off with a platter of sausages.

With that it was all just a little bit lonely, just a little bit sad as Blundell Park emptied. The fans, like Town, in the middle of the road to nowhere. And we were feeling OK this morning too.

It's tedious to see the same thing happen and say the same thing week after week. Town have a half-life of half a game, that's all it takes for the nucleus to decay. Town were excellent indeed for half an hour, but as soon as there was any pressing on our weak points this set of players, collectively, simply folded.

There are still big questions hanging over Town and the biggest of the lot? Do you know where Dave Gilbert's garden spade is?