Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Tony Butcher
3 November 2024
The FA Cup. Who cares eh? Well, we did a couple of years ago when we sneaked unnoticed behind the rope line and onto the red carpet to swig as many Martinis as we could before the bouncers turned up. But did anyone else really notice when we beat Plymouth and Cambridge and Burton? Only their fans for a few days. The glorious run will be forever with us, but no-one pays much attention to the travails and wails of others, especially before the third round. For the rest of the world that cup run is now merely a quiz question, we're just a starter for ten on University Challenge.
And the flip side of that national indifference is who but us remembers losing at Kidderminster the year before, or at home to Salisbury, famous for its 123 metre spire? What about Bath, and it's beautifully sparkling spa waters? Gateshead with its car park from Get Carter? I still get a shuddering frisson of inherited humiliation when I drive up the M1 between Meadowhall and the A61 turning: Ecclesfield in 1890, now that was a disgrace. 8-2!
Dog days for us but great days for all of them, for we were their Luton, their Southampton. Football is like comedy, best viewed hitting up to give toffs a bloody nose. And today we're the temporary toffs, the potential source of a century of stories for those Stones that have rolled oop North. Is this a modern cup romance in the making?
Town lined up in a holey polo diamond formation as follows: Smith, Cass, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, Svanthorsson, McEachran, Green, Khouri, Obikwu and Rose. The substitutes were Auton, Warren, Carson, Tharme, Ainley, Barrington, Luker, Wilson and Gardner. Players, playing in positions, standing here and there. Now there's a mint with a hole in the middle: Gorgeous George the pivot, Green the rivet, Dadi and Khouri out wide. Does it matter, should it matter?
Doh, oh no, no Big Don, crocked in the warm up. Does it matter, should it matter?
Only fools say they can't win but c'mon, let's roll away the Stones It does matter, it should matter, there's a rockabilly party on Saturday night and we gotta be there. So let's get this done early, no extra time, we're British.
1st half – Town are gonna lose this
Town kicked off towards the Pontoon and so followed and flowed 45 minutes of attack versus defence. We kicked the ball, they headed the ball, we headed the ball, they kicked the ball. Pings were ponged and Cass headed it back into the mixed up, muddled up, shook up world twixt keeper and back four. Rose stretched, Rose lobbed and struck a pose waiting for the ball to drop into the net. We all waited for the ball to drop in to the net, 'cept for Lola.
Stringpole Cook loped back and superbly scrape-volleyed off the line.
Mmm, is it one of those games? Are Town gonna lose this?
Once, just once, once and only once did these rolling Stones get into the Town penalty area. Just once. Wright pushed out the flibbly-flabbled cross thing. That once was now and now there is no need to think of them again. They were just a bunch of blue shirts hanging out to dry.
We kicked the ball, they headed the ball, we headed the ball, they kicked the ball. Khouri powdered through some kegs of beer and, as he entered the penalty area, a flapping blue shirt wrapped around his ankles. As the referee pondered and pointed spotsward Obikwu picked up the ball wouldn't let Rose have it. The captain of our ship let his heart be speakin' and relented, relinquishing duties. Spiderlegs stared at the keeper, took a deep, deep breath and slackly rolled against the right post. The ball boinged straight out to Denver who booted it straight into the Pontoon. Are you ready Denver, start walking.
Less than ten minutes gone and if you haven't guessed, this is an SOS. Town are gonna lose this.
The gentle shooting practice continued. Infiltrations and deliberations, moments wasted as a series of stripes committed the original sin: they had a thought. Don't look, just do, do the doo, da-doo-doo-doo. A Hume corner in-dripped and drooped through flappers and slappers and Cass, a yard out, swung his pants and cleared the ball backwards.
Town are gonna lose this…
Deliberations and inflitrations, McJannet surged, Rodgers rubbished into the furtherest reaches of the Outer Pontoon. McJannett surged, Hume drumbled along the bye-line and Rose cleared backwards at the near post. McJannet surged, bellows squeezed their box, McEachran's shot was batted out and Rose cheekily scrumble-lobbed back over the hedge and over the prostrate keeper. Howes arose to finger-flip onto the face of the crossbar and no-one but a blue boy was there to hack away.
Town are gonna lose this…
Too many Mariners using their brains. Don't blink, don't think! McJannet surged and Green barged down the flanks. Crosses floobled off blue, through blue, past blue, who knew as the feeling grew…Town are gonna lose this.
In and out, in and out, the keeper crept out and the ball bumbled towards an empty net. A blue shirt strolled back to wash up the dirty plates. Corners, free kick, corners again. Town slowly, slowly turning themselves into a ball of rubber bands. And finally the freely leaping Cass headed highly, widely, wastefully and that's your fill of 45 minutes of a monochrome masterclass in missing.
Wealdstone were invisible to the naked eye, we only knew they were playing because it says so in the programme. Town were making the impossible possible with a desire to find every conceivable way of avoiding scoring.
It is too much to ask? We just want a comfortable win that won't hurt our backsides. We don't need passionate misses from you.
2nd half – Town are gonna lose this
Wealdstone made a change at half time. A medium-sized blue shirt was replaced by a slightly larger one, perhaps simply an older one that had been stretched in the wash.
Well, come on, well, come on, well, come on, well, come on, well, come on, well, come on, well, come on, well, come on. No fun to be at home these days.
The second half soufflé is being baked before our eyes.
Changes. Warren and Barrington replaced Svanthorsson and Green with Town moving to a back three. Is it possible that we've signed the Icelandic Stuart Campbell? Every minute that ticks this Town get weaker and every minute Wealdstone squat in the bush they get stronger. Each time I look down at the pitch the Stoners' defence gets a little tighter.
They fell in our area, as much a penalty as ours. The cliché demands they score at the end, not in the middle. The referee had read the script, he knew his cues. Play on.
Warren shazammed, Cass crossed, Rose arose six yards out and glanced down and headed wide and that, my friends, is the entirety of everything that ever happened down there in the darkness. There is not one further moment within their penalty area, perhaps even half. More shuffling feet as Spiderlegs and Little George formally disappeared, to be replaced in ineffectual invisibility by Ainley and Gardner.
Wealdstone stopped squatting and started to believe in miracles. Stoners breaking, Town breaking apart, unexploited holes as blues turned into cul-de-sacs. Town. You're running off your course, you've got your signals crossed. And now the compass points to lost.
As the fourth official hovered with his board, arbitrary amateur bundling saw ricochets and rebounds bumble through Town's centre left middle. Rodgers dithered, withered and slithered, the ball scrunged off the rising Rodgers straight to Reid, dead centre, who toe-tapped through and under the waving Wright. And they're through to round two, waiving us goodbye.
Yes, yes, I know there's five minutes added, but that was merely enough time for Luker to replace Cass and for the fall guy to feel the full force of the fulminating fans' frustration as they poured out along the front of the Pontoon.
It's knockout football, you’ve got take it on the chin sometimes.
There was a grim inevitability from that first minute miss - oh what a cup cliché.
Us house isn't a very, very fine house these days We are sinking fast, as we play real slow.
I'm not angry, I'm not even disappointed. It's something worse: I'm bored.