Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Peter Anderson
11 November 2024
Wimbledon away? Easy peasy. 07.40 Dublin to Luton, 20.10 Gatwick to Dublin. What me and my boys Seán and Jamie call an in and out job. By contrast, with Kirmington to Dublin flights scrapped many years ago and Donny airport mothballed, Blundell Park involves a two or three day round trip for us Irish exiles. Just like Town at the moment, we find away games to be much more straightforward.
Well, a skewed definition of straightforward. Most journeys involve the familar sequence of the lads totting up their W-D-L record watching Town and me sincerely apologising for cursing them as Mariners. Before lying to them with equal sincerity that adversity builds character. Any resurfacing doubts about my parental shortcomings are usually gone by the time we pass Dublin airport security, as the lads regard Old Trafford and Elland Road-bound herds with equal measures of disgust and superiority. The lies were worth it.
Wimbledon and their relatively new stadium has been on the bucket list for the past couple of seasons. The spin from Luton Airport goes to plan and includes detours for a nice breakfast in Southwark and the obligatory Tattershall Castle field trip history lesson before a train from Waterloo. We stroll past the ground when we initially arrive, almost falling for its cunning low-rise garden centre disguise. To be fair we were also distracted by the well-placed Greggs across the road, so this must be taken into account.
Pre-match steak slices on board we made our way into the ground. We're not going to retell the AFC Wimbledon story other than to state it serves to fill me with admiration. And irritation. In the time we've faffed about burning money in empty fields and derelict streets they formed a new club and managed to build their own ground. In that London, where you may have heard that things are quite expensive. The stadium is better inside, apart from the vast windowless apartment walls towering over one end of the ground. Looks aside, those of us with years of schoolyard squash football behind them are doomed to spend the game longing to thwack a volley off them. It would also be nitpicking to point out that for £26 the ground still has portacabin loos and nothing in the completely exposed car park/away end beer garden to rest your plastic pint glass on.
The game itself didn't follow any real pattern beyond two division four teams eagerly chasing the ball around. We tried to play a bit of football, they dispensed with the frills and played route zero. One tactic was clearly to hurl long throws up the line until they won a throw in range of the penalty area. The rugby theme continued with the manhandling of Town defenders in the penalty area, be it a throw-in or any other set piece.
The Town muscle were up for the scrap though. In an evenly fought first half, our goal came from some nice interplay between Barrington and Green on the left wing. With a frankly obscene piece of skill and vision, Greeny caressed a gently curving ball across the area with the outside of his right boot. As most of Plough Lane, including the home defence, paused to look on in wondrous appreciation, Danny Rose nipped in with a deft header to give the cross the finish it deserved. Cries of "jolly good stuff, one nil" were heard in the away end along with "shit, did you see that??!!" and "Greeny have my babies".
The only sustained pressure came from them in the 10-15 minute spell after half time. They fairly battered us but Wright made some good saves and was backed up by a resolute defence. They looked like good saves, it was difficult to make out just how good from the other end of the ground. The combination of a yellow ball, flashing neon pitchside boards advertising Merton's best nail salon, and yellowing floodlight bulbs that, if not ones pinched from Blundell Park in the 1980s, certainly shared the same lumens.
We came into it again after that and had a few chances of our own. McJannet poked inches wide with the keeper beaten, Svanthorsson hit a rising fizzer just over the bar and Rose vanbastened a Hume free kick a couple of feet off target. 9.5 for difficulty and 8.0 execution for what would have been a goal good enough to win the league, the cup and even the Lincolnshire Flower Show. It might even have topped Greeny's pass. The Dons kept shelling and had more shotty crossy balls, some forced Wright into action and others resulted in a flurry of blocks and rebounds. All ended with a relieved cheer from the travelling Mariners. Come on Town.
And that was it. The final whistle signalled a rather delightful win for Town and ratcheted up the volume in the away end a few more notches. A welcome addition to the win column in the league table and the family away day record. Off to Gatwick airport for the trip home where, call it coincidence or just plain bizarre, we were on the same flight to Dublin as Toby Mullarkey, a year to the day since we met him at Blundell Park for sponsoring his shirt. We don't know if you needed this information but we thought we'd let you know anyway. Now, who knows the best way to get from Bristol Airport to Newport?