Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

24 November 2024

Did you say ears Bert?

Yep, cover 'em up quick, it's a three-sock day of wild winds and wild expectations that things can only get better. A stinking storm's been a brewin' and here it comes live and exclusive on SKY TV. No-one loves a lunchtime kick off. This is misery on a stick.

Town lined up as follows: Smith, Wright, Warren, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, Thompson, Luker, Ainley, Khouri, Barrington and Rose. The substitutes were Auton, Cass, Tharme, Davies, Svanthorsson, Obikwu and Gardner. What you see is what you get, what you want to see is rarely what you get with that midfield. If we get through for two minutes only it will be a start.

And deep, deep in the mucky distance the Collywobblers of Olde Englande huddled like sad cows in the covered corner, all 218 of them. Sodden, bedraggled and forced to spend a wet weekend in Cleethorpes. That's football.

Now, will this be?

1st half – We've been here before
Town kicked off towards the Pontoon and ain't that a kick in the head. Within 33 seconds Thompson had ducked into the rising feet of Owura Edwards, a ghostly figure from a past life when Town were haunted by the Hollow Man.

One, two, three, oh, is that how elementary it's gonna be? Wee Janet swept, Hume high-stepped, Ainley lobbed and Macey stepped out to pluck from the vicinity of Rose. C'mon it's easy.

Ah, it's easy for them too. A quick free kick chipped down their left, Tovide rumbustled to high hook and Hume tinkled off the awaiting red toes of Anderson.

Now then, Lyle Taylor sounds like a primary school and plays like a primary school prima donna. A man wrapped in tape marked fragile. Can he stand up for more than two minutes? Can Denver? Taylor did it to the rhythm of that rock'n'roll sound, bumping Hume and oozing a bouncing cross that skipped through the penalty area. Anderson stooped and lashed it with his quiff, Wright patted down and Edwards slashed widely across the face of goal after much mucking about in the mud in the middle.

Is there something to get hung about? A Hume free kick landed on the head of Rodgers and the ball landed in the hands of Macey. Well, it was something. And there really was the something, the thing that Town did. Magic McJannet sumptuously smothered and winked cheekily to the Denver Boot, on the half way line under the Frozen Horsebeerers. Hume shizzled through some red dust, espied an unmolested striped shirt and swished lowly to the unmarked Ainley a dozen or more yards out. The mystery man side-footed straight and low, Macey spoondled and a mate walloped away straight away.

And then there was nothing, nothing but rain sheets and slapstick. Football, in a field, behaving as the wind behaves. We are no nearer their goal, they are no nearer ours.

Moments, here and there, for them, for us, all lost in the incapabilities of your average fourth tier footballer. Multiple Town breaks foundered on Barrington's discomfort with his socks. Ooh, they were a bit ruckled. A Hume corner hung like an albatross and Macey misjudged but clung on as the ball started to arc backwards towards the goal. Barrington swingled a scuttle yards wide.

Do your coat up, put on some gloves, it's getting worse. What is? The weather, the football, everything.

Faffing about, Wright's free! A central tap and Thompson was rumbled as he mumbled. Red shifts and Tovide was alone on their right, carefully sizing up his options but a dozen yards out. McJannet skidded like a hippy at Woodstock, the ball diverted and Wright stuck out a hand to stop at the foot of his left post.

And the rest is history, if not football or entertainment, like watching a paper cup slithering wildly as it slipped away across an empty car park. And if anything threatened to happen a Collywobbler sat down.

Three minutes were added. They sat down again.

Here were are, we moan together and avoid speech, gathered by the beach of the tumid river watching a windy, boggy stodge with fleeting moments of clarity.

2nd half – The greatest show on earth
Neither team made any changes at half time.

Wright's free!

Passing left, passing right, passing out and passing into oblivion. Minds drifted, attentions wandered. You have to make your own entertainment these days. Tyrell Warren is a strange bird indeed, both feisty and fey, robust and flimsy, guaranteed to do the right thing at the wrong time, the wrong thing at the right time. He's a striped conundrum, 'tis true, but not a full-back. Is he robumsy or flimbusty today? Both and neither, at once and never.

Strange birds? Well, here's one. A rare old bird is the pelican. His bill holds more than his belly can. He can take in his beak enough food for a week. I'm damned if I know how the hell he can.

Town sucked themselves into a black and white hole by the left corner flag. Scribbling, scrubbling, it's very troubling as no-one is troubling the keepers. Is there anywhere a force that is strong enough to put an end to this state of affairs?

Wright's free!

A biff, a barge, Taylor and Rodgers coincided and the ball hopped over the bar from a narrow angle.

Wright is free! Churn, churn, churn, back and forth, back and forth, rolling, rolling, rolling, yee-haw, Mule Train. Someone bash me on the head with a tray please.

Wright is free!

Well, here's another one for you. There once was a fella named Finnegan, who escaped from a jail so to sin again. He broke laws by the dozen, even stole from his cousin, so the jail he broke outta he's in again.

Are we just wasting our time here?

Ball up! Balls out! The ball's out, lino. A red cross and Rodgers sliced for a corner.

Whatever happened next happened next, which is logical, but not memorable.

Town? No. No Town, just leaves a-tumbling across the park. A false free kick was simply stuck in the Town mixer, struffled away by a stray striped head ball. A corner coiled and a well-oiled head nodded off the startled Warren's static shins. Or is that the static Warren's startled shins. Anderson spun, spun again and had his fun ended by a flagging linesman. Well, it is tiring trying to keep awake.

Another red crumble, another free kick lumped and dumped deeply. Hume. That's all I will say, that's all that need to be said. Tovide tossed and turned and Wright flinger-flipped from the foot of the near post sending the ball riffling along the outside of the nettage.
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McJannet majestically caressed a swirling hump, meandered towards the pier and tickled our fancies with flicking forays up the left. Hume advanced and licked a lovely little lollipop into the penalty area. Barrington swingled lowly past the extremities of the giant hogweed towards the awaiting Rose afar. Donnelly swung back to sweep against the near post and out for a corner. Typical Town, even the opposition miss our best chances now.

Barrington. Luker. Ainley. Shots they say. Merely statistics to remind us of a world that doesn't care.

What's the temperature Kenneth? Is it still too hot for our Icelandic geezer? The change it had to come, we knew it all along. Tunnel vision for the outsider's TV screen, they made changes and Thompson and Rose were replaced by Davies and Obikwu. Substitutions are supposed to make us better, remember. Their substitutions? Should this be of concern?

Some red vim and verve and a corner on their left. Dripped deeply Donnelly's drooper dropped. Wright pitter-patted aside the donkey drop and out the ball was plopped. And in and out and back into the corner. Hume didn't give it the boot but passed to an invisible friend. Bish-bash-bosh, Gordon was alive and simply steered a pass into the bottom right corner as Warren respectfully stood back and curtsied.

And?

As the temperature inside Blundell Park lowered it became cold enough for Dadi Cool. Barrington off, Svanthorsson on. There is nothing more to say. Nothing ever changes, oh no. The streets filled up with the drift of the disappointed. Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy, but home apathy is hovering on the horizon. The crowds may well become homeopathic at this rate.

Seven minutes were added. Churn, churn, churn again, what do you get when you churn? Processed cheese.

Wright's free!

Churning, churning, Artell's ears burning with the receding masses yearning for some oomph and thunder, even some oops and unders. Anything, anything will do, a thing, we just want a thing to take home for tea.

Wright's foulest of throws started the process again. Stick it in the mixer! Town triangulated in the shadows of the Frozen Horsebeer Stand with a Warren wander, an Ainley arm ball and Luton's Little Luker reverse thrusted between the red cracks. Obikwu shimmered into the Netherlands as Massive Macey stuttered out to spread his wings and let the ball fly off his shins.

And that, they say, is that. Town managed to lose a scoreless bore draw. That's life, that's what the people scuttling away say. Some people get their kicks stomping on a dream, of course.

Look, here's the thing, the curious, spurious, furious thing. Everything at Grimsby Town is fine and dandy, everything is beautiful in its own way. Except on that muddying rectangle of tufty grass. Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal, oh the joy of repetition makes us feel blue. Over and over and over again, you can't make cheese without churning and curdling.

And that's what we got: a curdled mess of processed cheese. Predictable, predicted and picked off by yet another set of trippers who had kept their eyes open whilst watching the video.

Oh, yeah, life is bad, gloom and misery everywhere. Town just can't get their poor selves together. Oh, we're weary all of the time they're here.