Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

27 December 2024

How long, we wondered, could this thing last?

It's a foggy day in Grimsby town, Swindon had us low, had us down. We viewed the game with much alarm for Town v Harrogate has long lost its charm. Far have they travelled and not much have they seen of the Jewel of the Humber. Oh, the mist rolling in from the sea, is it really the desire of 164 Sulphurites to be here?

Town lined up as follows: Wright, Cass, Rodgers, McJannet, Hume, McEachran, Luker, Green, Khouri, Ainley and Gardner. The substitutes were Auton, Tharme, Davies, Svanthorsson, Barrington, Pyke and Rose. With that starting XI we had a feeling of self-pity. What to do, what to do, what to do, the outlook was decidedly as blue as Harrogate's camouflage kit.

Let's get this out of the way and get back to some more cake.

First half – Misty mountain hop
C'mon, get on with it! Chapman's Pond and the Dock Tower are ours to see on clear days, we can just about see right through the haze. But do we want to?

And we're off. To see the wizard? To the bar? The Tea Room Terrornauts kicked off towards the Pontoon. We're all chasin' after the same things, chasing from end to end, driving the oftens, occasionals and returning annuals around the bend.

Who's that in the heart of their defence? I see Jasper Moon a-rising, he sees trouble on the way. Young Cam, the game bird of the future, splatted and clattered. There's a lot of dead pheasants on the Lincolnshire roads, Dave.

Shoddy and ploddy. The game generally or just the wingers? Khouri blocked and Khouri tackled, Khouri slipped and Asare stumbled. Grumbling, mumbling, tumbling and fumbling, Luker shot and everyone cried…with laughter as the ball swung and sliced into the rough for a throw-in.

Hey, do you wanna score? Ainley and Luker faffing about on the flanks, moments of almostness lost in the haze. You know how it is. I really don't know what time it was, I really don't care which way the pressure lies. How could we tell what time it was – without an internet signal the people of the Pontoon were bereft, cut adrift and left with the actual football as their only entertainment. That is not why we are here.

Luker's perfunctory pot shot took two deflections and a pawing paddle on its journey to the centre of a revenue-maximising billboard. Stroking his beard and rubbing his head, the referee pondered a goal kick. For a while. Hume drippled to the near post and Green stooped to nod into the side netting, optimising the excitement for the Osmond Occasionals for a second, but only a second. It only takes a second to realise Town haven't scored a goal.

Town hadn't scored. Poor young Cam, a flailing forward presence, as helpless as a kitten up a tree.

But what is it all about, what are we trying to do, is there a method? Nobody knows, and I certainly don't.

Flibberty flabberty flobbles far away in the blue edging towards the Police Box. Asare advanced, there must be some kind of way outta here, there's too much confusion. Two Town players were approaching and the crowd began to growl as M Daly spun around and through McJannet and McEachran, hit the bye-line and carefully caressed a perfect pass all along the six-yard line. Duke-McKenna swept in from the hills and swiped over a vastly open open goal with Cass lurking with menace nearby.

On earth we call that missing.

Are Town missing in action or just simply missing action? Blundell Park so silent you could hear an electric car drive through McDonald's.

A free kick lumped and dumped, headed on and on again by Rodgers and Gardnerstein into the leftish trenches a dozen yards from goal. Common sense may tell you that the ending will be sad, but what's the use of wond'rin'. He's our feller and we love him. Green volleyed against the right post. There's nothing more to say.

Ainley squaffled over the bar and over the roof, Hume's pinpoint pass to Luker was the prelude to the precursor of a slapdash slice that had four stands cursing. There's still nothing more to say.

One minute was added, Harrogate had a corner, finally, and amid deflected nonsense there really is nothing more to say. Perhaps fog will stop play? There's nothing wrong with dreaming, we all have to believe in a better tomorrow, for it's just another day. You gotta have hope.

And there is hope, for Chapman's Pond water tower is disappearing by the minute.

Second half – Play in the mist for me
There's a fog along the horizon, a strange glow in the sky and no changes were made by either team at half time. No-one could see Chapman's Pond now. Well, it is dark.

Release the hound of love! Town zipping and zapping, actually passing, Luker overhit his lack of control and failed to fall over when sent on a mission behind enemy lines. Hume shimmied and shammied to hammily shovel a shot into plucking pink hands. Be careful how you say that, there are children around.

Stripes impressively pressing, blue men shanking, a tourniquet tightening. In and out and back again Town poked and prodded at the tattered seams. McEachran nodded, Luker soft-shoe-shuffled and carefully dinkled a dripping drooper from the left corner of their penalty area. Khouri burst through the outer limits of his universe, saw big blue Jasper Moon standing alone and leapt on his dark side, flicking his furthest follicles and the ball trinkled into the right corner with Belshaw, like a hippopotamus, caught wallowing in the muddy middle of the goal line.

Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new Town king.

On the hour, just as Young Cam was getting into his pantomime character of Darren Mansaram, having had his most effective five minutes as a general, vague, hustling and hassling pest, Rose replaced him as the midnight rambler.

A Mariners mug and a mince pie, and Khouri, power-crazed and powering through the middle, hoovered up Harrogaters and sliced wide. Here and there moments of nearlyness as striped passes were underflicked and overthought. We're battering them with a smattering of football, now and again. These Spa Town bottlers are stinking the place out, a Christmas gift, a straight man teeing up punchlines, a set of empty shirts, devoid of drive and purpose and….and substitute Spotty Muldoon plonked a free header back across the face of goal and wide.

With that warning shot figuratively across the bows, Svanthorsson replaced Ainley, a man who one can report had been on the pitch. And was now off it.

Right-oh, keep on keeping on. Mugging and chugging, Luker and Svanthorsson hugging the touchline, full-backs flying down to Rio. Cass wriggled and wiggled and crossed a pass through, past and between everyone. Cass surged past two mudlarks, rolled along the bye-line and tickled to roaming, rolling Green who wallop wastefully over when the unmolested Khouri and Rose were waving to him from their deckchairs inside the six-yard box.

Wright wellied a goal kick way out right, by the manager's dug out. Rose nicely nudged and rolled a bluesman and the ball sailed onto some twinkling Town toes. A turn, a look, and Luker espied Moon and O'Connor, two drifting defenders off to see the world, the distance between them wider than a mile. Strolling Svanthorsson passed between them to pass past Mr Pink in some style.

At this Weaver withdrew Asare, their strongest, most alarming player. Perhaps it was a cunning plan to foil our plans of raiding them for a right-back. Too late, Simon, we had been watching you know.

Handball!

As Town prepared for some substitutions, the sloppy Sulphurites slipped slided around the periphery of Town's penalty area. Green stretched, Muldoon squealed, and Duke-McKenna got out his mashie niblick to chip straight into the hole from the bunker. Top corner, top shot, Christmas isn't the same without Top of the Pops just before the turkey comes out of the oven.

Davies and Barrington came on for Green and Luker.

Pockets were picked and with clowns to the left and jokers to the right Rose slapped a shot that rose over the bar as fireworks starburst above the Police Box. If there is a lack of will there is a way for Town to lose this. Harrogate busied their bodies, flung and hung, dillied and dallied and somehow, from somewhere, over seven minutes were added. See what happens when you go digital, any fluctuation in the signal, or interruption in the power supply, sends everything doolally. Don't worry, Doolally Dooley was barely a blue presence.

Woah, here it is, the Grimsby gift that keeps on giving. Pumped long from the pump rooms, headed on, headed back, into the mixer, out of the blender, through the grinder, into the oven and Davies stood sensibly near the right post and stabbed aside, sensibly.

It's still the same old story: a fight for points and glory, a case of do or die. As time went by Barrington slippered Rose free behind the remnants of the Yorkist plot and Belshaw plunged low and left to claw aside. Rose's rebounder ricocheted off the post and back out to launch a counter-counter attack and a corner was hilariously given. There is no time to worry, close your eyes and drift away, close your eyes and drift away. The Harrogate Hoodoo is no more, we are finally freed from the curse, we are still eighth, we are still wondering how.

Woah, we ain't complaining. A bit of oomph, that's all it took. Four more wins!