Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

29 January 2025

So there I was considering in my own mind (as well as I could, for the working day made me feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of watching Town would be worth the trouble of getting up and going to Blundell Park, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by…

Is there anybody out there?

Drenching mizzle sheets drifted down Cleethorpes Road as the shrinking gaggle of Grimsbyites drifted into Blundell Park and 137 of the keenest of Kentish folk huddled together in the covered corner of gloom.

Town lined up in a formation allegedly 4-2-3-1 as follows: Wright, Cass, Rodgers, Tharme, McEachran, Thompson, Vernam, Green, Svanthorsson and Rose. The substitutes were Auton, Warren, Carson, McJannet, Ainley, Luker and Obikwu. The absence of Wee Janet McCammeron was placed in a sealed bag and marked Exhibit A, noted for possible use in evidence.

Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me, is there anybody in the home stands? To see is to believe but what will we see and does anyone still believe? A pancake has never been flatter than the atmosphere inside the Theatre of Tuts.

1st half – Down the rabbit hole
The game kicked off. That's a fact.

Here's another one. Green acrobatically hooked over from inside the six-yard box. Do you want a hat-trick of facts. Green headed wide.

Facts, so few, so far between them, much like the Town players. Ships pass in the night but fourth division footballers rarely do.

Charles Vernam: an oasis or a mirage in this desert of dross? Some see visions, some have visions, some see a shimmering talent on the horizon, others see a vast expanse of nothing. Slim Charles shimmered or shimmied (season to taste) and a big yellow bottom deflected softly to nowhere, near where a striped short wasn't. The Wolds Panther lay down and rested, and the Gillymen's dreadful dreadlock drove all night to slap into some innocent thighs deep inside the Pontoon.

The sum of nothing is nothing.

A moment. A moment that sums up this nothing. A town infiltration, a pull-back into the centre of the penalty area and two Townites collided. Off Gillingham jauntered, sauntering up field up their right. Nolan coiled a cross around Khouri to where a striker should be, but never is. Tharme our own, our very own Dirk McQuigley, attacked the near post, airily swishing his left foot and magnificently volleying into the bottom left corner with an unstoppable, impeccable finish. Bellissimo! Somewhere in Lincolnshire the Gbode, Gillingham's gormless galloping centre-forward, looked up from his cheese and pickle sandwich and wondered what that noise was all about.

You had to laugh. We did.

Is it time to get a book out and read Chapter 24, Dave? Change returns success, action brings good fortune.
Nope. Nothing. It's the same old, same old from the same old tired legs and tired minds.

The half ended with the Iceman metamorphosing into a curling stone as Khumbeni sent Svanthorsson sliding into the away dugout. Cue some continental handbaggery from various men in padded coats.

No shots conceded, one goal conceded. We can only marvel at Artell's alchemy, creating sparkly gifts for our guests literally out of nothing.

2nd half – The pool of tears
Neither team made any changes at half time.

There is just pain, we are receding. There's no whimsy in watching flimsy wheels fall off the wagon. Each minute brings another small cry of terror from the stands. Shapeless, clueless, formless - there is just less.

A Gillymen cross and Green's brilliant diving header was diverted onto the underside of the crossbar by Wright's waving fingertips.

And then there is nothing.

Still nothing.

Nothing still, be still at the back! Oh, we are.

Fiddling and faddling and a Kentishman plunged in the penalty area as Cass pulled out from a side street without indicating. A chip, a plonk and the ball thumpled off the right post and back against Wright's chest.

And then there is nothing.

Nay, no more.

And Ehmer feebly headed widely high from a corner.

Down, down, down. Would this football fallacy never come to an end.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Town had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, they walked sadly down the middle, wondering how they was ever to get out of this pickle again.

Suddenly Artell came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Artell's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas, simply replacing The Wolds Panther with Little Luker would not open any of them.

However, on the second time round, he came upon a boy with a low curtain fringe he had not noticed before: he tried the little golden key in the lock, and to our great delight it fitted.

4-4-2!

Obikwu replaced the drenched and drained Thompson. Luker almost fell into their penalty area. Almost. Luker crossed the ball, it landed on the roof of the net. That, my fine furry friends, was the one and only time Town approached the Gillymen penalty area before the end of time, well, normal time. For in abnormal time strange and unusual things occurred. Ethereal voices were heard in empty stands, shadowy figures scuttled across a rainswept concourse, lights turned themselves on as we entered the twilight zone beyond the entire half of English football where there be not one shot, just one cross from the hapless, hopeless homesters.

Cross? We were livid.

As the deathly drift of the disappointed began, the fourthest of the officials raised his arms and seven minutes were added, mainly for a break induced by a medical incident in the Main Stand.

Seven minutes doesn’t seem long but the whole world changed. A soupcon of oomph was all it took for the yellow wall to crumble.

A tinkle and a winkle and Khouri overlapped, coiling cutely into the nearest post. Two stripes hopped in space, the ball slapped against the thighs of the spinning Rose, startled by the ball arriving inside the penalty area, near him. Luker nicked, Obikwu snicked and Luker lobbed onto the unmarked Svanthorsson. A smackeroo and Morris parried up, up and away from his left ear lob for a corner. Carson replaced McEachran to take the corner, like a gridiron kickerbacker. Is there glory? No, Ehmer bonced away, the ball returned, Green slapped and the ball tickled off yellow tummies, spooning, ballooning gently into the keeper's arms.

Kentish Crocramp just added to the misery and the mystery although it wasn't misty anymore. Time ticked down, Town ticked on, the crowd seething at the sideways passing having an urge for a surge. What a load of old crabs.

Rodgers swept in to retrieve and surged past a dangling yellowman to sweep delightfully out to the unmolested Green underneath the Police Box, where we dream our dreams away. C'mon our Special K, remember, remember the Green cross code – stick it in the mixer down the corridor of uncertainty. Green rolled a coil into the near post and Rose's flicked finish shaved Morris's beard on the way past the stricken stopper.

Now that woke us up. It wasn't a yellow wall after all, just a tattered old bedsheet blowing in the wind.

Wait, there's more.

As the game entered the 99th minute Spiderlegs chased a dinkle down the right, disrobed a dallying defender and hit the bye-line. Obikwu looked up as he crawled along the razor's edge and saw Rose, alone but eight yards out, an open goal beckoning. He rolled, Rose plunged over a divot and Khouri hared in from beyond the edge of tomorrow to thwackle just over the angle of post and bar.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may now retire to deliver your verdict. The end.

Ninety minutes of pathetic piffleball and seven minutes of football. There was nothing to beat and we still nearly lost to it…said both sets of supporters on the way back home.

An embarrassment of tedious toshery, one-dimensional weak-willed wiffle ball from the ailing and the failing. Town tried so very hard to win the game for the Gillymen, but they were so poor even Town failed in that quest. Still, at least someone will get something out of the game - Duck Farm will win the Gillingham goal of the month.

Should have won, should have lost, should have stayed at home.