Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 8 February 2025

Division 4

Grimsby Town 2 Obikwu (62), Rose (83, pen)

Carlisle United 1 Rose (5, og)

Attendance: 5,788 (551 away fans)

Let it out, don't hold it in and sing as loud as you can for the corporate chomperocracy chose the lanky, lackadaisical birthday boy himself for loping around and lapping up the waves of joy for scraping Town back into the bizarre play-off mixer.

We saw action, we saw people, we saw who cares. Green and Rose showed indefatigable spirit but two moments were small but critical. Sometimes nothing is everything – Khouri's last-man, last-ditch tackles saved the day. Add that to his surge'n'scrape to create the equaliser and you have a man who earned his corn, not our scorn.

You see what you want to see and SatNav Dave sees things differently, especially when perched like a pigeon within the Main Stand preparing his next Powerpoint presentation to the players:

"You get a better view in the stands…I spoke to the bench after 20 minutes and we tweaked some things and from that point on we dominated the game."

Yeah, data, data, data, but Dave, football's about emotion: how do you feel?

"Pleasing…a pleasing win…lot be pleased about…It's pleasing."

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Once upon a time, he dressed so fine, but now he don't talk so loud, he don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging his next meal. He used to be somebody, now he's bumming around the bottom of the fourth division. But some things never change, for in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king:

"I'm a bit disappointed in the referee's decision, if I'm honest. He's got two big ones wrong in my view. Obviously, Joe in the first-half, clear penalty. The referee books him and we have the same thing with the penalty that he gave, it's a clear dive."

But, Mark without the Spark, can you see clearly now the pain has gone?

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After adjusting his pants Artell's artisans ground down the Crumblians, who melted quicker than the Mighty Mariner's biscuits.

Green and Rose just ran and ran and ran and Svanthorsson was at least persistent in prodding and probing. Better teams than Carlisle would have exposed the vagueness at where right-back would have been, but we weren't playing a better team.

Ah yes, the formation. A lopsided set of wing-backs with Hume a deep lying winger and Svanthorsson a high steeping full-back with Rodgers vaguely near to generally sort of cover. We last saw such in the long gone bygone Bignot era. But the upside on the lopside was that three in the middle meant one more body to get in the way of pot shots and drop shots. It worked.

Yeah, ok, alright, we won, we missed a lot, we messed about a lot, but three more points in the pot and we didn't lose the plot after the big drippiness. Town are sauntering towards safety. That'll do nicely.

We have definitely seen worse.

Often ourselves, mind, but they are just a little dishevelled and disorganised, a collection of individual parts that don't fit together. Or a house that has fantastic kitchen worktops and a beautiful set of taps, but someone forgot to connect the plumbing.

Individually they have capable footballers, here and there, though they may regret their reliance on the trio of Wearside one-time Mariners. Breeze can block but he's a little flaky and flappy when the wind blows. But he does have a lovely smile and cheery demeanour.

There’s still time if they can keep it tight and keep theirs shape. But do they have it is their hearts and mind or are they just a beautiful butterfly collection?

Oh Town, why don't you go back to falling apart? You were so good at that. All this winning from losing is making us itch.

Mr Z Kennard-Kettle

What about this orange? A curious curate's egg indeed, starting with pre-celebrity intent but gradually shedding the shackles of star-gazing he just got fed up with the crumbling Cumbrians after Hugill's dive over Wright's phantom limb.

Like we're ever going to complain about being awarded a penalty.

But how can we ever forgive him for permitting throws most foul to be committed – and only punish the Denver Boot to boot? Five points each for the tumbling twosome that Hughes found so gruesome, but no hats off just points off for everything else: 5.343

A tale of two tumbles and a fumble as Town bumbled along to humble Hughes' resurrection shufflers.

In a word: falling