Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

9 March 2025

How many games unbeaten would this be? Two? Four? Six? No, it'd be eight. We're on the road to nowhere with the motorway sun coming up in the morning light. SKY, like BT before you, you know exactly what you can do with your early kick offs.

It may not be summer, but it's still hot in the city in a place where, for all their dreams and schemes, people are as they seem. It's Walsall, a place where the back of your neck still gets dirty and gritty. Looking round the locals looking half dead in anticipation: anxious and full of dread.

I don't want to cause no fuss, but shall we look and see who got on our magic bus?

Town lined up in a modified modish 3ish-4ish-2ish-1 formation as follows: Wright, Rodgers, Cass, McJannet, Svanthorsson, McEachran, Khouri, Hume, Green, Luker and Rose. The substitutes were Eastwood, Warren, Thompson, Ainley, Geza Turi, Barrington and Burns. No Duck Farm nor Spiderlegs, Davies not even jogging in the free world. Bones barely barer, everyone who can stand on two legs was pressganged into serving the nation. Cass for Tharme is merely replacing the biggest bloke with biggest bloke left, but at least we may catch a glimpse of the Geezer from the Freezer in real-time action.

And we'll need Cass's height, if not sophistication. Have you seen the size of them? Mugwumps, high jumps, low lumps and big bumps, Town will have to work as hard as they play.

People shuffling their feet, people sleeping in their shoes, I forgot my sarnies and Town are playing in blue. We are what we are, let's go.

1st half – Keep on rocking
Town kicked off in their two-tone blue away from 757 travelling Townites. The data shows that, compared to last week, there's 46 less miles and 43 more supporters. One fan more per mile less to travel. What does it mean? Well, your brain beats into rhythm. Oh, hang on that's poetry, not data analysis.

Town pass in poetry, Walsall wallop in prose and pose a threat only to Easyjet.

It's Brownian motion in blue, Svanthorsson weaving, Hume wafting and a home boot deflected the Denver Boot's crackler. Town nicking and knocking, tap, tap, tapping on the window. For five minutes.

And then they opened the door, ran over and mugged us.

Stirk pickled Khouri's pocket as Town rotated the strike inside their half. Triangulating through Adomah and red shirts entering the Town half for the first time, Harrison sauntered free to slap lowly across Wright into the bottom right corner just as Rodgers arrived.

And let's carry on as we were shall we? Mariner moments of nearlyness, with pretty-pretty passing and movement between and amongst the concrete pillars. Do pay attention, I said pillars. These Saddlers are a sad bunch of pillars. Svantharsson over-crossed and Hume crossed back, Luker jinked, a cross was clutched. Cass stepped up and stepped in, George gorgeously spun-knocked on, a red head nodded back, Rose half-volleyed and Simkin plunged rightly to clutch. Fragments of football, mere fractions of action, all from the boys in blue.

Them? Not much, just the mulch of lower league life. Corners dripping and multi-air mugging of Wright as the ball landed on the roof of net with our grey goose forever tangled in the back of the net below. I, you, may have some kind of vague memory of a vague shot of no consequence, safely squeezed to the bosom of our backstopper. Can we trust memory? Is it merely a manifestation of our most hidden fears? We all fear the loneliness of the not very distant linesman. The flagging man nearest our stand was causing much non-merriment through his inability to keep up with play and see what we could see – red shifters beyond blue. He was more than irking the purists and tourists among us.

Town squeezing, pleasing, learning how easy it is stop the one-geared juggernaut. Way out right Danny Twinkleteeth declined to remain upright when local bouncers questioned his taste in shoes. Hume distracted the Walsall wall and Jason Twinkletoes feigned and dragged laterally. The lurking Luker calmly adjusted his corset and carefully caressed a medium-pace inswinger between bat and pad into the aching keeper's bottom right corner.

We are us, they are them and they are nothing. McEachran magnificent in picking passing pockets, urging and surging at will. Will we score again? Not now. Crosses, corners, things, not quite, a McJannett header headed for Simkin's gloves.

Walsall playing on the counterattack, seeking only to hoof and chase. Rose retrieve-nodded back to Wright after they broke from our corner. Scooping and looping as home dinks were drooping, hoping for someone, somewhere to be sleeping, hoping for somewhere, someone to be slipping.

Woah, here it is. One slip and down the hole we fall. An up was undered, McEachran ducked as Rodgers waited, the ball bounced on and Lakin headed on. Adomah bounded free as Wright raced out and leapy-lobbed. Nah, nowt to worry about. The ball slowly arced across the face of goal and Rodgers stooped to nod off, just in case. Walsall. Falling apart at the seams.

And suddenly Cass sat down. Warren came on and Rodgers moved into the centre of the back three. This normally is the cue for a mass outbreak of Vitas Gerulaitis in the Town end. Today, there's a kind of hush, but in a good way. We're playing the vibraphone of positivity these days. Well, this day. We've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside. Oh yeah.

Hounding, bounding, balls rebounding. Svanthorsson tickled in, Luker laid off and Warren wandered past and found a leg to fall over. Red shoulders slumped and slumped again as Rose walloped the penalty over the groping fingers of Simkins, high into the right side of the net. We're all krazee now.

Wait…don't stop now, come on, there's almost more. Saddlers stripped on their right, Luker wibbled a cross-pass to the nearest post and Green swiped over the angle of post and bar.

Four minutes were added during which Warren was booked for subtly launching a local into the car park.

Oof!

Town were dominantly excellent, 'twas most marvellous, with the midfield magnificent. McEachran was omnipresent, fired and fizzing, the fulcrum of all that was football. Walsall were simply reduced to occasional accidental forays forward, if they were lucky and the ball caught in the slipstream of a passing Airbus. Or it may have been a Boeing, whichever, whatever, their season is going down the pan and they don't appear to have a plan.

Have we cured the half-time blues?

2nd half – My oh my
Walsall removed Adomah and Lakin and on came their long stick of ex-Blackpool rock, our ex-failure, Jamille Matt. And, allegedly, a red shirt with the name McEntee on the back. If this named shirt touched the ball it could only have been by accident. Out in the badlands and sadlands by the M6 accidents may happen, for they only hit and run.

What are the Saddlers saddled with? Dire dimball, a basic bruteball tactical desert. It's simple dialectics, one through eleven. No maybes, no supposes, no fractions. Walsall couldn't pass, they couldn’t move into space. Walsall just expected to use their pace, hit and hope, with fractions of actions. With this reductionist cobblers what are you gonna land on, Matt? One quarter, three-eighths? It ain't planet promotion if this is all you've got.

Flailing away without a method, hoofing and hoping without style, huge home hurls were bundled away, headed away, scraped away and sliced away. Wright punched a looper away from red heads, flattening Svanthorsson. Rodgers met Matt's elbow for a blind date and neither were happy with the waiter and disagreed to go their separate ways.

Balls, just big Walsall balls. A Stirk bumbler scooped by Wright, but the whistle had already been whistled. Blocks by blue socks, blue heads a–knocking and all they had to show for an entire half of gridiron was Jellis's fantastically frantic flingle that didn't go out for a throw-iin. Just.

And that's just all of them, everything they succeeded in doing, in its entirety. Miserable Midland Bullyball. No art, no craft, just graft. It's daftball and got them sod all.

McEachran bundle-swamped to divert the ball to Green who helped the ball on towards the lolloping Luker. A skanky shin-on rolled on into his path, he looked rightly and espied an absence of red shirts so poked into the void. McEachran ran on and history repeated itself as he misbedrumbled à la Khouri last week.

Home baubles and balls, arbitrary hope of accidents that may happen. They didn't.

Mugged 'em! As if by magic Rose appeared from behind a bush, poking to Green. A turn and tap and Luker glided between the M6 pillars, waited for Simkin to sway, then rolled lowly into the bottom right corner before being swamped by supporters and teammates in a massive scrummage. The referee apologised for booking him, he was only following orders.

And ain't that just what we ordered for lunch. Fried Walsall on toast.

Triple subbing by them made no difference to the price of fish. From the kick off Green charged the keeper down and you could see them shrink another inch. Khouri dredging the local canals, the back three heading and mudwrestling and Thompson replaced McEachran for some trademark balletic turf surfing. Oh yes we must remember this, a miss is just a miss, Hume swiped widely high as time goes by.

A Mariners masterclass in defending without tackling, locals oozed and schmoozed aside and away without the need to call the constabulary.

With eight minutes left Svanthorsson, Green and Luker were replaced by Burns, Ainley and Barrington. The disarming charm offensive continued, there is no cause for concern. Relax.

Six minutes were added.

Relax.

And at the very, very last a feeble home set piece was ambled away. Hume saw blue shorts explode in to space and threaded through the remaining needle. Barrington ran on from the half way line, rounded Simkin and disappeared into the crowd, head in hands, as he chased the ball out of play. You see, Luca hadn't been paying attention in the warm up and not noticed the camber as the ball rolled off the pitch.

It's…time.

Woo-hoo, wahey! What's going off out there? Somehow Town got less than they deserved from a thorough hammering of their hosts. Town put on the most compelling, complete performance for many a year. Almost flawless, superbly negating the high-intensity bullyballing simplicities of these table toppers and perfectly playing upon their accumulating angst.

Quite remarkable.