Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

30 March 2025

When did hot air in your dryers ever get you three points on a Friday? Eh? Eh?

A sunny delight in the long, long queue from the dark side of the bypass for this exceedingly inconvenient fixture on a Friday, far, far away. Well, they pays the money and we have no choice.

Town lined up in a shapeshifting 3-1-4-2 formation as follows: Wright, Rodgers, Tharme, Warren, McEachran, Svanthorsson, Green, Khouri, Hume, Barrington and Rose. The substitutes were Eastwood, McJannet, Thompson, Geza Turi, Davies, Luker and Burns. If it's good enough to beat Newport it's good enough to counter Cowleyball. Or maybe that's all that's left.

The pitch. Worse than the old pitch and putt down by the zoo. Now there's the copper calling the kettle a container or device in which water is boiled having a lid, spout and handle. C'mon, get on with it, the car park closes at midnight.

Well. I managed to park my car, will Town park the bus?

1st half – The sterile cuckoos
Colchester kicked off away from 532 travelling Townites with a quack and a waddle and a flurry of high intensity, hi-viz vest frenetic, frantic, skitterball on a whack-a-mole pitch. Frenzyball, fancy that. No thanks, it only leads to your right-back passing out of play. Nice one Egbe, nice one son, nice one Egbe, let's have another one.

Oof, Owura's opulently rapid. Poor old Rodgers scrambling his eggs and a pair of old blue socks can't decide who has the hole in the big toe. Warren hooked away and hopped over blue boots, just to make sure.

Way out west Rose miscontrolled and legged up a little lad. Taylor dripped a drooper deeply, Flanagan flew high and grazed down into the left side of the net. Up went the crowd oblivious to a little flag fluttering below. Yeah, it was so obvious, we could see it from our little corner of Grimsby. Err, what was it for again? Offside, yeah, thought so. Clear as an umuddied lake, an azure sky of deepest summer. Don't mention SKY.

Crazy clatterings, barges and batterings. Taylor's hurt his little finger, gotta get that sorted before the half time cuppa lad. Tea. And biscuits. It's all action yet with no action to show, all huffery and puffery, arm wrestling performed as a ballet.

And then there was a kind of hush all over the ground as Town started to smooch into superiority, to squelch through the sandtraps with tips and taps. Mugging the chugging Colchestians, swaying down the right through Svanthorsson, Barrington beautifully Bambi-ed through but dithered between a pass and shot. Green sliced through and sliced wide. Green slithered through and slipped a cross through the six-yard box. Don't forget Harvey Rodgers ram raiding down the right! Perhaps do forget Khouri's shin-based shank after more sumptuous swinging through startled stripers.

And then, after 25 minutes, Anderson cynically sat down with a cynical non-injury for tactical tweaktalk. So cynical are Cowleychester that he was substituted for Gordon just to keep up appearances. Now you and I know there is only one question on everyone's lips "Is Gordon alive?"

You guess is as good as mine. I did see his hair flapping in the wind once, at exactly the same time as Dannyboy's hands were flapping in frustration at the lack of penetration and general striped deflation. You see my fine friends, the rest of the half was a whirligig of hurls, whirls and twirls in the dunes, a beach party where some forgot the beach ball and the guitar.

There's dinks and jinks of nearlyness with nothing but Svanthorsson's non-overhead kick to not show for what wasn't quite happening. It was a fascinating fallow second half of the first half.

Four minutes were added. There's nothing in blue, but there is a queue for the loo.

Never a dull moment, but never a moment where anyone look like scoring. It was fast and frantically furious football, always chortling on the cusp, boiling on the brink of something about to happen. There's a tangible sense of occasion hanging in the air and occasionally a footballer hanging in the air waiting for a ball that never comes.

2nd half – The sandpipers
Neither team made any changes at half time.

Town tickled back to Wright. A scruffled fly kick knock-kneed off the pitch, off striped knees and into Hume's path. The Denver Boot va-voomed into the void, advancing, dancing and delighting with a carefully curated caress into the depths of the penalty area. Galloping Khouri hit the bye-line and crunkled lowly across the face of goal. Macey made a mess and missed it, unlike Green's backside backslide and the ball rolled gently into the net.

Blink and you'd have missed it, gone to the loo too late and you'd have missed it, especially if you'd lingered too long under the lovely warm air flowing from their dryers.

Nobbles and nibbles, bobbles and dibbles, Collywobblers spinning their own yarns and caught in their own web. Urgency and insurgencies, prods and probes, lobs and sobs as the ball rolled out of play here, there and everywhere.

Nibbles and nobbles, a lob and a nod and Colchester sprang forward. Read prodded on, Edwards revved up and raced past Rodgers, reversing a drinkling drag-back across Wright and into the bottom left corner.

Read turned and bumped Svanthorsson, drifting on and on down their centre left. As the duvet approached Little Arthur walloped and Wright finger-flicked over from under the bar. A fancy corner, fancy that. We did. Wonderfully wide, woefully weak.

Give me an "ooh", give me an "ah". On the halfway line a Town short free kick was shortened and Khouri deeply dinked beyond the farthest post. Green, not Rose, rose to thwonk and Rodgers swept lowly through the canyons of the blind. Macey sunk low and right to spindle back, but straight to a waiting stray striper. And again, he we go. Green energy barundling down the right past many a sandpiper. A cross shimmering and spluffling off a series of disconnected dots in stripes. Hume za-zoomed between two twigs slapped lowly and Macey, again, spluttered shonkily straight to a sauntering stripe.

With a quarter of an hour left, substitutes lurking in the shadows, Colchester's defenders amused themselves playing games for a while. Boom-boom, bang-bang, your season may be dead. Tipping and tapping between the beanpoles and a big bad boobling bobble ballooned off Flanagan's knee. Barrington swooped and swung his pants, tickling into the path of the unmarked Khouri who took a touch and shaved the top sand with a low cross-shot into the bottom left corner. Just look at her face, just look at her face! Evan's mum was reet proud, as they say in cockerneee land.

Under Hurst he didn't have a job, but now, under Artell, he's found a job and we know Evan isn't miserable now. And neither are we. Evan Khouri: he doesn't just play for Town now, now he's a Town Player. Right here, right now. Now that's what I call music to his mum's ears. And his dad's.

Davies immediately replaced the indefatigable Green. Davies wibble-wobbled a free kick past the near post and, well, let's just say he was perfectly fine without the ball. His legs moved but he's not yet ready for playing. When he passed the ball he played like Lever, with feet like two balloons. Maybe he'll get the feeling back in his feet once again. We can explain, we do understand, he's not quite ready for action.

And the band began to play.

A pass to Hume, a pass to Green and then we have our Yellow Submarine, ha-ha. Full speed ahead Captain Twinkleteeth, cut the cable, drop the cable. Aye-aye sir! Danny Rose doesn't dive, oh no, he descends in another dimension so time and space is filled with home stand fury. And there, in a blue green hood that look quite good, a little gnome stood on the touchline whining at 'diving', wasting his time. Tharme arose nodding softly, nodding it softly into Macey's hands

And then hooray, the ref stopped play to replace a massive divot and, inspired by this, the Gnome did the same, replacing his sub with a sub, and abandoning the artifice, threw on some bigger, faster lads and just stuck it in the mixer. It never pays to mix your cross-ply and radials, or your metaphors. With a couple of minutes left Artell reminded the travelling Townites to put on their seat belts: Luker and Thompson replaced Barrington and McEachran. These clunks click every trip.

Six minutes were added and the Collywobblers turned their amp up to eleven on the Cowleyball dial. Faster, higher but not stronger the longer it went on and on. Wakey-wakey Denver! Infiltrations and excitations for the locals on our left. Into the box, out of the box, out of their minds, we don't mind. A flick away, a punch away, a head away, a kick away, a win away, a win away, a win away, a win away.

All together now: weeheeheehee dee heeheeheehee weeoh a win away.

Let's call it Smothering Friday. We remembered to leave a card and a bunch of flowers, but please, don't plant them in your garden, they'll only die in the sandy wastelands.

Well, I don't mind their season dying and I don’t mind us leaving their children crying. It's character building, and that's what this season of rock'n'roll has been built on: character.

We've got the characters, let's not lose the plot as this season draws to its explosive conclusion.