Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

19 April 2025

A long, long time ago, we can still remember how football used to make us smile. Well, a week is a long time in football. So is 4½ years. A lot of oily water has flowed under our bridges since The Great Re-Awakening and here we are on the brink of ascension to the holy land of League One.

Let's hear it brothers and sisters: we've got our whole world in our hands.

On a brightly cool day with a sneaky breeze sniggling down the Humber, Town lined up in what escapologists and Egyptologists concluded was as a 3-1-4-1-1 formation as follows: Wright, Rodgers, Tharme, McJannet, McEachran, Svanthorsson, Green, Khouri, Hume, Barrington and Rose. The substitutes were Eastwood, Cass, Thompson, Turi, Ainley, Vernam and Burns. After all the scrapes and strains during our day trip to the Sulphurites it's same again Saturday. Ah, but there's no Easter Bunny or the Welsh Wizard of the Niggle on the bench. I do have a question for the Pools Panel: is Callum Ainley the winner of the egg hunt?

Let's cross our buns and hope they fry these Rockin' Robins. I know what you're trying to say: it's business time.

1st half – The rubbing of the cramp rings
And, on the ninth hour of the Holy Day, the darkness that covered the land lifted as Town kicked off towards the Osmond.

An up and under into the twilight zone behind the thin red line. Barrington ducked as Ripley rucked, the ball squittled sideways and scraping Rose hookled overly from way out west.

Is that it? Yes, I'm afraid it is. Town just couldn't keep it up for more than two minutes. Perhaps it's because it's so intense. Well, it is business time.

Slick and quick, dashing and darting, red socks on their right, Hume took fright! Cotterill swayed inside the Denver Boot, swishing through the striped sieve, swanking to Smith. There's no need for Big Harry to hurry up, Town's defence are all down the pub. A tickle-on across the face of the penalty area and Nicholls casually swept under Svanthorsson's wandering boots, past Wright's waving hands into the bottom right corner.

If we take it on from here things can only get better you say? If only we'd all got up and gone home now I say.

I say, I say a book fell on my head. I only have my shelf to blame. Wake up, do something!

For once, twice, three times Town were passing. Khouri lapped on and Svanthorsson sneaked beyond to sort of shoot. Ripley waited for the ball to arrive. And...and…it arrived.

McEachran a magnet for red socks as Town were overrun, mugged, pushed, shoved and nudged. Stripes swamped by a red sea, slower of foot and even slower of mind, forever pushed back and back towards Wibbling Wright the Stand Shanker. There's panic in the streets as Wee Janet lobbed Wright, who headed over Tshimanga to Tharme, who pickled sideways to Svanthorsson. Eschewing a welly the Icelandic Glider spun and threaded between two red heads. Smith poked, Tshimanga stretched, all hands on deck! Wright spread his wings, McJanet meandered, but Old Tish tapped sideways into the path of Glatzel dead centre. The goal a-gaping and awaiting but as if by magic McEachran appeared to toekily poke away from under the descending boot of doom.

Up we wellied, back they came, triangulating down their right. Hume suckered himself into sillyness, thrusting into the back of the plunging Glatzel. A free kick out by the Police Box swingled into the centre of the centre where several Swindonites but not stripes lurked. Tshimanga headed down straight at Wright who pitter-patted up and Clarke beat two chums to the freebie to nod in from a yard.

I suppose, looking on the positive side of things, no-one had yet gone home for an early tea.

A Town free kick. The big men waddled up and waited. The ball never arrived. There we are, a nutshell, this was our day.

Swindon making hay, Cotterill wandering through the wheat, Smith wondering why he walloped way high, way wide when waived through the traffic. And we wondered why McEachran was deputed to mark Smith's knees at every corner. Ah-ha but we aren't in the game, we don't know what the data says – Smith, like an elephant, is scared of mice, obviously.

Tharme's long throws, always headed away by Smith. There we are, a nutshell, this was our day. On the rarest of rare occasions when there be light in this darkness no-one would shoot, always, always taking several touches. Yes Luca, you. Just don't ask me what it was. I guess he'd like to be alone, with nothing broken, nothing thrown.

Two minutes were added. Yes they were. Time for tea.

Town did nothing but dissolve

2nd half – Nailed to the cross
No changes were made by either team at half time.

What? Do you think anything had changed?

Swindon snappier and much happier, harrying the homesters and having a gay old time. A pant was swung, Tshimanga spun and slapped wide at the near post, Rodgers observing from a respectful distance.

Even before the hour Turi and Vernam replaced Hume and McEachran. For several moments Khouri had the appearance of being the left-back, but then we realised there was no left-back, just a hole to be filled by the nearest or last stripe standing.

And Swindon soon realised that there is no dark side of this moon, as a matter of fact it's all dark: Town had no left-back nor left wing-back. Off they raced into space and Wright plucked off red toes. And again. And again. And again. Or am I merely losing my mind and remembering the same incident over, and over again, stuck in a spiral of despair at this regression into the darkest days of early Artellball.

Slim Charles, the Wolds Panther. Perhaps it's time to prepare for a second career. I suggest busking under the name of Jazzy Noodles. A ten-year-old passing by M&S would be wowed by the fretwork, but everyone else would simply get irked by his indulgent fingers playing the same notes over and over again and going nowhere. Oi, mate, just play a song that was a hit before your mother was born.

Yes Charles, I know this one! Is it Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum? A tickle and tease and Vernam passed across the face of goal. Barrington's step over dummy let the ball roll on like deodorant into the path of…the ghost of Paul Groves? Ah, Town's phantom menace.

We have nothing, we are nothing, nothing comes of nothing. Here comes the answer - Ainley replaced clapped-out Khouri. Ah you scoff, you sneer, for you cannot see the meaning within these walls. Ainley the artist in residence, just for a minute. A magical duck, a beautiful snuck but, alas, to Vernam. The Wolds Panther, slinking in the shadows, slackly crumpled as a red toe nicked. Swindon sauntered as stripes ambled, Glatzel galloped into the void, crossed lowly and watched Smith dummy and Tshimanga tap into the empty net.

Simple.

And in the streets the children screamed, mothers cried and poets dreamed and not a word was spoken, for the promotion bells were all broken. The three Town men most admired have been given a soaking.

A large crowd merely means that the serial seat flippers are back. And then gone.

And the dead cat bounced about half an inch. A free kick in the same spot from which they scored their second goal was tapped wide. Svanthorsson snookled Green down the side lines and the side netting rippled near Ripley. That's Ripley the keeper not Ripley the town in Derbyshire, though it may as well have been.

With quarter of an hour left Burns came on for the hobbling Rose. And there endeth the season as Green moved up to centre-forward. Decadent doodling and jazzy noodling with a gentle bossa nova beat! Svanthorsson exchanged pleasantries with Vernam whose slap shot kissed the psychic aura of the left angle of post and bar. A turn and he was free but Burns allowed himself to tumble and, after some woeful wiffling and wobbling, the ball bobbled up for Vernam to piffle.

Please end this, please end this. I have a queue to join somewhere. Occasional ram raids from the red rovers in between their fouling throws. A replica of the third goal, Westley poked wide from six yards.

Five minutes were added.

Please end this. Please end this.

A replica of the third goal, Wright saved.

A replica of the hird goal, Glatzel snickled to Sobowale and Ameen tapped into the empty net from exactly the same spot as Tshimanga. It's ended.

As bad as bad gets, as terrible as the most terrible past. This is the end of the season, the end of the road, they are clapped out, hollowed out, worked out and down and out for the count. Believe it or not Ripley didn't have a save to make. No-one can object to calling Town abject.