Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

3 August 2025

The sun is up the sky is blue, it's beautiful, but some things old are new. Ah, such a perfect day, let's drink a can or two in hubbling and bubbling Blundell Park.

The Ramstands rammed, the assorted dentists and dermatologist of North East Lincolnshire chomping at the bit in the Incontinence Pants Stand. We're in the realm of rocket-fuelled renewal, where the old becomes new. It's the era of continuous improvement, continuous change, but we'll continue to call the stands what we want. Tifo? Don't cry, don't raise your eye it's just a teenage wasteland providing ammunition for a post-prandial paper plane assault on the Creepy Crawley Keeper. You know, I know, that the tifo is tosh in a Town setting, it's very much the tofu of football. Let the metropolitan sophisticates masticate on their flavourless pretensions, it's fish and chips for us!

Town lined up in a 4-3-3 formation as follows: Pym, Rodgers, Tharme, McJannet, Green, McEachran, Khouri, Burns, Kabia, Vernam. The substitutes were Auton, Warren, Turi, Walker, Brown, Amaluzor, Gardner. No Rose in our blooming garden, but we've more eggs in our basket these days, or rather less rotting eggs. The Dad's Army attack despatched into non-league and replaced by…non-league strikers. Believe! Believe!

Crawley. Well, you know, they had to turn up, which they did, which was nice of them. They have players. They wore red shirts. Good Old Gav gave us a wave. Whatever. Sorry Gav, this is strictly business, though some Incontinenters did tell you we like you.

A new day, a new dawn, birds flying high, the sun in the sky, breeze drifting on by and you know how we feel. We're feeling good.

Right, let's crack on.

1st half – Gimme Three Steps
Town kicked off towards the stray Crawley cats soaking up the sun in the covered corner. Stop, what's that sound? Can you hear it? Can you hear it? Can you hear it? A throbbing hum, a bubbly buzz, there's something happening here with so little resistance from behind red eyes.

The smell of the greased lightning boots, the roar of the crowd, the Wolds Panther slinky-slunk through some red sheets billowing on the washing line. Incursions, diversions, inversions and digressions as stripes swarmed over the static caravaners from Creepy Crawleytown.

Kabia hunted down Dangerous Davies, the fabulously fallible fulcrum in goal as Crawley played walking-football-Pepball inside their penalty area. Pressure, pressing, passing and purring. Slick and quick to the beat, what a Town treat. McEachran ominously omnipotent, ticking over, an eye for a pass through needlers and tweedlers. A free kick sweetly shortened, sleeked past some haystacks, Sweeney jukebox jived and Davies dived to paddle aside.

Town mixing and matching with allusions of Pepballery, triangulating but channelling for roaming raiders rather than panicking to Pym. Tharme coiled deeply and Green hared off down the centre right. On the ball bounced, out the keeper bounded. Mr Serene swished and mished, Davies collided with the ball and Green tumbled over the Blue Boy. Consternation across the nation as the raspberry fool pointed spotsward. What a tremendously embarrassing decision. Cool Hand Jaze watched the red shirts wail and attempt to trail stray studs over the penalty spot. He ain't shaking like a leaf on a tree, 'cause he's lean and mean. Kabia gave it three steps, stroking and rolling across flailing fingers into the bottomest right corner.

Release the hounds of war!

Burns and Vernam winging wonderfully, hugging the touchline, bugging their backline. Broad brush strokes, precision bombing, big balls, little triangles, day trippers mocked and mugged. Burns wringled and wrangled and watched the last red head standing graze away from the Wolds Panther. A corner, a corner, a kingdom for an elevated corner! Hurrah, hurrah for Dixie, a corner finally arising above eyebrows and Mr Green flicked over at the near post.

Slim Charles toasted nuts, tinkling and winkling to the bye-line and Burns toe-poked at the near post. Creepers forever sliced and diced after dreamy dashings by our flashing blades. Near post, far post, a block, a header whispering, a red scrape'n'slap'n'slash and many a hash made. Bazball, Buckleyball, Pepball, Artellball? It's football and we're having a ball.

We did see red once or twice, the briefest of glimpses far, far away as they that creep flung in long chucks and drippy droops that looped nicely nowhere. Pym sat back and sipped a sherry. Crawley: simply a legal necessity for this match to be registered as an occurrence. They did their bit and not a lot more, for them it was chore, a bore and Town tore these little boys apart.

Sometimes being clever is stupid. Crawley's mischievous deviousness came to naught but half a page of scribbled lines as McEachran intercepted a shortened corner, giving short shrift to their cunning plans, nipping, slipping, slinking, jinking, linking and winking the Wolds Panther free to roam under the Ramstand. A cynical scrape merely delayed their destiny by half a minute. The free kick was slacked out for a Town corner, hands and eyebrows were raised. Tippled shortly in the shadow of the Fan Zone, Vernam swept, McJannet leapt and so did we as the ball ba-zoomed straight in at the near post.

Town were going hard, just pumping the gas, after corners like this no-one has swagger like us.

Then there was nothing from those devilish reds. Eventually the headbanded Forster sat down and, after several eons, he was replaced by Mr Papadopoulos, who spent the rest of the afternoon in a quandary worrying about his laundry.

And we happy homesters gaily frolicked along, basking in the contentment, this game a gentle summer breeze that made us feel fine. Yes, we're as happy as can be and we said so. Plunging under lunging, much mithering in the marsh as Kabia was pushed over inside their box, manhandled and mauled left, right and centre. The referee coily curdling, embarrassed by the penalty and seeking atonement in abstinence. No mate, you're just rubbish.

Seven minutes were added as the crowd burbled and Crawley further curdled. Time drifted by, one by one the crowd drifted to the vestibules. By the dug outs a harmless throw was flung back and Kabia, yet again frightening the carthorses with his fleeting feet, mugged a chugger and was hauled as he rolled and caressed against the angle of near post and bar. The ball ballooned up and spun highly across the face of goal and, well, a whistle blew.

I tell yer what, you have to admit it's getting better all the time.

2nd half – Paper Planes
No changes were made by either team at half time.

Time drifted by, one by one Crawley crept towards Christie, our new minstrel in goal. And what did we learn? That the Mighty Pym can kick it a long way. Ten minutes of ephemeral fluttering from them. Finally a shot, way, way out, way, way over and that's the way we like it, uh-hu. There are only three wheels on their wagon.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no moment that sums up New Town more than the moment that Khouri scraped former fan fave Mr Gav O'Holohan. Quite magnificent. And on the hour Good Old Gav was gone. We haven't forgotten, but memories are just that - memories. We're alive in the present now.

Now then, what next? We can't help it, we're set adrift on memory bliss, floating on ancient tales of Buckleyore. Khouri scavenged and scrimpled to Vernam with haring, scaring Sweeney overlapping and Davies slapping. Been causing trouble since this game began, he's a speed king see him fly!

Lovely. Smashing. Super. McJannet big boomed deeply from left to right as a drippy defender headed perfectfully into the path of burner boy Burns. A wiggle, a waggle and deflection, the ball boombling out, in and out again. A final failing as a red thigh cushion-passed to Khouri who turned and slithered a shimmer through red socks, across Davies and into the bottom left corner.

Juicy, real juicy.

Poor old Crawley, for them A to B was often quite far, their legs and heads all felt the wrong way as Artell's passbots and paper planes did rain down upon their goal. It's party time in the Pontoon as remnants of the tifo glided towards Davies's ears.

Raids and roams and Green barundled down the flank, hooking across and the last head sliced over his own bar. Burns jinked and Kabia toe-poked at the near post. Fizzes and flashes and Vernam grazed a bumbling, bouncing Khouri clobber.

Monochrome waves crushed over the sad Southerners. McEachran's chain was yanked, a penalty denied for an outrageous strangulation after Town triangulation. A hoof away, a lob on and Duck Farm underheaded as Tshimanga subtly, supplely nudged. Pym was caught in no-mans-land, but Tshimanga, the deep-fried flying burrito, didn't get his guacamole to dip. Don't worry, even if it had dropped in there's no way they could have made it two. For that was it and that was that for them thar Crawlers; their first, their last, their everything.

They didn't have a bust to flush or a stitch to wear.

Substitution time and olé time. Gardner and Walker replaced Green and Kabia and the beat goes on. Burns morphed into Amaluzor, Rodgers and Vernam became Warren and Gardner. Ah, young Cam, doing a splendid impression of the extraordinary Green man, power surging down the right and a cross tipped over from under the bar. Walker waltzed past wallflowers, tip-toeing through these wilting tulips and Amaluzor's flying scissor kick muffled safely into the keeper's arms

Five minutes were added. Or perhaps five minutes had been added. In all this excitement I kinda lost count of the minutes, the hours. The sheer giddy delight of a serene afternoon of total football sent us back into the world outside our window in a reverie of wonderfulness.

Oh my, my what a sensation, oh my, my what elation

This? This? It's exactly what we kept being promised during the darkness and the drabness. They heeded the need for speed and it didn't take long to take the lead. Kabia adds velocity and wit, McEachran was beyond excellent and no-one, no-one was anything other than top-notch.

Such a perfect day, it was such fun.