Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

17 August 2025

No profit grows where no pleasure is taken. It's a pleasant day in a pleasant land where all the houses are all the same, but the kids are beginning to understand how it feels when your world means something. The queue for the Big Match starts at five.

Town lined up in a 4-3-3 formation as follows: Pym, Rodger, Tharme, McJannet, Sweeney, Green, McEachran, Walker, Amaluzor, Kabia, Vernam. The substitutes were Auton, Warren, Staunton, Turi, Khouri, Burns and Gardner. After the shaming of the Shrews there be tweaks to the top Town team: Khouri and Burns are rested whilst Walker and Amaluzor emerge into Artell's first XI. Have we got a first XI these days?

Newport turned up in two-tone blue proclaiming a new age of enlightenment with a man with a plan but with the obligatory collection of old Town toys in their old kit bag on the bench. Is it wrong to wish Wright was playing? How long before Glennon's on sale again? Are they really new Newport or the usual circus of horrors: the Old Newport in disguise with glasses?

If Newport be waspish, let's be aware of their sting.

There's only one way to find out. Let's get started. C'mon you raspberry fool, it's three o'clock, get peeping.

1st half – On a carousel
They kicked off towards the Pontoon, away from their 122 followers of fashion down in the covered corner and into a wall of sound. They knocked it deep, they knocked it high but, my, oh my, Town were stronger and the stripes did flow.

A tackle, a tickle and out came Town's hammer and sickle. Amaluzor and Green scooped and swooped and Kabia's near-post flick was edged behind. Mmm, you can almost taste the hot dogs and fancy chips they sell under the scoreboard, but what can we see? Vernam coiled a corner, Green flicked on at the near post and Baker-Richardson brilliantly, beautifully, flicked in from the centre of the six-yard box.

From Blundell Park they can hear the happy sound of carousing Mariners.

'Round and 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round Town flew. Up, down, up, down, up, down too. Newport resorted to legging up, barging, blocking, checking and choking. Walker cynically, dreadfully hacked by Evans, a man with the demeanour of someone who, if asked to count the bricks in a wall, would confirm that he knew as that there were over 37. He really should have done time for that, a yellow warning was no price to pay, nor disincentive for their impressionable youth, for such reckless disregard for a fellow human.

Stripes forever falling off screen, shoved and shaken, but something stirring. Little George brushed aside by bullyboy Baker-Richardson. Off this tank trundled from pier to Pontoon, pursued by a bare minimum of Marinermen. We only need one. McJannet McJanitored, scraping the graffiti of the wall during the afternoon break.

They had long a throw. And another. Slips and slaps and no traps fallen into, though unseen behind the raspberry beret, a selection of stripes were strangled by these supposed new fangled Exiles. Meet the new dross, same as the old dross.

Ooh-ah, ooh-ah, ooh-ah ay. The Wolds Panther dumped his full-back in the duck pond, his britches full of tadpoles, newts between his toes, and lowly crimpled a cross shot towards the bottom left corner. Tzanev hopped, skipped and purringly pawed aside. The corner flicked up at the near post, Baker-Richardson barged the Pink Plunger. A flip, a flap, the ball bumbled out towards the bye-line, Davies swished his foot, Green declined to remain upright and the referee milked the moment, taking a beat to overpoint to the penalty spot. Kabia stuttered up and softly rolled to Tzanev's left. The keeper plunged and pawed, plipped away from the on-rushing Green and watched Rodgers scrape across the face of goal and through the gathering of humanity gawping in the six-yard box.

He's got a smiley face and a pair of brown eyes and all he's here to do is hypnotise. A narrow free kick way out East, Amaluzor arose and thwonkled against an accidental blue short stationed upon the goal line. Ah, you see, he's six-foot-one, and he's tons of fun. Kabia waggled wide. Or was it high? Did it happen or am I dreaming these dreams?

They had a free kick. It hit the wall. They hugely hurled, walls did not come tumbling down.

And still they tugged and tussled passing Townites with impunity and apparent immunity. Whizzing, fizzing, fizzingly out with half hits and half blocks. Vernam did that Vernam thing he do, shimmying, shammying, cutting in and shooting against a fleshpot. The ball deflected droopily just wide of the near post as Tzanev set off for Tescos. Town were unlucky not to be lucky again.

Two minutes were added.

Breaking Town, breaking news, it's breaking bad: black and whiters scattered across the turf as blue meanies manhandled and mangled many a Marinerman. Kabia surged, Kabia plunged as he was tackled. A yellow card for our Irish Roamer, yet all weasels from the West left alone, including Evil Evans, the WWE pantomime artist masquerading as a footballer. The half ended with a mystery free kick to Newport, halfway to nowhere. A chance to dink and dink they did, with Rodgers hauled, mauled and sandwiched between two cheeseboards. Pym gathered the rolling moss.

Town should have blown their bloomin' doors off by now. Hard going against slappers and yappers, forever moaning and groaning.

2nd half – Keep on running
Newport replaced Smith with Antwi at half time. Did anyone notice?

We nick, we knock, but there's always a block by a wrong coloured sock. Drop your shoulder, be a bit bolder, did you read your folder of facts? Walker weaved between some stick insects, rolling perfectly into the path of the man with flying quads. Sweeney swept, white socks deflected to Amaluzor, a dozen yards out beyond the far post. Big J sniffled back across the face of goal and the ball hit the keeper's right post, whereupon Vernam's Cruyff turn returned the ball to Tzanev.

Pressure, pressure everywhere, but rarely a cross to dink. A header, possibly, a scruffle, probably, and a blue snaffle away from the near the line. Back in black, Walker lobbled, Kabia was chased around the penalty area and the ball buffled out of the area, out to the lurking McJannet. A great walloping stonker sizzled straight as an arrow towards the top right corner and Tzanev, unsighted but alert, flew rightly to perspicaciously parry, to brilliantly bash away.

Amaluzor's attempt? Amaluzor attempted something, what it is no-one knows, though it did involve several of his toes. Sweeping like wildebeest Townites rampaged up the left, Vernam pulled a pass back and Walker swished across face of the leftest of Pontoon posts.

And now for something completely different.

Now and again blue shorts had wandered farly, sometimes the ball was wellied towards these farly flung folk. Sometimes it went out of play, sometimes it didn't. And all the time the tourists roughed up the locals with not a policeman in sight. A big long chuck from the rose garden in front of the Incontinence Pants Stand. Half out, three quarters out and way out to the halfway line. Slackly vague pressing, Vernam jogging, Sweeney backing off, backing away and permitting a deeply dripped cross from Rudolph Reindorf. Rodgers marked Tharme, Green watched Rodgers mark Tharme and Baker can-canned in between the striped statues, hitched up his petticoat and hook-steered a volley past Pym.

Now that was slack from the men in black.

And then there was no more to say for half an hour as the game swirled into the gutter. Big balling Newport, bullying Town, bullying the ref. Up and unders, chips and chases, whack-a-mole whacker-do. But nothing of note from these nowhere men, nothing for Pym to do other than kick the ball away now and again.

Boo, hiss, boo. Throw the vandals in court we say of these boors from Newport.

Burns replaced Amaluzor half way through the half, Walker became Khouri ten minutes later. A Rodgers' shot after a Sweeney cross skidded disturbingly. A Kabia header cleared Blue lines. A frenzy of fouling, much grumbling and growling. Beware of the ferrets! Bluesmen prowling ever closer to Pym.

With about ten minutes left a triple striped substitution: Vernam off, Gardner on and both full-backs were swapped for their shadows. Two strikers, four defenders, four others somewhere in between.

Higher and higher they go, longer and longer as the game gets shorter. Left, right, wide and handsomely high they go. The closer they get the further their shots go away from goal.

Gardner was offside, let's spare those blushes and not crush his spirit. As we used to say of Dear Old Lennie: you've got to be there to miss 'em and Young Cam is regularly getting there to miss them now. It's called progress and is almost certainly page 23 on his Personal Action Plan. At the bottom of the page.

And two by two they left the Park to forage for the Big Match.

Five minutes were added. More and more ticketers trickled out, focusing on the future, not the now. We'd take a point wouldn't we?

But Town haven't give up. Staunton raided and rivetted a ripper through the penalty box. Green, well, Green, ah well, there's always tomorrow.

Rend the sluggish bonds asunder, let the war-cry's deaf'ning thunder roar out from the covered corner: Newport ne'er can yield!

One last heave and one last weave. Burns flickled in the far corner, Khouri way out on the right, sneaked into the penalty area and hit the bye-line. He looked up, lamped a cross past Gardner and the ball slapped against mutual conjoined flesh of Green and Thomas but three yards out, simpered, whimpered and rolled sedately towards the right corner and beyond the white line as Tzanev grasped and groped with hope. A sharp intake of breath and an exploding foghorn of home happiness bellowed across Blundell Park and over to Spurn Point.

Over might hath triumph'd right, for we've banished these harpies from our strand.

Thank goodness that’s over. That was hard work.

In a way this was very like the Happenings at Harrogate. An opponent that seeks to contain and disturb using some selective brute force and Town saving the day with indefatigable spirit, that intangible je ne sais quoi that is the sine qua non of a successful team. We got what we deserved in the end. Just. And justice prevailed.