Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Conference Premier

Lincoln City 1 Power (53 pen)

Grimsby Town 4 Cook (37), Boyce og (43), Disley (58), Colbeck (66)

Attendance: 5702 (1729 away fans)

Goals and the nearer misses Lincoln broke, Colbeck dozed on the left, tiny Taylor crossed, Oliver stretchy toe-poked wide of open goal. The Cookie monster arose at the far post and nodded wide.

Please don't forget Pond's pop down to the Nail Fairy. A 12-minute absence to have a lip job, done after a clash of egos. Niven sank back to cover his workmate. No worries mate. They broke and tiny Taylor dinked over McKeown onto the face of the crossbar. Calm scrambling from the ambling back-liners.

37 mins: Pearson hugged a hooded pass, holding and flicking Colbeck free. Farman flapper-dap-dapped straight to Cook on the penalty spot, who steady-volleyed into the top lefty corner.

43 mins: Pearson flicked Colbeck free, free, free as a bird. Boyce slicey-thighed the thigh-high cross into his own net.

A momentary lapse of reason. A red stripe free, McKeown raced out to scoop and collect a stud or two. Scrambles and bundles, chuckball and bargeball - at any time at all. Feel free to imagine.

53 mins: A curdling churn of chucking after Town failed, failed, failed again to clear chunky chicken clucks. A bundle of bodies, a pointing referee. Consternation, confusion, a Power penalty clipped left as McKeown clopped right.

Lincoln throw-in straight in; foul on McKeown. Lincolnites need to have a calm down pill.

Don't make Town angry.

58 mins: Counter-attack, Cook headed against the bar, a scramble of many eggs and Disley, near the penalty spot, hooky-slapped a volley in off the crossbar. In all the excitement I kinda lost track of space and time, as well as my packet of Extra Strong Mints.

65 mins: With slickness and grace, Town ripped open their presents. Pearson crinkled across Farman, who slapped against an Impy thigh. The ball crawled over the crossbar. The discombobulated flawed keeper threw Pearson to the floor as he awaited the drip. Another corner, another drip, drip, drip torture for the pretend keeper. Farman barely flapped as Colbeck's in-swinger swung in to the far corner.

Pearson hit their bar; a header was cleared off the line by Thomas. Another red cross was missed at the far post and a header bounced over an unmarked Impite foot. Ah, shame. Off went Pearson, on came Rankine, who nodded over rather than off. Marshall curly-wurleyed towards the top left corner and Farman finally caught a cold. And finally Disley tapped Marshall quickly free, who poked across the openest goal near Southwell. Oh yeah, he came on for Cook and Wood came on for Hatton.

There you are, lovely.

The game was all about arm wrestling and Craig Disley was king of this indoor league. A conveyor belt of intelligent nicks and knocks turning defence into attack. The pirouetting prince of slides was the pied piper of Sincil Bank.

"I'm sure the fans went home last night and had a nice Boxing Day drink and finished off the turkey with a smile on their face. It's great when you can take that sort of away support, and to do that for a Conference game is just fantastic. Thanks to them because they've had to spend a lot of money over the last few days."

"We beat ourselves. There were too many mistakes and they cost us. Paul [Farman] made an error for the first goal, while Tom Miller should have dealt better with his situation for the second. Nobody could legislate for the mistakes we made and from players who would not normally make them."

It would be fibbing to claim Town were utterly dominant, free-flowing and without concerns. Lincoln hit the bar, had two wallied off the line, missed three open goals and generally caused minor pandemonium with their roughhouse roughball. But this Town have an aura, a lustrous shining ring of steel. Despite all these moments, there was never really a feeling that the ball would decide to wend its way past McKeown and between the posts. There was always a Townite foot or forehead around when needed, even when Pond went for a little lie down in the flotation tank. This was all about the horrible things in life; Town had to stand up to schoolyard bullies. They did, every single one of them. Ruthlessly efficient.

Yawn, yawn yawn. Hurling and chucking are euphemisms for being sick, not football. You know, Impies, you're just Tamworth with a bit of cash and historical cachet. The Lincolnites had a long throw, elbows and an inexhaustible supply of camp carping. I told you they were Tamworth with tantrums. There really is no point in describing Lincoln's tactics again. They are always the same: long diagonal punts then some bargeball and chuckball if they are lucky. Persistence and percentages. Sometimes it works if stars align in Cancer, Scorpio rises and the opponents are weak sleepers. Town were far too rational to believe that nonsense. Mid-table irritants.

The concrete beams were bouncing with alarming delight.

Mr P Banks (Merseyside)

Ooh ma, he barely kept his jelly in shape. Way, way too lenient at the start, he really should have booked Marshall and their right-back in the first minute for some amateur tap dancing, and was too frit to send off Oliver for the disgraceful Thomas takedown a couple of minutes later. The penalty decision was in a galaxy far, far away and we didn't have a radio telescope, so let us be magnanimous in our hour of victory. It didn't matter in the end, no need to jump on his conclusions. Oh hang on. His booking of Pond for being hit on the back by Farman's quick goal kick was from a mind that is beyond this dimension. Rubbish really: 4.986. Like a Shaun Cunnington surge in a March mudbath, he lost the control he never had.

All the right seat tickets, not necessarily in the right order.

But, wherever you sat, the view was lovely.