Cod Almighty | Match Report

by Tony Butcher

21 November 2013

Pluckytown 1 Grimsby Town 2

Seventy minutes on the motorway with the bright lights teasing and tantalising. Several hundred Town fans on the slip road. The time was ticking. Who knows what pre-match entertainment was laid on for the massed Mariners and the dribblesome Plucky Ones? Let us through, don't you know who we are? Are they going to delay kick-off? I only heard it through the grapevine, oh I was just about to lose my mind when the game kicked off and the traffic flowed.

Town lined up in the unmentionable 4-4-2 formation as follows: McKeown, Hatton, Pearson, New Improved Burgerboy with added relish, Thomas, Colbeck, Disley, Kerr, Neilson, John-Lewis, Hannah. The substitutes were Hedge, Bignot, McLaughlin, Doig, Rodman, Cook and Hearn.

First half: Crosstown traffic

It started, half of us weren't there. Neilson dived, Sir Alan said so. Let us go, let us in. Eh, what? No! Yes! He scored a goal, he's scored a goal, The Shop has scored a goal. What a honking time in the car park, what a stonking time in the away end was had by the lucky ones. The Plucky Ones were silent and sad.

Ah, I'm in. It's throbbing, we're bobbing, it is time for you stop all of your sobbing, Brian. Ooh, McKeown fell and rose again to squelch away superbly as a flubbleshot flipped and skipped off Hatton's heels. A blue boot stretched… grow your toenails, sonny Jim.

Ooh, I bet you're wonderin' how I knew, ‘bout Brian's plans to make us blue? He's some kind of guy we knew before, remember. There's a dark shadow growing in the corner of the Tin Shack. Is that the Grimsby Reaper I see before thee?

Hey, hey, hey, Lenell's a fizzing whizzing whirlybird. He's here, there and everywhere. Hannah freed, Slocombe swooped. A corner shinned back to the prostrate Slocombe. Them Pluckers they be appearing to try. Shooting high, shooting wide and shooting Brian's foot. Spencer wiggled and niggled and was never competent. Marvellous.

There's only one McDonald in Scunthorpe, that's a fact. Clayton's silver hammer came down upon their heads. He made sure their hopes were dead.

Fizzing, cracking, buzzing and bouncing. It's the way life used to be. Fabtastically fantabulous football fun.

Second half: Sticky toffee Murfin

Neither team made any changes at half time. The bloke with the big hot dog was thrown out for inappropriate condiment selection.

Thirty seconds. They attacked from the off, Town backed off, Hawkridge slapped a messy muggler, and they scored, off monochrome boots somewhere down in the dark recesses of the Tin Shack.

Oo-er, they do make a noise. But we're louder. The goal went in and Town fans upped the ante. Holy smoke, Batman, they're supporting their team!

Ten minutes of vague Scunniness, scuttling and shuttling. Free kicks a-go-go from the pusillanimous pest in black. Magnifico McKeown, sailing west to scrape a scrumptious dinker away. Sprawling left, crawling right, plucking and sucking up the Plucky onslaught. I tell you what Brian, you'd give Alfreton a game, more often than not. Well done.

Staunch, solid, sexy backtracking from Joltin' Joe and crazy kerfuffling by Kerr. We're repelling the repellent rickshaw drivers. Neilson plunged earthwards way, way out on the left touchline. Kerr caressed, McDonald pressed the nuclear button and bonk-grazed through Mrs Slocombe's wig. The Earth was tilted a degree and North Lincolnshire bounced: players and fans as one.

This is it, this is our time. Sure, sure, those plucky lower leaguers plugged away, dinking and winking, whacking and hacking. The ball curled and curled in and out of the Town area, but who you gonna call? Lennie the lion-hearted groove machine swivel-volleyed highish from some football. We had moments, Plucky Scunny saw mirages. The ball shimmering near a goal, but always, always just a little but further away. Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, just like their shooting.

You can feel the love baby, we ain't gonna lose to these chickens. Easy, easy, easy.

It were a magical night: sixteen long years of hurt had ended, our revenge a dish best served on a cold night in Pluckyland. Bye-bye Brian.