Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 28 March 2015

Conference Premier

Welling United 0

Grimsby Town 2 Palmer (9), Pearson (43)

Attendance: 1042 (620 away fans)

How loose are the rules these days? Do they still have to play for us?

Pearson was staunch, said a man with a paunch, and Bradley Wood is still-ish one of our own. But badder than old King Kong, and meaner than a junkyard dog, it's bad, bad Mr Scott Brown. Tackling and passing – the Clay mould is only a base for an artist.

"I was pleased with the referee, I have to say."

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Enough was enough against barely existent mud wrestlers. Town got away with the obligatory Toto mistake and statutory missed open-goal-by-unmarked-striker-six-yards-out.

Craig Disley's studs were too short.

There was nothing new, just variations on a G string. Magnay roamed like a warrior among pacifist pea pluckers. Brown bossed the bossa nova. Pearson headed everything, no matter where red feet wafted. And the Demon Barber was a constant fringe snipper. Arnold doesn't do perms.

Town's attacks started bouncily and bountifully with a collective cohesion then petered out into individualism and rampant narcissism, but then what do you expect after 36 years of neoliberal economics and libertarian ideology?

Town won because they were fitter and stronger, physically and mentally, with Brown adding poise and positioning in the wobbling centre.

Welcome to the Thames time tunnel. It's 1979, it's Saturday afternoon, it's time for some wrestling at Welling.

No matter what they tried they failed, because their players are part-timers and just not good enough. They had one footballer – Vose – who was loved by the ball, but didn't love it enough to expend too much energy or thought in trying to get it. The rest were young, giftless and slack.

On a terrible pitch terrible approximations of football are possible, and this Welling are a terrible approximation. They just look like they have run out of steam, luck, money and ideas.

Like us in our Championship days, there is only so much air in your rubber ring – the sharks'll get you sooner or later. I'm sure they'll be philosophical about their days in the sunny uplands but Welling are just tired near London, tired of Bananarama life.

Walking back to happiness, or at least Welling station, with a rousing rendition of The Ballad of Bradley Wood.

Mr D Rock (Herts)

What a bad day under the black clad Mr Rock for the Wingless blunders of Welling. Big decisions for big teams is an election-winning slogan for the candidate for the Officials Monster Raving Loony Party in the Great Grimsby constituency. He must have heard that it was Nsiala's birthday and what a nice present the Toto tumble rumble was.

The man was ostentatiously making decisions, and at least he was consistent. Let's not chivvy and chase him up the high street to the Giggling Sausage. Let him choose red sauce, brown sauce or no sauce at all in peace. Hey, if he wants mustard let him have it: 8.023.

We came, the ball bobbled, we conquered.

In a word: sausages