Cod Almighty | Match Report
by Tony Butcher
1 November 2020
Stevenage 0 Grimsby Town 0
Welcome back for your twice-weekly video therapy. It's painful to undergo with some terrible side effects, but what else you going to do?
Are those blocked drains beginning to look an attractive alternative yet? Thought not. Here we are again, slumped in front of a screen ready to scream from the comfort of our psychic prison cells.
First Half – You only miss twice
Town kicked off in blue towards the Bra Detector Stand. A bit of this and not much of that, Bennett shirked, Coker chased a clobber and knitted a woollen Preston for the Baldock Christmas market (cancelled, now on-line). Dinanga arose six yards out, Jamie Mack carefully ached right to parry aside and scoop up List's listless scrunch.
A clatter, a natter and Town took a quick free kick to catch them out on the break... and back to McKeown. Rolling, rolling, rolling we're getting a raw deal and a raw hide watching rollerball.
A corner flashed back and flashed wide, Akinwade barundled and bashed lowly as blueboys scuttled and Jamie Mack scooped the poop at the near post. A corner cleared and slapped back, clipping blue toes and swingling past the post. 15 minutes of possession and the avoidance of concession through the kindness of strangers.
My fellow Grimbarians, I have received a telegram from our expeditionary forces in the South. I bring news of a great victory in those strange foreign lands. Bring on the dancing horses, for in the sixteenth minute of the thirty-first day of the tenth month of the twentieth year of the twenty-first century Mr James Tilley arose afarly and gently headed widely after young Mr Terry Taylor crossed the Mason-Dixon line.
You have to make the most of things these days.
My fellow Grimbarians, I have received a telegram from General Custard and bring sad news from the battlefield. Mr James Tilley, while on patrol, was hit by stray cannon fire and we are awaiting news from Doctor Dave.
Gomis came on and Town had a new variation on the G-Plan: Gomis, Green and Gordon Bennett. A front three of forwards that fluttered and flattered to deceive with the hint of activity, brushed aside and blown away by the merest breeze. The really sad thing is all three tried really, really hard.
Town had the ball, they had the shots, we had wasted our time and money again. Oo, look, a pretty cloud.
Oh look, a silver lining: they still can't shoot. Read mashed Preston, crashed a cross and Hendrie stoopled away at the far post. Gomis ran away and flibbled to nowhere from somewhere. Homesters dived for pearls, the ref saw them emerge with fake plastic trinkets.
Half time? Are we there yet? Alas, no. Would that it were so simple.
In the last of the three added minutes Bennett superbly turned on the wing and passed inside to an unmarked midfielder who immediately split the defence with a chip to the left. Dinanga cut in and around Hendrie to coil beyond McKeown, the ball clipping the outside of the post and that, finally, was the end of this world as we know it.
There are teams worse than these two?
Second Half - Blunderball
Neither team made any changes at half time.
Bennett feebled and flopped and eventually Akinwande swiped into the ether. Probably. Windsor and Vincelot danced around their handbags and the cameraman cleaned the lens again. Nobody wants to see that. Or indeed this.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it, Brentford wizard in a miracle cure for Stevenage. A Read corner bounced through the six-yard box unmolested, a Read shot double bubbled off two blue bottoms and Newton acrobatically slapped across and wide. A Read free kick was glanced wide.
Hanson brought on some slow motion pointing to replace Green's slow motion loitering and a Town free kick caused a very minor commotion deep, deep in the heart of Hertfordshire where hurricanes hardly happen.
They brought on Newton who promptly slapped wide after a higgledy piggledy house blowing down Town's left, where the lights are not bright. Gibson replaced Gordon Bennett. Gibson is less ineffective than Bennett, that's all I'm prepared to say under oath.
The lights came on, but not for Town. No longer were we treated to the free flowing passing to McKeown, all we had was the hope that football will be cancelled. Can we have a gap year please?
Ah-ha, at last! With 10 minutes left Gomis glamorously glided down the right and flap-jacked lowly at their keeper, who scoopled aside for a corner like he was shooing away a baby squirrel. Alas, the corner, we knew it well.
And now the end is near. Read twizzled Preston yet again, pulling back for Newton, whose blast was blocked and bonked off the back of Hendrie's head. Oteh snuffled away after a series of missed tackles, walloping a swinging dipper that McKeown spectacularly flipped away from the top left corner. And a big bloke bonked wide from the corner.
Four minutes were added and Town's ups were undered as opportunity knocked for a drive-by burglary. At last football, Taylor triangulated, Gibson crossed and Hanson's tree fell in the woods.
I saw what you saw and you saw what I saw and oh what an eyesore this game was, for sure.
"Stop it, stop, please I’m begging you, this is a sin, this is a sin! You needn't take it any further. You've proved to me that all this ultraviolence and killing is wrong, wrong, and terribly wrong. I've learned me lesson, sir."
One way to reduce crime would be to make watching Town compulsory community service. Now that's what I call a deterrent: Town as the modern Ludovico Treatment.