20/09 Chesterfield Part 2

By: Tony Butcher
Date: 21/09/2003

DAWS had a very uninspiring start, with his first two passes being miss-placed. But no-one muttered too much, for Town were beginning to play the ball around, to feet, with Davison starting to roll the ball out to the full backs. You know, like Town used to do, way back when.

Grimsby Town 4 Chesterfield 0 20 Sep 2003, Nationwide League Division 2 A quick flick by Boulding sent Cas free down the centre right, he bore down upon goal, let fly and his shot seemed to take a deflection and skip off the side of Muggelton’s near post for a corner. That woke us up a bit. The corner sent us back to sleep again. Then we woke up again, courtesy of the referee who, to the amazement of all but the inhabitants of the Osmond Stand, started to penalise Town’s opponents for things like fouls. And we thought that sort of thing had been erased from the game by a FIFA directive in 1992. Hockless was hoiked down and several seconds later the full back strolled over to the ball and wellied it down field. Out came the yellow card and forward went the free kick, to the edge of the area. You can sit down now, don’t get excited, stop daydreaming and it’s not because he’s short. Hockless placed the ball, Gallimore style, into the shins of the player 3rd from right in the wall. Cas was starting to frighten the Chesterfield defenders with his power running and, as ever, Boulding was all scampering and twisting on the edge of the area. A fine Town move down the right, involving Cas, McDermott and Boulding saw our little pony drift past his marker, cut back onto his left foot and curl a delightful, de-loverly cross to the far post. Hockless waited, Onuora shuffled across and glanced the ball away from the Tiny Tot, effectively clearing it. Around the quarter hour Town really should have scored. Cas was sent free down the centre left and, as one would expect, no one could catch him. Muggleton raced off his line and smothered the attempted dink. The ball rebounded towards Boulding who was levered away using planks, ropes and an army of Assyrian slaves. He still managed to get in a shot, which Muggleton again smothered at source, with the ball rolling up and striking a white shirted athlete somewhere close to an arm. In the grand scheme of things it was worth on "ooh" and got two. And there’s more. A Town corner from the left was headed back across goal by Onuora to Ford, who juggled once, juggled twice and dragged a low shot from the centre edge of the penalty area towards the bottom right hand corner. Muggleton zimmered across and saved at the foot of the post. Another oohsome moment. It sounds all Town, and it was a bit like that, but Chesterfield were still attacking, still finding those holes in the centre of the Town defence. The hole was mainly Crane shaped, for Chesterfield’s next attack saw Crane fumble, stumble and allow Hudson to waltz through into the area. As he was about shoot, Daws cracked the ball away with a terrific sliding tackle. And then we started to notice what Daws was doing, nothing spectacular, just standing in the right places, stopping them and starting us with simple passing. An old fashioned holding midfielder’s role, allowing Campbell a bit more freedom to scurry up to help the forwards. After 23 minutes, Boulding, Daws and Onuoura pressed the Chesterfield defenders as they tried to clear the ball. They panicked and scuffed a pass straight to Campbell, 30 yards out, who simply ran straight back at them. The defenders back tracked, waved their arms about , cried out "think of the little children" and fled to the hills, allowing the Town terror to drift into the penalty area. Campbell scuffed a shot from the left side of the area across Muggelton, the ball bombled and embarrassed itself as it apologised its way past the flailing stopper. A BIG HAIRED DEFENDER ran back, tried to whisk the ball off the line, but only succeeded in clipping it against the post and into the net at the speed of an elderly Lincolnshire driver on a church outing.

Grimsby Davison McDermott Ford Crane Barnard Cas Daws Campbell Hockless Onuora Boulding   Edwards 45 mins Crowe 84 mins Mansaram 88 mins Nimmo Bolder   Attendance 4,141   Referee Graham Salisbury (Preston)   Division Two League Table Reports/Fixtures Squad Stats Top Scorers Previews Predict-o-Meter   Man of the Match Vote for your Man of the Match Your Name (optional) Your Email Address (optional) Your Man of the Match Pick a player Davison McDermott Crane Ford Edwards Barnard Cas Daws Campbell Hockless Crowe Onuora Boulding Mansaram Nominations count towards the Player Of The Month shortlist.

CAMPBELL or BIG HAIRED DEFENDER’S OWN GOAL? Only the video jury can decide. Set the video to Stun, Scotty. The crowd went wild, and so did Crane and Barnard. Yep, Crane had a huge barney with Barney. Ford literally prized them apart and the referee wandered over and had "words". If Ford hadn’t been there then one of them would have been on the floor, teeth akimbo. It appeared that Barnard was not appreciative of some aspect of Crane’s positioning, judging by the finger pointing and amateur lip reading (expletives excepted, if not accepted by Crane).

The rest of the half was torpid, poor, so very poor, punctuated by brief moments of unfettered excitement and skill. Around the half hour mark several things happened; a bit like buses, we’d waited ages then it comes all of a rush. Town should have scored again when Barnard surged, swayed and swaggered down the left and middle, before playing a perfect pass through to Boulding on the centre right. Boulding swept on and, from just inside the penalty area, to the right of goal, dragged a shot across Muggleton and straight out for...a corner. The corner, on Town’s left was clipped to Barnard, waiting outside the penalty area on the left, whose first shot zipped into the area and back out again. Barnard thundered forward and murdered a shot from the edge of the area which went a few inches over the angle of post and bar. A minute or so later Town had a beautiful flowing move down the left, started by Daws who intercepted the ball in midfield by volleying a cushioned pass up the wing. Barnard, Daws and Hockless combined, with the tiny tot caressing a pass out to the unmarked Cas, on the right edge of the penalty area. Cas slightly miss-controlled the ball, allowing it to bounce up , giving just enough time for Muggelton to race out and block the shot.

Chesterfield broke back down the other end and the warning lights flashed on our map. The ball was knocked over Crane, who trundled back and totally miss-hit a back pass. Folan, who was wearing Leroy’s hair out of Fame, pumped up the volume and was set on a collision course with the now plunging Davison. They collided, the ball rolled free and Barnard tapped the ball out of play, as both lay prostrate on the ground. Folan was wheeled off the pitch and eventually replaced by Robinson. This was just one of many stoppages for injuries, including Ford, who suddenly started hopping after he’d knocked the ball back to Davison. Down he went, on came the physio and eventually off went Ford, to be replaced just a couple of minutes before half time by Edwards. There were three minutes of added time, during which another lengthy stoppage occurred. The half ended when Boulding was hacked down from behind. No action taken, Boulding just left in a heap as everyone else walked off the pitch.

Half time: Grimsby Town 1 Chesterfield 0

That was just about all in the first half, a scrappy, stop-start affair. Chesterfield had several more efforts on goal, including a couple of long shots which forced Davison to plunge and pluck. They probably should have scored near half time when they infiltrated the Town area on the right and the ball was pulled back to Robinson, just 10 yards out. He tried a first time steered volley, which ended up as a poked, sliced weak embarrassment as it rolled slowly, slowly across goal. It probably looked closer from 100 yards away, or behind a post in the press box. The Pontoon just "Pfftd" at that. Town were leading and it should have been by at least three, but that defence was still not convincing. The full backs were untroubled, but the centre had difficulties with two large lumps of lignite. Having said that, Edwards had a cracking two minutes, so there was hope for the second half.

Stu's Half Time Toilet Talk "We’ll that’s two teams worse than us, so far". "It’s nice to see we have the real Barnard back from the garage". "My money’s on Gladys". "This is my first game this year. We were better last season". "I like that Daws, he’s big".

The report continues in the Second Half.

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