The Fishy - Grimsby Town FC

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Town's Performance
Town's Performance

Town Hammered!

By: Rob Salt
Date: 25/03/2006

GRIMSBY Town put in an embarrassing and passionless performance and slipped to a 5-0 defeat at the hands of local rivals Lincoln City.

Home > 2005-2006 Season > Reports > Lincoln (a)


The Mariners lined with a 4-4-2 line up against Lincoln City with ex-Imp Ben Futcher keeping his place which meant Rob Jones was again on the bench.

Town started the brighter of the two teams with both Justin Whittle and Paul Bolland having half volley shots straight at the City 'keeper within the first 10 minutes. However, from then onwards Town lacked passion, effort and most importantly bottle.

Lincoln were becomingly increasingly stronger, with Town making it easier for them by not being able to pass or win a ball - the chances were coming fast for Lincoln.

Firstly a lofted ball in led to a headed goal for Lincoln by Foster with no challenges coming from a Town player; 90 seconds later it was 2-0. A long ball from the Lincoln defence was chased by the Town defence and Forrester; with the Town 'keeper racing from his line, the ball was lobbed over the keeper and into an empty net.

The Town defence then started to argue with each other over the goal with both 'keeper and defence blaming each other.

Shortly afterwards another Lincoln goal came from a through ball into the Town area and with no defender wanting to tackle the Lincoln forward, Mildenhall raced off his line and was adjusted to have fouled the Lincoln striker. Lincoln's Mayo then scored from the resulting penalty kick.

Just before half time it was four, a cross from the Lincoln right was missed completely by Justin Whittle and a Robinson just had to tap it in.

Then as the whistle blew for half time, in amazing scenes, Town manager Russell Slade decided to give the half time talk in the centre circle instead of the Town players going into the dressing room. The players were ordered to sit on the ground whilst Graham Rodger ran to fetch the flip chart. This was a ploy to embarrass the Town players as the manager and fans already were.

The second half comeback from Town never happened, although it was a better second half (though was impossible to be any worse). Town failed to create any real chances. Lincoln continued to press and a good save from Mildenhall kept the score at four; however he was powerless when late on a deflected shot by Lincoln's Beevers flew into the bottom corner.

Overall a very poor performance and one of the worst 90 minutes I have witnessed by a Grimsby Town team. There seemed to be little effort, passion, commitment and bottle from them. They have to make amends by winning on Saturday against Wrexham, but more importantly have to persuade the 2200 town fans who travelled that they want promotion.

Man of the match: Nobody deserves today’s honour.

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