FA Cup

We are Town.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

The universe conspired not only to keep me from this game… but keep me from watching it. No matter. The sound, holistic thrashing this very good Premiership team delivered to our allegedly ordinary League Two side has the ultimately reassuring ring of some Deep Natural Order about it. Rights righted: qualities writ large. But we were right to dream, and dance, and wave our daft fish about. We have qualities, too, from the wonderful, selfless loyalty of our travelling fans to the next-level, humane intelligence of some of our board. On the pitch, outclassed. Off it, as good as anybody. Hands raised in gratitude and pride: we are Town.

Yes we are. Though we moved away, we are still Town. Not unduly conflicted by living all my working life in Wales, boasting Welsh-speaking kids, working in *another sport*, having grown up not just Town but with Town blood on-board. (Mighty Vic Dodsworth, GTFC 1930-something. All-too-briefly, as it turned out, cos crocked. Wee underdogs Manchester United took a chance on him. But crocked). I can’t be the only one who grew up a Proud Something-or-Other and became a Proud Something-Else… as well?

So from my home hamlet in Welsh Wales I’m absolutely buzzing for my home town’s carnival day. Sure I’m medium-gutted I couldn’t get a ticket, and more devastated for soulbro’s who unquestionably deserved them more but still fell short. But all of us know that it’s dead right that season ticket holders and full members got in there first. (4,600 snaffled before you could say “E for B and Stuart Brace”). The club is doing lots of things right on and off the park; Jason Stockwood’s Administrative Army continue to play a blinder around the ethics and issues of running a football club.

You may have heard good things. My understanding is that Stockwood and the Corporate Posse behind the Mariners *really are* those rare beasts the conscious capitalists. They do not separate football activity and/or ‘success’ from work which supports the community and the environment – meaning the town, not just Town. Sure you’ll hear a few of those rather concerningly workshopped soundbites about ‘passionate’ this and that, but there is plainly a gritty commitment in the club hierarchy, as well as a smoothish patina. What the Guardian termed ‘social entrepreneurship’ does appear to have taken hold in a remarkably positive way: methinks those are not words that might traditionally have been associated with this club and this town.

Grimsby’s been a joke, we know that: one that our friend Sacha B-C tried to turn into something. The stereotype of an ugly, dated, litter-strewn, beery, ‘tough’ Northern coastal town will be hard to shift, partly, of course, because these slanders all hold a little truth. The docks did kinda die, waaay back then, after the Cod War. The ‘flyover’/Cleethorpes Road quarter still speaks to the era of closure and hardship and booze and anger on the streets. Much of the walk in to Blundell Park still feels like the scene for a progressive documentary on football hooliganism. But Stockwood and co are smart, willing and aligned against old failings and lingering prejudice. They want better for the town and understand something about the conjoined powers of sport and identity.

You don’t have to be a football historian to be aware of the ridicu-season that GTFC enjoyed, last year. (Whether you are or no, go dig out the record-books, and look at the journey to promotion). The series of extra-time wins to get to the play-off final was extreme sport: thrilling; shocking; unbloodyprecedented – or it felt that way. I was at West Ham (the London Stadium) to see the Mariners splutter to a win. It felt destined; or like one of those few things that really deserve to happen.

For Town to be in another football epic, so soon after, is both fabulous and bewildering. But it also figures. There is a vibe around the place. They have players. The manager is maybe flawed (this is my own view, from a distance, of his tactical vulnerabilities… but I say similar about Gareth Southgate) and yet also wonderfully true and consistent and even-tempered. Philosophical, one might say – like the hierarchy, perhaps? Things have been directed or they have conspired but in short it feels good to support Grimsby Town. They present, in the modern, media-conscious parlance, like a good outfit. In interview, footballers toe the party line, to the point of vacuity, generally. Town players seem to mean this stuff about loving the club.

But Brighton loometh and Brighton are cute. They’ve played more fine footie than most in the division, this year. And yes, that would be the Premier League. (I’m not a subscriber to the view, by the way, that the Prem is that great: it’s surely more that there are great players than any depth of brilliant teams. Tottenham, for the top four? They’ve been shite, for months!) Brighton are bright and well-coached. They have a compelling (and possibly worrying) combination of pace and imagination. They play with both control and urgency. The gaffer may be at Real Madrid (or Liverpool?!?) before you know it. Southampton, they are not.

In that previous round most Town fans concede that though it was one of The Great Days, Town were poor. The God Of Doughtiness that is Waterfall was strangely subdued and the defence porous or even ragged. The Talent that is McAtee was flat. Even Holohan – who gathered himself admirably to convert the two pens – was unable to do that precious, beat-establishing water-carrying thing. One of the Great Wins was also a weird under-achievement.

In one sense this might augur well. Us glass half-fullers will be thinking there’s so-o much more to come from the Mariners that Brighton better look out. Waterfall really is one of the lower-league gods – absolutely no disrespect intended, he’s well-capable of winning any game, at either end of the park. The keeper, crucially perhaps, is generally solid. Town can play, in and through midfield. McAtee has a wonder goal in him. Plus it’s the cup, the Town fans will be Really Quite Something and let’s face it, it’s a free hit: the fella Hurst is already, if metaphorically, holding the trophy.

The reality and even the coverage will be all about the support. Masses of grinning Grimbarians wielding inflatable fish; for the second time in the campaign, on the South Coast. Heavy mileage, who cares? The overwhelming majority of those in the away end love their home and their club deeply. They are Town.

But look there’s no time for or value in existential guilt about who’s real and legitimate: zillions of us aren’t or can’t be full-on authentic supporters. I follow on the Twitters but rarely get to games because of the 340 miles twixt venues. I’ll be coaching cricket, believe it or not, whilst the game’s on(!) You, meanwhile, wherever you are, could get behind The Grimsby for one day and join in with that woolly stuff. The romance. The feeling that Town can register something beyond football. Go with the daft magic about Harry the Haddock and Harry Clifton (one of our own). Tell your mates that them bloody fish were rainbow trout, first time around. Raise a glass, maybe. The Lads may need us.

The Art of Non-Directness.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

We get past the further tributes to a relatively unpopular, persistently cantankerous racist, and the anti-racist kneel, then it’s time to play. Wembley is doing that unconvincing, metallic echo-thing as Mike Dean blows. (Seen/heard that a lot lately).

I personally pinged the mute button for most of the conurbation that was/is the typical TV preamble these days and am considering, early doors, the dispatch of Keown to some distant, high-walled suburb. However I did – like the (ahem) loquacious former Arsenal stopper – note the absence of Abraham from the Chelsea squad. You’ve got to believe that Tammy’s an unlucky lad to be behind Werner, on current form and to appear such an outlier from the preferred system to the manager, Tuchel. Mind you Foden’s omission from the City starting line-up might be equally worthy of comment – and more central to events, you suspect.

The other guy drawing chat lately – as well as Abraham, and Keown – has been Sterling. Keown has a predictable nibble, insensitive to the already malicious barrage of spittletastic abuse building on The Lads (our lads) Whatsapp group-chat: for Keown, that is, not Sterling. He notes the City winger’s ‘unconvincing form’.

Chilwell should score. Left foot volley; not too demanding; no crowd baying or defender in his eyeline. Tame – as is the game, on the 20 minute-mark. (Oops. Sounds like a Keownism – there being no 20 minute mark). Somehow this one does feel like a training game… in the Age of the Training Game. City’s famed carousel utterly absent, Chelsea better but quietly unproductive. The game stutters: the crowd silenced.

Fifty-odd minutes. Chelsea deservedly go ahead as Werner breaks clear down the left and finds Ziyech clear nine yards out. City keeper Steffen may have misread his angles but the Chelsea striker was strangely unmolested by a detached defence.

Indeed this relative estrangement seemed characteristic of Guardiola’s men. There were eight changes and whilst on many occasions the dazzling light blues have blown into ridicule our natural inclinations to mither at ‘reckless rotation’, here, at Wembley, City looked like blokes from all over, gathered for a trial. Only briefly in the second period did they gel. Foden had come on for the injured de Bruyne and Gundogan also joined. But even then possession was unevenly retained and lacked the silky nature of the norm. The ludicrous over-hype of the All Four Trophies notion fell, rather weakly, in short.

So – and I scoot forward here briskly, because not that much happened – the battle of the no centre-forwards turned out neither dramatic nor especially beautiful. Chelsea scuttled with some purpose without exciting the box; City had a bad day at the training pitch. The crowd seemed weirdly quiet.

Was it true that Tuchel did a number on The Maestro, or did Guardiola disappear up his own bottie again again? And is the Big Game equivalent of a Proper Cup Game now more likely to be a passionless, relatively contactless short-passing fest that merely (predictably) disappoints in a different way? Are tremendously skilled players like Sterling and Foden and De Bruyne just a little lacking in personality, in character – and so when that entirely human misfire occurs, do they have whatever it takes to burst through? Is everything a system, these days?

I speak as one who could barely respect the Guardiola achievement more. David Silva and De Bruyne and now (please god) Foden have brought the playing of the game of football in these islands to a genuinely exalted state. One that makes manifest the dream that Clough may have had about skill (and therefore passing) being everything. The fluent City are more magical than almost anything we’ve seen: they play at a higher standard. And yet maybe the urgency of a cup competition – the bursting, the charge, the sudden death-ness – can stymie their flow? For all its beauty, the Guardiola Method is about gaming the percentages, through endless recycling and probing. It’s about winning in time more than grabbing a winner NOW.

Chelsea approximate City in some respects. Short passes, good pace, invention. They are building some consistency, too. Tonight they were just a touch better: crucially they denied their opposition midfield phase after phase of possession. Partly by closing down effectively: partly by using the ball well themselves. Oh – and they scored.

Tuchel was bold enough to believe that he didn’t need to change and ‘go direct’. (Of course they might have won 6-0 if Abrahams had played… but this is specious). Without being inspired, his team held their patterns and took their chance. City didn’t. The irresistible, dreamlike groove they’ve been rocking for months just wasn’t there. My guess is that tonight those eight changes mattered.