I find New Year's day to be a strange experience. Maybe I don't cope very well with change or something. It's a sort of pseudo celebration. It's normally too cold to go and do something really nice, like lie on the bank of a river and sleep, but there's no presents or owt to compensate for the fact it's winter. Everyone's sick of having fancy food so yer mum does what she calls 'a buffet' and yer dad says things like 'well, I'd better get on with the tiling/changing the brake pads/sorting out the garage'
Your new stuff has lost a bit of it's dazzle by New Year's day. You've had Streetfighter 2 or Championship Manager 93/94 for a whole week and your eyes are blurred and dry from staring at the screen. No one really believes that everything is going to change just because the calendar has ticked over from one year to the next. Change things do though. Slowly, inevitably and endlessly. Before you know it, your the one sorting out the garage and trying to get your own kid to tear their eyes away from a screen for five minutes. It's you who is now thinking things like 'really, we should go for a walk' after taking it easy on New Year's Eve instead of drinking yourself to within a few millilitres of liver failure.
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Pool start well, they're straight into Hull and looking likely to score any moment. Good stuff keeps happening and the sleepy New Year's Day atmosphere is soon replaced by slightly hungover roars (growls?) of encouragement.
Bowler glides away, he finds Keshi. He puts it wide... Madine controls then hooks it over over his shoulder beautifully. Madine can play a blind pass better than some players can hit a sighted one. Bowler is away, he hares free then stubs a cross into the arms of a grateful keeper.
Madine flicks on. He flicks on again. Lavery, Bowler and Anderson hoover up this service. It must be magic playing next to Madine when he's on song.
Keshi runs at the corner of the box, he teases the defender with the thought of him going inside, but then slips in Husband, whose curling ball to the far post is beautiful but for the fact all our forwards have surged to the near post which makes Jimmy look a bit daft even though he's probably just put in the best cross of his Blackpool career.
Hull have an injury and I avail myself of the facilities. When I return it looks as if they've changed to 5 at the back. That puts a spoke in our wheel. We find it harder to attack at will and they get into the game for the first time.
One attack sees them cut through us as if we aren't there only for a Marvin sliding challenge to save the day. Another sees a double Grimshaw save after a poor kick from him put us under pressure. The first is routine enough, but the second is brilliant, the ball seems past him, but he throws an arm back and drags it out.
We're getting a bit bogged down. Bowler can walk on water (and a bog is quite wet) when he's good though and he picks up on the right, kills the throttle, the opens it up, bisects two defenders like an F1 driver making an outrageously audacious overtaking maneuver, he's burst between them but then gets sandwiched a bit, one man grabs at him, the other goes for the challenge, he shakes off the grab but goes down in the tackle. Whistle. Penalty. Lets not question it too much...
Gary picks up the the ball. He waits for the penalty like he's a van driver who has to wait for his slot to collect a delivery. It's a no biggie. It's a chance for a breather. Just sit in the van for ten minutes with a brew, a tab and a quick peruse of the Daily Star. Hands on hips he waits, his eyes set on the middle distance. We're ready. Deep breath. In he comes. A Sherman tank of a forward rolling in and striking it. Straight. Down. The. Middle.
All goals are great goals but Gary Goals goals are the best goals of all. YES!
Roles are reversed, Shayne flicks and Gaz chases it down, he's not quite through so finds space wide and knocks a beautiful ball to Keshi with one foot. Keshi has nowhere to go, so goes back to Gaz, who uses his other foot and his 360 vision to find Dougall (who no one else had noticed) who cuts inside and lashes over the top.
Then it's (I'm not making this up just to fit my own Gary loving narrative, I promise,) Madine again, with a deft lofted pass, barely a look up and dropping it exactly, perfectly onto the spot where Anderson can take in his stride only for Keshi to hit the keeper when he should probably have done better.
Still time for a flick or two. This lad once cost £6 million. Signed him on a free. Oi Oi Oi.
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A pretty decent half. Could be further ahead.
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Husband shows either good vision to find Bowler with a long curling ball or he just whacks it away and it happens to find the mid 90s indie kid. Bowler does the sensible thing and knocks it to Sterling who puts it in. Keshi has a go, it comes out to someone (Bowler again?) who smacks it, it hits Keshi and balloons over the top.
Tom Eaves (or as I like to hilariously call him - 'the pound shop Andy Carroll') comes on. I don't like it. He's one of those players that seem to turn up against us.
Grimshaw comes to meet a long ball. It bounces, he seems to leave it very late, he ends up kicking it away with a kind of martial arts style roundhouse kick that you have to feel an outfield player might get penalised for cos his foot ends up very close to the forward's head. I can imagine Grimshaw in a shellsuit, skulking into a leisure centre in Hulme or somewhere to do martial arts. He's got the air of the quiet kid on a rough estate who no one fucks with cos he's got some kind of training in that sort of shit and can break your arm if you go at him. Someone once pulled a knife on him to try and nick £50 his gran gave him, so he put them in casualty with three moves. Never lifts a finger in anger. Only self defence.
I digress.
We have wonderful move on the left, Keshi hasn't been at his finest today with his passing, but his ball is good, Madine steam in, jumps and heads it into the advertising boards. That would have been a magical Gary Goals goal.
Hul are showing more ambition and leaving themselves open to breaks now.
Firstly, we counter like lightning and Keshi can't quite find Lavery. Then Bowler beats what feels like everyone on the pitch including the referee, the linesman and the ball boys and then ends the move by conceding a foul, because of course he does. Next, Keshi goes up the left channel, gets himself in a perfect position and slides it behind Yates. Finally, Dujon Sterling makes a great tackle, Yates picks it up, charges forward, knock it to Gaz... Gaz tries to drift inside and shoot, but just drifts a bit aimlessly, like a boat cut free of its moorings on a lazy river current and has the ball taken off him. The fella a few seats down says 'Fucking Madine, he's garbage' - I simmer quietly to myself.
Hull have been pressing with no real threat but a diagonal falls for Eaves who turns onto it and drives one wide. I didn't like that. I don't like them getting down the line either and fizzing in a ball that Marvin does sensationally well to not only block but control and clear.
Bowler drives forward though, he surges, he explodes. He turns pressure upside down in a few seconds. Jerry takes over. He runs, he cuts back, the defender buys it totally, he's made space but then he makes space again and in doing so makes time for a defender to get a block in. The second just won't come. We're almost trying too hard to score.
Subs. Connelly for Bowler. Fine. Sit Callum on the right of midfield and shore things up. Hang on. Grettarson too! For Keshi. This is 5 at the back again... I don't know if I like this. Who will run out of defense with it?
Hull are really going for it now. It's taken till injury time but they're putting pressure on. They swing in 5 crosses pretty much one after the other. 1 is terrible. 1 is headed away by Keogh, 3 are nodded away by Jimmy. The first of his clearances is a far post Husband special, stretching every sinew to glance it over the on rushing striker. The last one is a terrific piece of work,, moving his feet, shifting his body, timing the jump to not only clear it but to cushion it out to Yates who is free on the left. I don't know if he meant the long ball earlier, he absolutely meant that... We'll be ok now. Jerry - take it easy.
Jerry doesn't take it easy. I get a feeling that they might have watched the Demi Mitchell mistake on video and Jerry got the wrong end of the stick thinking Critch was modelling what he wants them to do. He runs into the next available man. The ball is with Hull. Husband is having some kind of PTSD trauma as he finds himself shadowing someone cutting in on the right again, with the match on the line. In it comes - here's a Hull man. For fuck's sake. Not again. I do not fucking believe this. It's only football, but this is taking the absolute piss. For fucks sake.
But...
Somehow Grimshaw has got across and down to the ball. It's a simply breathtaking save, not only cos he made it from far to near post but cos he read the shot (which was low and hard) and got a palm to it. It's a moment of genius.
Grimshaw doesn't have time to soak up the praise from the crowd though, because the same thing is now happening at the other post and this time he follows the cross, reads the moment and rushes out and smothers the shot, like some kamikaze hero throwing themselves on a hand grenade thrown into a nursery. It's again, a brilliant save, it's instinct yes, but it's brilliant reading of the angles and play as well. He's not done though. A third ball comes in and he throws himself out, headlong into a crowd and punches it. There's a ruck. The whistle goes. Finally, relief.
Second later the whistle blows again. This time finally. Grimshaw's name rings round the ground. He's calm as fuck. Raises his arms kind of sheepishly. As if that's just what he does. He was inspired. He might never have as magic a 60 seconds as long as he lives. If he makes a habit of making saves like that, this lad is something special. He's got the art of making keeping look unfussy but he seems to have a very good sense of angles and what's going on about him.
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After a scruffy 3 points I'm getting carried away. Grimshaw is the new Neville Southall (unkempt, sullen and brilliant at goalkeeping) and Madine is worth £6 million quid again. Bowler is the most exciting player in years and everything is rosy. Obviously, that's ridiculous hyperbole but we deserved the win today and we've deserved more than we've got in the previous few games too where we probably played better than this.
I thought Wintle was a welcome returnee, but I also thought he looked (not surprisingly) a little off his best. I hope he's staying. Keshi was probably guilty of trying too hard to make something happen, which isn't something I want to condemn, cos someone has to try to make things happen but a relaxed Anderson (i.e. one not playing with a sense of the injustice of the previous few defeats) might have found the magic more easily he did today. Bowler doesn't seem to play with any pressure in his head at all and showed today why he's a necessity as opposed to a luxury because of that. I've been reading stuff on coaching and how modern thinking is about working on a players cognitive functions as opposed to technical skills. I don't know if they've put Bowler through a load of decision making drills but he's linking far better than he did and also, still has that unpredictable edge where he'll do something mad (in a good way) that makes him special. He'll never do the defensive work especially well, but then Callum Connolly or Kenny Dougall will never run a full back ragged or flick the game situation from heads to tails in one mad sprint.
Husband and Sterling put a really good shift in defensively, but Jimmy struggled with his touch going forward. Sterling was excellent and delivers a nice ball but doesn't often get in a position to do so. For all that Husband did struggle going forward, at least two of the three headers at the end Reece James or Luke Garbutt just isn't making and arguably, whilst less spectacular, they were as important as Grimshaw's saves. Can we talk about Grimshaw's saves again? Unreal.
Hull weren't very good. I don't say that with relish or to wind them up. It just felt a bit aimless from them. To be fair, they didn't have much luck with injuries but like Peterborough, it did look a bit like we'd moved on from League 1 a bit quicker than they have. At times today, we played like we did when we were on song last year, but we didn't have the end product to take advantage of that.
A win though, is a win. A win is a win is win. It felt fucking fantastic. Yes. Yes. Yesssss!
Onward!
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Brilliant read Matt thanks for making me smile even when I don't want to
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