Nicky Law was able to recall midfield powerhouse Jamie Lawrence back into the side, that came at the expense of Iain Anderson who dropped to the bench. Stuart Campbell moved outside to the right wing allowing Lawrence to partner Coldicott in midfield.
Despite his superb solo show last week against Stockport, Graham Hockless was once again on the bench. Was probably trying too hard in training or something, stupid boy Graham.
With a larger and more vocal crowd than normal, Town seemed up for the game and the nice huddle before kick-off was welcome. Tony Crane gave the rallying call. Brought a tear to my eye, sniff sniff.
Dave Boylen brought back his pre-match crowd warmup for the game. Going to each stand with his 1.....2......Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaayyy. That said it’s easy to knock it but if the players had shown 10% of Boylen’s passion this season we’d have been promoted by March.
Referee Nigel Miller seemed to have some vendeta against Town and opted to penalise every fair challange with a free-kick. This almost cost Town on the 10 minute mark. Campbell ‘fouled’ Joey Hutchinson near the touchline and about 30 yards from goal. Ronnie Bull swung in the free-kick which was met by the head of the highly rated Ibrahim Sonko. Alan Fettis flung himself across his goal to make a fine one handed save with Jason Crowe clearing the lines.
Town responded with a solo run from Isaiah Rankin. The frontman picked the ball up on the touchline just over the halfway line. A quick change of feet and he skipped past his marker, another defender approached but he too was sidestepped with ease. Now about 25 yards Rankin was set to unleash the trigger only to be bundled down, amazingly the ref got this decision right and awarded a free-kick.
Jevons and Barnard sat over the ball. It was Barnard who took the kick but disappointed with a floated effort that bounced off the wall for a corner. Barnard had better success with the corner, finding the towering Crane at the back post. Crane’s nod back found Coldicott with time to shoot. Sadly Stace is to shooting what Nicky Law is to management, useless. The mis-hit effort bobbled a bit before eventually reaching ‘keeper Nelson.
Soon after Mansaram jinked his way down the left wing, never once looking like he knew what he was doing, before slamming in a dangerous cross. Jevons got onto Lawrence’s layoff but his shot was blocked, possibly by a hand but it was at most a case of ball to hand. The ball came out to Stace and this time his shot was much better, forcing a save from Nelson.
Barnard picked up a booking on 18 minutes when he took Jay Tabb’s legs away from him. From the free-kick Stephen Hunt curled it around the wall but Fettis was never troubled.
Rankin’s pace was proving to cause no end of problems for Brentford’s backline so much so that they just resorted to kicking him, Mr Miller saw nothing wrong with this. Nor did he see anything wrong with Rankin getting hacked down in the penalty area....fair challenge, play on.
Mansaram was next to try his luck in front of goal. Receiving the ball with his back to goal, Flash twisted and twizzled before unleashing a venomous left footer that was heading for the top corner, until Nelson made fingertip contact to concede a corner.
Despite a very impressive opening 20 minutes, Town just stopped. Brentford didn’t start so the remainder of the half was a bit dull. Brentford boss Martin Allen entertained the crowd with his jacket removing antics though.
Before the half was out Ben May hit Fettis’ bar with an overhead kick but the linesman had already signalled for offside. At the other end Jevons hit the roof of the Osmand with his first time volley when he had time and space to control first.
Half-time brought much nervous waiting for results, men with a radio have never been as popular before. The results were generally ok, draws all round.
The first minute of the second half saw Rankin go down under Sonko’s challenge and Blundell Park held it’s breath, luckily Isaiah was ok to carry on. Yay.
The tension in the stands was starting to creep onto the pitch a little as passes were misplaced in dangerous positions. As luck would have it nothing came of the mistakes.
Barnard had two efforts on goal in quick succession. Firstly after Mansaram had made progress down the left and secondly from Campbell’s cross. The first effort was blocked and the second was poor and trickled well wide.
Brentford’s rare attacks were not rare enough for my liking. Hunt fired just wide after he was awarded miles of space on the edge of the area.
The inconsistent Campbell had one of his good days on the right wing and his non-stop running was never more important. It was Campbell who bombed across the park to set up Jevons on 58 minutes. With time and space 20 yards out, Jevvo was hot favourite to score. However he opted to try and chip Nelson rather than blast the bastard ball through the net, back of the Pontoon and Ramsdan’s window. Nelson clawed back and just tipped the ball over the bar.
On 66 minutes the fans wishes were granted. Mansaram came off, ickle Graham Hockless came on. The little man went out to the left wing, Jevvo moved up front. For the second week running Hockless made his impact in just under five minutes.
Rankin gave him the ball out wide but with nowhere to really go. Two big lumbering defenders stood in his way but that proved no problem for Graham, a little twist of his hips opened the space needed for the delightful chipped cross, Rankin powered in unmarked to head home past Nelson and send Blundell Park wild.
Even now I’m still drooling over the quality of Hockless’ cross. This lad is brilliant. He’s far too bloody good for us but we insist on not playing him from the start. Crying out loud Law, start him against Tranmere!
With 20 minutes to go the worry was that Town would sit back and defend but as usual fail. Thankfully that didn’t happen, Town carried on and whilst playing a more cautious game looked very dangerous on the counter.
Two minutes after the goal Barnard’s corner found Crane at the backpost, unmarked. Had the ball just hit him it would have gone in, Crane’s attempted sidefoot into the net saw the ball spin wide of the goal.
With ten minutes to go Alex Rhodes broke Town’s weak offside trap to find himself one-on-one with Fettis. From nowhere Jason Crowe flew in to make a last gasp tackle to save Town’s bacon. The Brentford fans behind the goal made a weak appeal for a penalty but it was never going to be.
With five minutes to go sections of the Pontoon creaped over the advertising hoardings and onto the pitchside. With a minute to go the sidelines and behind the goal were full. End of the season run on the pitch thing is all right, not my thing really unless we’ve achieved something. But if you want to do it go for it, mob the all conquering players! But when you start running and dancing on the pitch when the game’s still fucking playing it causes problems. One of those is that if Brentford kick up enough of a fuss we can get a points deduction. How would you like that on your conscience? Because of you Town got relegated. It doesn’t take much to just think does it? Grrrrr rant over.
Anyway, the game ended and luckily the ball never went near the crowd gathered at the side. The kiddies ran on to mob the Champions League winning heroes. Many fell over, hilarious. Some even stopped for a breather, even more hilarious. I went to the pub.
Man of the Match - Stuart Campbell. Never stopped running, defended well and at times was doing Jason Crowe’s defending for him. When attacking he was a threat and lifted the crowd on more than once occasion.