Out of our twelve league games, we had only played three at home, so were delighted when Grimsby offered to come over and play us. 
After having a team night out the night before to celebrate Chappel’s birthday, it was feared that we may all turn up in a state on Saturday morning, but apart from a few tired heads everyone was OK. Unfortunately top scorer Steve was having other problems though, and after nearly being sick at the side of the pitch he decided the best place to be was in bed. This gave young Chris his first opportunity to play up front for us.
In the previous meeting of the season in Cleethorpes, the game was very tight in the first half with us struggling to break down their defence. In the end we won 3-0, so were expected to win this fixture at home. However, with the Grimsby lads having a trip to Italy coming up to play Inter Milan, they have been training together, and with ex-Rotherham player Jim Dobin in their line-up it was always going to make things harder. Although Dobin never did it for RUFC, he was still one of the best players on the pitch at this amateur level, even though he is getting on a bit!
After previous experiences with Grimsby we know they are a great set of lads and play the game in true Internet Football spirit, so no referee was required for the game.
We kicked off the first half kicking up the slope.
The half panned out similar to that in Grimsby earlier in the season. The game was very tight and hardly any chances were created by either team. Grimsby missed a chance early on where boss Dave was sent through, only to have a rush of blood to his head and shoot wide. Apart from that chance, there is little else to mention from the half.
The Millers had the majority of the possession, but Grimsby defended really tightly and restricted us to only half chances. Jim Dobin in the Grimsby midfield managed to control a lot of Grimsby’s play without actually covering a large area of the pitch, and he played a lot of good pressure balls which put us on the back foot. A comedy moment where Jim did play a bad ball, and Paul commented: “That’s one from the Donny Days”.
At half time the score was 0-0.
For the first 20 minutes of the second half the game remained the same, with few chances being created. We seemed to be losing shape and a lot of disagreements were being vented amongst players. It wasn’t all bad though, as most players were shouting because they realised something was not quite right, and we knew we could do better.
The best move of the half came where where Gaz played into Jammers feet, for Jammer to flick on Jebu, sending Jeb clean through, but Jeb hit left footed over the bar.
Five minutes later Jeb made up for this though, when the Grimsby goalkeeper cleared from a goal kick poorly, which landed at Jeb’s feet, and he took on the defender and hit hard and low past the keeper. Finally a break through had occurred and everyone seemed to relax. IMFC remained the stronger side for the rest of the match.
The game finished 1-0 which was probably a fair reflection of the game.
It was an enjoyable game to play in, with the game being played in typical IFA spirit