Brigg Town 0 v Grimsby Town 6 - PSF

Wed 22nd July 2015
at the Hawthorns
Brigg Town (0) 0
Grimsby Town XI (2) 6
Jon-Paul Pittman 25, 50, 79
Padraig Amond 27,
James Wroot 87, 89
Admission £5, free programme with every £1 raffle purchase

Brigg Town:
Zand, Corlyon, Bedford, Organ, Lee (C), Barden, Rookyard, Mortimer, O'Malley, Wray, King
Subs - Winn, Wilks, Saltmer, Daddy, Mountain, Phillips (GK)
Grimsby Town:
J Pearson; Crowther, Sunter, Sibbick, Hurst, Marshall, Clifton, Venney, Wright; Pittman, Amond.
Subs - Jennings, Wroot, Phillips, Keeple, Hough, Heath-Drury

This friendly, arranged at very short notice, saw Conference side Grimsby Town send a mixed squad across to the Hawthorns, that included a mix of young players, along with Padraig Amond, Jon-Paul Pittman and Marcus Marshall, along with their 41 year old manager Paul Hurst who looked quite spritely for the sixty five spel he spent playing at left back for the Mariners.

The quality of the Conference League first team players out on the park tonight, made a real difference, as a below full strength Brigg battled gamely against the visitors, but struggled to deal with the gulf in class and were chasing shadows at times.
The Zebras enjoyed a few brief flurries forward, but were pegged back into their last third for the majority of the game.

There was never any question that Grimsby were going to score a few tonight and it was always a case of when those goals would come, rather than if.
By the time they broke the deadlock and then doubled the score in quick succession, just before the half hour mark, they could already have been three or four goals to the good, were it not for the efforts of the Brigg Keeper Rob Zand.

Pittman opened the scoring from close range when he took advantage of a defensive lapse in concentration and seizsed onto an under hit back pass and Padraig Amond doubled Grimsby's lead two minutes later, when he nonchalantly poked the ball under the fully stretched Rob Zand two minutes later after Max Wright had played the former Republic of Ireland U21 player in on goal with a defence splitting pass.
HT - Brigg Town 0 v Grimsby Town 2

Rob Zand, for his part, is a decent enough goalkeeper, but he can't play against opposition of the calibre of Brigg Town on his own.
Tom Lee, the home side's captain put in a creditable performance, but the visitors were passing the Zebras out of the game at will and leaving their defence chasing shadows.
It was like watching a gang of big lads nicking the ball off of a gang of infants in a play park and telling them they could only have it back if they played against them and were prepared to take a bit of a pasting into the bargain.

The second half was more one sided than the first, even if the Mariners did need two late goals to chalk up the kind of winning margin they thoroughly deserved.

Pittman added two more well taken goals and Marcus Marshall, who had been tormenting the home side down the right flank all night, provided the bullets for James Wroot to finish Brigg off with a double whammy inside the last few minutes.

Brigg Town will be hoping that they have taken a few lessons out of being given a bit of a runaround tonight and will want to pick themselves back up before they face Teversal at the Hawthorns on Saturday.

And Grimsby Town ought to have been sent to bed early, with no supper, for bullying their little mates from down the road.

FT - Brigg Town 0 v Grimsby Town 6

As always, it was great to catch up with Simon and Tim Harris at Brigg Town, top lads... keep up the good work!