Plymouth 2 Grimsby 2

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 09/08/2003

THE Mariners kicked off life in Division Two at a roasting hot Home Park, Plymouth, watched by around 200 Town supporters. Paul Groves was forced to start with no less than six of his new summer signings, and new recruit Paul Edwards was also on the bench.

Town lined as up follows: Davison - Cas, Barnard, Ford, Crane - Crowe, Hamilton, Anderson, Campbell - Boulding, Ten Heuvel. Stuart Campbell was handed the skipper's arm band and Paul Groves elected to start on the bench alongside Mansaram, Rowan, Edwards and Pettinger.

As the first half progressed Plymouth increasingly had the better of the chances. In the first half hour alone Marcel Cas twice had to clear the ball as it was heading goalwards, and the Town defence was put under a lot of pressure.

Ironically when Grimsby scored Plymouth were probably more in ascendancy than at any time prior to that. On 28 minutes the ball fell to Michael Boulding who, with quite a bit still to do, cooly beat his defender and slotted the ball past Argyle's keeper to put the Mariners 1-0 up.

The joy in the away end was short-lived as Plymouth equalised just four minutes later. A cross fell to the unmarked Marino Keith, who headed past Town's Aidan Davison, stood rooted to his line.

Town had a couple of further half-chances in the remainder of the first half with Campbell forcing Argyle's keeper to make a good save, and Ten Heuvel shooting wide.

After the break Argyle took the lead in a goal-mouth scramble through Graham Coughlan, who seconds earlier had had a shot cleared off the line with Aidan Davidson completely beaten

Town leveled the game in spectacular style from a corner in the 64th minute when the ball fell to midfielder Iain Anderson, who blasted the ball home on his debut from 25 yards.

Both teams had chances to win the game in the last twenty minutes, but in the end a draw was a fair result and it was a well-earned point for Grimsby against one of the Division's most fancied sides.

With the arguable exception of Aidan Davidson, all of Town's new signings looked no worse than their counterparts from last season, and in some cases considerably better, with Marcel Cas the pick of them.

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