Grimsby Town finished the game with nine men – Adam Proudlock and Barry Conlon dismissed in an injury time melee as they laboured in vain to match another double strike from the superb Scott Donnelly – but Gary Waddock’s side were belatedly able to augment their fluid football with a steelier edge that earned them a deserved three points.
The first quarter of the game had ebbed and flowed, full of pace and passion, and Grimsby may have felt they deserved to be ahead after some awful defending saw Jaimez-Ruiz forced into two excellent saves from Clarke and the impressive North.
Yet suddenly Aldershot were in front, on 26 minutes, and the tide visibly turned. Harding’s astute angled pass allowed Soares to dink over a cross that found Donnelly ghosting into the box to glance a header past Forecast.
The Mariners were increasingly bereft of both ideas and confidence – North’s dangerous cross through the six-yard box their best moment – and Morgan and Winfield could have increased the lead.
It was Donnelly again, though, who extinguished any fire lit in Grimsby bellies by Mike Newell’s half-time team talk. Morgan rolled his marker to slip a pass into the area and when Donnelly’s first effort was parried by Forecast, the midfielder reacted quickest to drive the rebound high into the net.
The expected Grimsby onslaught never truly arrived – thanks in part to the stoic defending of Winfield and Hinshelwood and a Shots midfield at last playing with genuine balance – but they mustered something approaching a grandstand finish with Conlon’s deft header on 81 minutes, meeting North’s deep cross to guide the ball beyond Jaimez-Ruiz.
Sweeney’s teasing ball rolled agonisingly through the goal-mouth but in reality they lacked the genuine quality to wrest an equaliser. Conlon and the fiery Proudlock – already booked since his arrival from the bench – were dismissed by referee Mr Quinn for sparking a mass skirmish which saw Winfield cast as the injured party, and with them went any chance Grimsby had of snatching a point.
An eventual ten minutes of added time prolonged the tension but The Shots held strong. The jeers of the angry home support must have been music to Waddock’s ears as his players finally saw reward for their genuine progress on the road this season.