Cod Almighty | Diary

Do we in fact only sing when we're winning?

3 March 2015

The attendance for last Saturday's game with Braintree was 3,339. That's despite the away team bringing around 20 fans, and on the back of a home record which, including that match, has seen Town score more than once in only one of the last seven games.

It is also 126 more people than attended our fourth home game of the season, admittedly for a midweek game, in 1994-95, a 4-1 win over Port Vale in the second flight. Two of the goals came from Clive Mendonca, the others from Dave Gilbert and Neil Woods. The team that evening also featured Gary Croft, Mark Lever, Peter Handyside, Paul Groves and Gary Childs.

In other words it was a team full of players you are probably thinking about for the GreatGYXI (and if you haven't voted yet, it's high time you did). Add in John McDermott, Paul Futcher and Graham Rodger. Remember that Paul Crichton was a far better keeper than those who only remember his clearances think. Throw in a young Jack Lester. That was a squad which, with a following wind, might have challenged at least for a play-off place for promotion to the Premier League. Yet fewer people came to watch them than watched us grind out a 1-0 win in the Conference.

Town had not made an especially poor start to the season. We had admittedly lost to Charlton three days before but the other home games were a 3-3 draw with Bolton (Mendonca scored all three Town goals) and a 3-1 win over Tranmere (Steve Livingstone scored two, Groves the other). Away from Blundell Park, we'd managed two draws and a defeat.

Look at our squad and it was the best of times. Read the issues of Sing When We're Fishing of the time, and, if it wasn't the worst of times, it was certainly frustrating. The atmosphere at Blundell Park was funereal. Alan Buckley's autobiography makes clear how that frustration contributed to his decision to move to West Brom.

Yet the lack of support for such a fine squad was not necessarily down to Buckley's perceived lack of PR skills. Ten years before, attendances had started falling before the Town board made the fateful decision to offer Mike Lyons a job.

Perhaps we prefer to watch Town when we know they are likely to win, and we are not too worried by the quality on display? In 1994, writing for the Guardian, Steve Bierley was obviously looking at a crystal ball:

"Inevitably the Mariners will return to the lower divisions, where, by a quirk best explained by psychologists and the people of Lincolnshire, more fans will turn up to watch them."