Cod Almighty | Diary

An undergraduate essay on Grimsby?!

21 May 2024

Hello everyone! It's been a while hasn't it. Apologies for my long absence, my university degree within Newcastle takes a large amount of my time and unfortunately I had to stop writing regular diaries. That is not to say I don't continue to talk endlessly about Grimsby to anyone that will listen.

I feel somewhat of a missionary for our little town, telling even the international students of the fine dining experience of Steel's and the beautiful white beaches of Cleethorpes. When speaking of Grimsby to people it seems the location of the town is something that even those from Britain struggle with. Apart from the people I've met from Boston, Scunthorpe, and Grimsby itself, nobody knows where the hell we are!!!

The easiest way I've found to describe it is just below Hull, but even then people looked confused at me, as if I've just spoken in an alien language. "Close to Lincoln"...still the same look prevails…this can go on for about five minutes. I've even gone as far to say we're on the other side of the coast to Liverpool. Why does nobody know where Grimsby is you ask? Well, I believe one of two things have happened. One, geography being taught in schools is just another name for colouring in; as a history student all my life who has hated geography, I assure you there are absolutely no biases whatsoever. Two, people just have no reason to know where we are. Unless, like me, you like watching mediocre football and fish there really isn't a lot more to see.

I recently wrote an undergraduate essay on: "In which ways did the UK's rapid deindustrialisation impact on Britain's cultural identity, economy, and environment between 1970 and 1990." Which on paper seems an extremely boring 2,500 words. However, when I decided to write half of the paper on Grimsby it became one of my favourite essays of the year. This is when I also found out that there is little academic work written upon Grimsby (shocking I know) but as I read through the relevant texts, I understood more and more of what my father often gets at when he discusses what Grimsby 'once was'. I put this in inverted commas as Grimsby has only ever unfortunately been the run down 'Grim', as people like to point out, Town to me.

My research did not spell all doom and gloom for Grimsby, however, as modern-day investment from Green Energy companies has brought millions of pounds to the area as well as many new jobs. I have to say I agree with the Chairs at Grimsby that if you look at the data the town is on the up!

Once I've received my mark, and if there is enough cry to read this essay, I would be more than happy to release it so that you may see the deeper conclusions I come to that I am not quite able to explain here. One small favour I ask though, within the essay I used Myenergi as an example of money being injected back into the area through the fact that they are our kit sponsors…I trust nobody will snitch on me.

I suppose I should write something about football…despite the poor season, we remain in FIFA for another year! Or EAFC 24 as its now called. By looking at it this way, the season was a positive!