Cod Almighty | Diary

Like a fish to water

8 April 2025

If you have lived in Grimsby or Cleethorpes all your life, you take in the Mariners as unconsciously as you take in air. With no other professional club in the area, they are a topic for conversation as universal as the weather. Even people who don't go to the games feel for them the affectionate regard they might have for an uncle or a niece. When Town score an important goal, the cheers spread to the Dock Tower, to the Prom, and beyond; their success is a success for us all.

Yet what a small footprint the club has, considering its importance to the town. The streets around Blundell Park, like Blundell Park itself, are named after connections to Sidney Sussex College, the main landowners in New Clee. Only the suitably short Bestall Road celebrates one of our three England internationals. Old Trafford has its Matt Busby Way; where is our Alan Buckley Avenue?

It is not that the interest isn't there. If there is such a thing as a football historians' convention, you'd need a good sized vehicle to take everyone actively researching Town's history. On Saturday Newbegin Diary met Rob McIlveen, who, after gently chiding me for my slow progress writing up Town between the wars, told me a little about his forthcoming book, covering our post-war decline and revival under Allenby Chilton.

We also speculated on the series of books being planned by Rob Cavallini. The first, covering Town's early years, is due out in June, and he is taking orders. His website shows that he is digging into contemporary sources to shed a new light on tales like the match-fixing scandal which helped relegate us in 1903. His second will go up to World War Two, so if he keeps to schedule, and I pull my finger out, there may be two books next year on our golden age. And that's great: I don't suppose the two together will be much more than the cost of a matchday ticket, and they'll offer more certain entertainment.

Then there is the GTFC Exhibition, on at Blundell Park until next Wednesday. It is the partial fruit of several years of brilliant work by Kris Green and a small army of volunteers, assembling a rich collection of Town memorabilia, so this is your brief opportunity to steep yourself in our living past. As Kris told Rob McIlveen and I, the exhibits need a permanent home: not just in a museum of the Mariners but a museum which shows their place alongside fishing at the core of Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

If willpower alone were enough to make that happen, it would have happened already. Let's see what encouragement we can offer to turn the wish into action.