On The Road
MARINERS TAKEOVER TURMOIL AS HOLLOWAY SAYS NO DEAL
Among the more curious sights in politics of recent weeks was that of Boris Johnson sporting a grimsby Town bobble hat. A gift from one of his new intake of mPs, if there is any significance to the headgear it is likely to be tied up more with fishing than football. over the past week, the good folk of grimsby have been confronted with dramas on both subjects.
one involves the agonising negotiations with the EU over an issue with which the town is so identified. The other, almost equally long-running, centres on the ownership of their team.
As far as the football club goes, we did learn one thing on Saturday when the mariners’ animated manager Ian Holloway emerged after a frantic 1-0 win in the Lincolnshire derby.
Amid his stream of consciousness, the adrenaline of a hardcore League Two encounter still coursing through the veins, he announced he had abandoned plans to buy shares in the club.
‘How can I invest in something when I don’t know who’s going to get it or who’s got it? Why do I want to be caught in that?’ asked Holloway. ‘They’ve got to sort themselves out.’
The saga over the club’s ownership, and potential plans for a new ground, is of a complexity that might make michel Barnier blanch. And it is not entirely divorced from the dramas playing out over fishing in Brussels. grimsby is very much ‘Blue Wall’ territory. The hope locally is that the Johnson administration will be minded to support any effort to regenerate the town — which could make development plans involving a new 14,000- seat stadium more attractive to the London-based group of businessmen who are interested in buying.
one site being considered is on the grimsby waterfront close to the town’s iconic Dock Tower, but nobody here is holding their breath on it happening any time soon.
Holloway’s patience snapped last week when he issued a statement calling on the relevant parties to get their act together.
That followed news that majority shareholder John Fenty was seeking investment from Alex may, who turned out to be a convicted fraudster and is not connected to the London group. The mariners Trust, the supporter body who have two seats on the grimsby board, helped put a stop to that idea.
‘There is no doubt that John Fenty has put a lot of money into the club. Without his support over the years we would have been in a lot of bother,’ points out Alan Rutter, chair of the Trust.
A sense of foreboding whistled through empty, windswept Blundell Park. This was a match between local rivals stuck beneath halfway in the table, who had both recently lost to bottom club Southend.
Holloway, in his ninth managerial post, admits he has found the season uniquely challenging on a personal and professional level.
‘ It has been mad with the problems it is causing every club,’ he said. ‘We are playing in a Covid situation. my wife had cancer all those years ago and she gets asthma, and I have to go to work. one of my best friends killed himself a few weeks ago and I haven’t been myself since.’
The passion and support of absent grimsby fans sustains him, as he shapes a team increasingly of youngsters and free agents.
one of each caught the eye. The first-half winner was scored by teenange defender mattie Pollock ( son of ex- middlesborough midfielder Jamie), whose heart matches the size of his sturdy young frame.
What little calm assurance there was came from 35-year-old Portuguese debutant Filipe morais, once of Chelsea.
Holloway pledged the off-field machinations would not stop him giving grimsby a team to be proud of. ‘These people are fantastic,’ he said. ‘They’ve lost their livelihoods and the way they used to work. They keep fighting and bouncing back. They’re brilliant people. It makes me emotional.’