Cod Almighty | Article
by Pete Brooksbank
2 June 2010
Relegation provokes wildly varying reactions from different supporters. The vast majority just stand there, staring vacantly at the pitch like dumb nodes of abject disappointment. Others bury their heads in their hands and sob uncontrollably, which is, unless they're ten, a bit pathetic. And then there are those that run on to the pitch with the premeditated intention of destroying whatever bits of the stadium they can get their hands on and generally behave like the kind of unthinking cretins that would be outwitted by a cabbage.
It was probably too much to hope that Grimsby's League status would be granted the dignified send-off it probably merited at Burton Albion's anonymous little box, but even so, to be forced to witness a bunch of idiotic, baseball cap-wearing fucktards gleefully pissing on the still-warm corpse must have been difficult for the majority of supporters to stomach. Nevertheless, as inexcusable as it was, the embarrassing outbreak of violence was, in some respects, an appropriate climax to what was a truly horrific season for Grimsby - a campaign that provided a neat epilogue to a quite spectacular decade-long fall from grace. And by fall, I clearly mean terminal velocity death-dive into a canyon filled with lava.
So epic has that plummet been that the words 'Grimsby Town' must now be preceded by the two most horrifying words in the football lexicon: 'non-League'. And, ouch! What a stigma. It's almost as bad as being branded a paedophile, except Grimsby fans are hardly in a position to protest that their club got relegated into the Conference Premier while researching a book. Nope, Grimsby are down because they are utterly hopeless. Frankly, they'd struggle to grind out a draw at Brodsworth Miners Welfare.
Here is a club that, while not a fiscal basket case like Darlington, simply oozes endemic failure from every rotten, pus-clogged pore, and has done so for years. In this era, dominated as it is by brazen financial mismanagement felling clubs on a daily basis, Grimsby have somehow contrived to tumble down the divisions in an endearingly old-school way; a club demoted not by circumstance or the courts or a bank account bereft of actual money, but just by being absolutely, emphatically and universally fucking terrible for the best part of a decade. A bit like The Simpsons. And that's actually very hard to do, so well done Mr Fenty.
"The Conference is a decompression chamber for teams in total freefall, introducing them to the bits of non-League football they're scared of, like Kettering Town, while furnishing them with the luxuries of the top 92"
The stark consequence of this brisk descent into football's sepulchral underworld is that Grimsby fans must now learn to adjust to their new life outside the elite 92. It may be uncomfortable at first - the sudden withdrawal of TV highlights and regular namechecks on Gillette Soccer Saturday are particularly hard to accept - but in time supporters may come to realise their fate isn't quite as bad as many suggest. In fact, whisper it quietly, many may even come to enjoy life in the Conference.
Like some kind of giant iceberg of mediocrity, the division is the barely visible tip of a vast underground movement of grassroots football. Despite two-up two-down revolutionising the Conference with its rejuvenating injection of new clubs, non-League football remains a curiously insular community, a strangely isolated world of walking clichés. Conference newcomers are largely shielded from this because non-League's premier division serves as a convenient decompression chamber for teams in total freefall, introducing them to the bits of non-League football they're scared of, like Kettering Town, while furnishing them with the familiar luxuries of the top 92. As such, the average matchday experience has far more in common with the Football League than the mossy, decaying surrounds of the Conference North and South, just one level down.
That said, step outside the cosy confines of regular league football and into the cup competitions, and you will unearth a world of contrasts. One week, you'll visit a stadium on a par with anything you could find in the fourth division. It'll be segregated and fans will have to queue for standard corporate lager studiously warmed to room temperature. There will be awkward-looking teenage girls pretending to be cheerleaders, blokes clutching microphones on the pitch orchestrating crossbar challenge hilarity over a fully functioning public address system. The toilets will work. The pitch will have grass on it and the football will be of a vaguely acceptable standard. There'll be a load of teenage hooligan wannabes trying it on near the turnstiles. You'll find yourself thinking that the non-League life ain't that different, after all.
The following Tuesday night, you'll be huddled together, all nine of you, on a tiny, pre-war concrete slab purporting to be a terrace, being lashed by freezing rain in a force ten gale, playing a qualifying round in some cup you've never heard of, sponsored by a company you've never heard of that makes brackets for shelves. The pitch will look like Skegness beach, except with slightly less dogshit and a bit more mud. There'll be three teenage hooligan wannabes trying it on near the turnstiles. Or there would be, except there will be no turnstiles, just Jackie the tea lady clutching a clipboard and a biro. And you'll get beaten 3-0 by a team managed by a morbidly obese Cockney who may or may not be a crack dealer.
"Grimsby fans may scream at Fenty to get his chequebook out, and indeed he may do just that, but simply hurling money at the problem will see the club hoovering up the parachute payment while on a fast track to tenth"
But it's certain that Grimsby fans will not be bothered about cups and trophies and shields - they want out of the Conference, and fast. Unfortunately, it is an exceptionally difficult division to escape. My team, Boston United, only managed it once - and had to swindle the taxman to do it. While there is, just like at all levels of football, an undeniable correlation between success and money, the Conference is a notorious graveyard for teams that spent big on shit-or-bust gambles for promotion. Grimsby fans may scream at Fenty to get his chequebook out, and indeed he may do just that, but simply hurling money at the problem will see the club hoovering up the parachute payment while on a fast track to tenth.
No - the Conference rewards stability. It offers broken and destitute League failures a unique chance to rehabilitate while out of the glare of the public spotlight by retooling and restructuring. The majority of clubs that have bounced back have invariably done so stronger for it. It doesn't always last - Chester and Halifax fell back and vanished - but this says more about their hapless owners spurning their one, golden opportunity. And as these clubs have demonstrated in recent years, it is a division of maddening inconsistency and perennial off-field upheaval. The Conference's administrators are, at best, absolutely useless. Like the writers of Lost, they make it up as they go along and hope no-one notices.
The annual AGM invariably resembles a UN summit on rogue nuclear states as clubs in various states of disarray are banned, ejected, censured and humiliated while they squeal their protestations to an unsympathetic baying mob of fellow members. All too frequently teams resigned to relegation are handed a reprieve as somewhere else implodes or is unceremoniously booted out the door. Any club that can keep its head down during AGM season is halfway to a successful campaign.
Grimsby fans will find all this out for themselves soon enough, as they will soon learn about their new opponents. Some are professional outfits that rival the best fourth division sides; others succeed by other means, some of which are palatable, some of which make for unpleasant viewing. Yet, no matter what, next season will be one of intrigue, and new experiences. Grimsby may even win a few games. And when's the last time that happened?
Non-League welcomes you, Codheads. We hope you enjoy your stay.