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Diary - Thursday 7 January 2010

7 January 2010

Paint Trophy sponsorship manager Teresa Hardwick added: "Peter's strike was one of the sweetest in the competition and was a worthy winner. Our Ultimate Finish awards have really captured the imagination. We are getting scores of votes after each round, and are delighted with the whole initiative." Your Guest Diarist cracked out laughing at the use of the phrase 'scores of votes'. It was a nice goal and made better by the fact it was on EvilSky TV but like most of Sweeney's goals sadly, it didn't affect the result. One can also assume that 'scores' in marketing speak is a number larger than twenty and considerably less than a hundred.

Fixtures news gentle reader: the Notts County away game has been re-arranged for Wednesday February 17th and the game on Saturday at Crewe is in jeopardy because of all this snow and freezing weather.

And now to the Great Grimsby Police team slice of history. Regular readers will remember that likeable young whippersnapper Richard Lord had written in asking older Diary readers to tell us whether it was really true that at one time Grimsby policemen were recruited as much or more for their footballing ability as their ability to impersonate Dixon of Dock Green. Dan Brown kindly kicked the responses off by pointing us to the obituary of Don Harnby who died last November aged 86. Don played for the Mariners from 1949-52 and then joined Grimsby Police force where he won the Police Federation Cup. My Who's Who tells me he was a decent full back who could play on either the left or the right side

Malcolm Carson also came on to fill in some more blanks: "In response to Richard Lord's question about Grimsby having a very good police team, I remember this pretty well as my dad was club doctor at the time. This was in the early fifties when Allenby Chilton was manager and we had those wonderful players, Johnny Scott, Jeff Whitefoot (both ex-Busby Babes) and Ron Rafferty amongst others. The Chief Constable of Grimsby was Charles Butler who was less interested in the achievements of these glitterati than in the peripheral cloggers who might be coming to the end of their careers. Many of them were selected, no doubt as a result of their zealous observance of the Law, to be suitable for the Force and thereby, incidentally, be able to take to the pitch to represent out town. The result was that for several years - I couldn't say how many - Grimsby Borough Police were national cup holders. I remember the cup final was held at Grimsby, perhaps more than once, as our domination of the competition was so complete. Whether the success on the pitch was matched by the success in reducing crime levels is something I am unable to comment on. I do recall that many a crime was committed on the pitch as some of the timing but none of the venom had gone out of the players' armoury. It made a normal Third Division North match seem very tame and civilised. Once Charles Butler retired, things were never the same for some strange reason.

John Kirk, after taking young Mr Lord to task and reminding him that Grimsby Borough Police stood proudly separate in those days from the rest of the Lincolnshire Constabulary, added this about the Police national cup: "I think they were one of three main protagonists and if my memory serves me (and this is unaided memory from 50 years ago!!!) the others were the Met and somewhere in the West Midlands - possibly Birmingham. Now what my trusty Saturday Telegraph Football Annual (price 1/-) for 1958/9 season tells me is that the force football team was also in the Lincolnshire League and came second to Louth United in 1957/8, when the said league was something to aspire to, and included such great teams as Ashby Institute, Grimsby Town 'A', App Frod, Lysaghts, and Lincoln Claytons ...."

Finally Richard Ellis, whose Dad served in the Grimsby Borough police force in the early fifties, did some googling on that internet and came up trumps with this smashing picture of the 1952 Grimsby Police team. The caption also comments (scroll down the photo to see it) that the team played in front of 'several thousand at Blundell park" and that the team was considered good enough to have "tackled many of the third and fourth division teams of that time". This police museum site has a great section on Grimsby Borough including lots of picture of vintage policemens helmets. Well worth a browse if you are a slacker like me. Thanks to all of you who wrote in so quickly and with such great information - a free Mike Newell T shirt is yours if you want it! See yer.