Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Tuesday 25 October 2011
25 October 2011
Speak to any Town fan of middle or advanced age and a number of themes will typically emerge. One is that Town used to be good. Another is that Lawrie McMenemy, during his brief but successful term as manager, was in the habit of taking his players to visit workers on Grimsby's fish docks at some obscene hour like half past two in the morning. The implication seems to be that these visits were, in their own little way, a contributory factor to Town's 1972 fourth division championship. The footballers' presence inspired the lumpers and filleters to go and watch them on a Saturday, and in turn the players were lifted by the inflated crowds.
Your original/regular Diary reckons these old fogeys may be confusing cause and effect. Rather than the visits to the docks leading to the success of the team, perhaps it was only the team's success that made the dock visits possible. Under normal circumstances, at most points in GTFC history, the response of most Grimsby people to the presence of Grimsby Town footballers would be to shrug a shoulder and carry on denouncing the local availability of Chinese food as a conspiracy by the EEC to undermine the fishing industry. No, if you ask me, the bandwagon was already fully booked, and the players were just lapping it up.
The reason this returns to mind today is that the current Town set-up is attempting some kind of reprise. There are, however, some key differences between Lawrie Mac's dawn raids on the Alexandra Dock and Shorty and Shouty's open training day this Thursday. One is that the players can't go and visit people at work because nobody has a job. So you have to go to them instead.
A second contrast is predicated on a peculiar cultural shift in society's attitude towards childhood. In the 1970s adults carried on what they did normally and children started doing it when they grew up. In the 2010s adults do children's things instead of adults' things, so that they and their children can like the same things, and children never have to grow up. (Just look at 20-over cricket, for crying out loud.) So this event is geared towards children and timed during half-term. It takes place "10.20am - 12pm", according to the club's superb new official website, which probably means 12 noon. I know what you're thinking, but people don't have to book time off work to take their children because nobody has a job.
In the 1970s, of course, fast food meant fish and chips. But this time round, if you go to the open training day, there's a discounted lunch from McDonalds afterwards. So there's a useful message for the kiddies about healthy and ethical dietary choices. And finally, there's a 10 per cent discount for the club shop if you go along on Thursday. In the 1970s there was no such thing as a club shop, unless it was just that place your mam went to after she knocked off at Ross's at 10pm and bought a box of 48 choc-ices for 2½p.
Most people of middle or advanced age - Town fans or otherwise - will tell you things were better in the old days. Your original/regular Diary, being about to enter middle age, can't ever decide. It's not made any easier, of course, by the fact that in many ways Grimsby remains in 1972 psychologically. Maybe this is the worst of both worlds. If you're a young child and you don't want your dad to drag you along to the open day at the football, he can just beat the shit out of you until you comply. And now when you get home later you can't even console yourself by watching Bagpuss.