Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Tuesday 20 November 2012

20 November 2012

The Bucks and the Mariners do not have a lot in common, although the accounts of their foundation are similar. Both formed as offshoots of cricket clubs, Buxton in the year before Grimsby. For Buxton, the trip to Cleethorpes on Saturday will be downhill all the way. Their ground, Silverlands, over 1,000 feet above sea level, is the very apex of the English football pyramid. We won't presume Blundell Park is the very lowest ground, as Middle-Aged Diary has been unable to determine the height of Ely City's Unwin Ground, but it is certainly among the foundation stones.

I have found only two names associated with both teams, and I prefer not to dwell on Nicky Law. That leaves Fred Marlow. Born in Sheffield, after his National Service he spent three years at Arsenal, never getting closer to selection than their third team. In the close season of 1951, Marlow was signed by Buxton but before the season began joined Bill Shankly's Mariners in the third division (north). He scored on his debut against Bradford PA in the first of 11 consecutive appearances at inside-right, scoring six goals. That sounds impressive nowadays, but in fact Town had made a relatively slow start to the season (it would ultimately cost them promotion) and after a 2-0 defeat at Southport, Marlow lost his place to Jimmy Bloomer. A prolific scorer for the reserves, he nevertheless made just one more senior appearance before leaving for a career that took in Goole, Boston, York and Scarborough.

That Buxton's Wikipedia entry lists as one of their most notable players a man who apparently never played in a competitive fixture with the Bucks, and whose playing career thereafter was scarcely the stuff of legend, smacks of a scant association with celebrity. And yet... this was the early 1950s, before European football and the League Cup; it is not hard to imagine Arsene Wenger giving a player of similar stature a run-out in the early rounds of a cup nowadays. It is before substitutes, when the starting eleven was also the finishing eleven. Given the extensive matchday squads of today, Shankly surely might have given Marlow a place on the bench and the opportunity to turn a match Town's way, the chance to make a name for himself.

The 1950s is only now the dim and distant past: once it was the contested present. If few Cod Almighty readers recall Marlow, many will recall Graham Hockless, whose 20 Town appearances with two goals from an attacking midfield position suggest that he is a comparable modern player. Google his name and you can still find the arguments that successive managers should have built a team around him. Who now remembers what arguments raged around the name of Fred Marlow 60 years ago?

Last week, we invited you to name players about whom argument raged for opposite reasons and yet proved wrong the detractors of their early form with the club. Matt Pakes begins his response with two words: "Glen Downey". This leads us to wonder whether there is any question involving past Grimsby players to which someone will not reply, sarcastically or otherwise, with the name of Russell Slade's shadowy reserve. More pertinently, Matt then records the progression of Rob Jones from average to rock solid, while David Miller chastises me for omitting "Shaun Pearson. Surely one of the best centre-backs in this league. After a mediocre first season with Town, it seems like he must have crawled into a (very large) chrysalis over the summer and emerged a new player."

Louie Soares may soon have the opportunity to demonstrate whether he has undergone a similar metamorphosis, his loan to Ebbsfleet cut short as he is not eligible to play in the FA Trophy or against us the following week. Launching a new Telegraph campaign, Bradley Wood, Andi Thanoj and Dayle Southwell say nice things about the importance of the youth set-up in fostering their transformation into professional players. I'll leave someone else to dwell on that and on the present-day youth's apparently unfortunate defeat at Notts County in the Midland Youth Cup last night. To paraphrase the advice of the dowager to the young woman of doubtful voice at a soiree, I have entertained you long enough.