Cod Almighty | Article

by Too Good To Go Down

5 June 2015

When the kind folk at Cod Almighty asked me to pen a few words on the start of Operation Promotion on Monday morning, I wasn't expecting it to be a full five days – and £36,000 – later that I'd actually find the time to write them.

Grimsby Town supporters have always shown far more loyalty to their club than they probably should, so the response to Budget Boost maybe shouldn't be a surprise. But on Monday morning, as I refreshed my laptop screen by regularly hitting F5 and witnessed the total whizz up through the thousands, I must admit even I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The generosity. The enthusiasm. The positivity.

Wembley seems a long time ago now. That horrible, echo-y cheer when Bristol Rovers scored the winning penalty felt like a knife in the stomach. The images of the players on their knees, heads in their hands... the sickening trudge back to the bus and that horrible gut-wrenching feeling all the way home. All of those horrible images and memories have been erased by a prolonged period of positivity that I cannot remember ever being replicated.

We should be down and out; the plucky losers who gave their all but lost on penalties. Instead we're a club reborn.

Since the Mariners Trust was reborn a couple of years ago, and subsequently gained places on the board of the football club, there's been a fresh impetus by members to make the fan experience at the club even better. I've seen the differences made – both big and small – and fans are listened to and their ideas are acted upon. I've seen the club in a different light and now others are too. It really does feel like we're all more united.

Operation Promotion and Budget Boost came about very quickly. Twenty-four hours after Wembley and emails were flying back and forth between board members. What started as one campaign – which you now know as Budget Boost – became a season-long scheme called Operation Promotion. Trust members met with the club, who are fully on board and been incredibly supportive, and this Monday we launched.

The response from fans of the club, quite simply, has been staggering. It sends a message – not just to current players, but also to prospective ones – about what a great place Grimsby Town will be to come and play next season.

In the words of Colin Murray in Friday's Metro newspaper, "football is about the fans and it's nothing without them".

This Town Knows. It really does.

Got an opinion on Operation Promotion? Fend off the bleakness of a dark and indifferent universe by typing it into the Cod Almighty feedback form, and we'll put it in the Postbag. Sweet.