Cod Almighty | Diary

A moment in the net, a lifetime in the mind

24 October 2017

Where were you 25 years ago today? You shouldn't need to be of Middle-Aged Diary's age to need more than the smallest jog to your memory.

It was the first season that Match of the Day only showed games from the newly-formed Premier League. The pretence that football lower down the ladder was not worth consideration had not yet hardened into practice. I can't remember what games the BBC did feature, but I do remember the presenter, Bob Wilson, ending the programme by admitting that the really big story of the day was one they had not covered – that Grimsby Town had ended Newcastle United's unbeaten start to the season at St James' Park.

Yes, it was a gesture in support of a fellow member of the goalkeepers' union, Dave Beasant who went on loan to us after a difficult spell at Chelsea. It's still impossible to imagine Gary Lineker today saying a word about, for instance, Omar Bogle. As Pat Bell wrote four years ago, Town's win was one that at least made a few people question the way the game was going.

Pat's article includes the Town team that day in full. Two years ago, you voted to include more than half of it in the Great Grimsby XI. Among the five who didn't make it was the goalscorer that day, Jim Dobbin.

There was, of course, fierce competition for the midfield places: Paul Groves and Joe Waters made the team and Wayne Burnett is another who trips quickly off the tongue. But Dobbin's goal at Newcastle was no one-off; there was no player you would rather have on the ball when there was a chance of a long-range shot.

Despite a gallery of spectacular goals, Dobbin was a players' player. So don't take my word for it. Invited by Paul Thundercliffe to name the best team he had played in, John McDermott chose Dobbin to partner Paul Groves: "He was a player. He could put a ball on a sixpence. Aye, I'll go for Jim." Later, in his autobiography, Macca changed his mind and included Burnett – but it was Groves he dropped to make room, not Dobbin. As a fan, I used to reckon Burnett had the best range of passing of any Town midfielder I have seen. Macca says Dobbin was better.

We should make far, far more of Jim Dobbin than we do. We shouldn't just remember him once a year when the anniversary of a very special goal comes around. If someone can nose him out, they should invite him to Blundell Park to tell us about his career; I'd pay better money to listen to him than someone who rejected the chance to manage Town and so lumbered us with Mike Lyons instead.

But once a year is better than never at all. So at the risk of national stereotyping, I invite you to get hold of a drop of good malt whisky today and raise it to James Dobbin: a footballer among footballers, a scorer of great goals and a creator of many more. Outside Grimsby, the shot that shook football may have proved no more than a seven-day wonder, but what a wonderful seven days it was.

Thanks Jim, for everything.