Cod Almighty | Diary

Memories waiting to happen

26 January 2018

What a wonderful thing a football club is. What a wonderful thing our football club is, suffused with hopes and memories.

Middle-Aged Diary saw Matt Tees play, just the once. Town had been pegged back to 1-1, when Tees scored with a late header. It must have been the 1971-72 championship season, because I remember an extra note of enthusiasm in my father's and my grandfather's voices as they discussed the performance.

Or I might be imagining that Tees goal, because I have read and heard so much about Tees since. There is memory, and there is collective memory, and the two mingle, but they both bind us to this lovely thing, this lovely cause: Grimsby Town FC.

In my own modest way, I "played" at Blundell Park on Wednesday night, my left leg trembling uncontrollably as I tried to express the unending pleasure that one generation of heroes in particular have given me. That was before a two-figure audience, not the crowds above 10,000 drawn back to Blundell Park not just to watch Tees play but to will him to victory.

Today, we know the price Tees paid for fulfilling our - and his own - ambitions. And there is an emotional burden too. I can never watch Craig Disley with "something in his eye" after the 2016 play-off semi-final without reflecting that we helped put that "something" there, not just with the negative reaction after Town had lost the first leg, or after the trouncing at Halifax earlier in the season, but even with the huge commitment of Operation Promotion itself. The team of 2015-16 knew they were shouldering the burden of a community's hopes. They were big enough, brave enough, to bear it.

A football club is a wonderful thing, but it sometimes seems so hard to get it right, to care about it in a way that lightens the load.

Tomorrow, we entertain runaway league leaders Luton, and manager Russell Slade already seems to be lowering expectations. At the moment, rumours that Leeds' pacy, young forward Mallik Wilks might join us on loan remain rumours. The match has been designated a memory match and with Tees far from the only memory shared between the two Towns, it is hard to think of a more appropriate game to choose.

Let's hope the match lives up to the occasion. And let's give the players all the encouragement they need to rise to the challenge.