Cod Almighty | Diary

You wait 30 years for a new stadium then two come along at once

7 May 2020

Middle-Aged Diary has a dream. It is August 2027, the first day of the season (my vision is dim on which season - get back to me when someone invents a vaccine) and fans are flocking to the football. And not just any football because Town's "iconic" new stadium is ready. It is the grand realisation of an ambition: a pint in Dock Beers then an early start, because the familiar pull of the magnet that draws so many from all directions to a single point at three o'clock on a Saturday is today all the stronger.

Then some reality starts to intrude. The fans have to shoulder their way past a few protesters from a local residents' group. Words are exchanged, not nice ones. Contact is made - perhaps accidental, but you can hear the muttering as someone puts down their placard and writes the moment down in their notebook to be used as evidence. Every incident will be magnified. The ill-will shall fester. The day clouds.

And now it is raining. Not a mile away, there are astonishing scenes at the opening of Town's other "iconic" new stadium, this one on by the port, with grand views of the Dock Tower and, if you crane your neck, two other football stadiums, one now disused.

The matches get under way. At Freeman Street, Grimsby Town, now known as The Real Grimsby Town (Accept No Substitutes) go down to a 2-0 defeat against North Ferriby United. At the docks, Grimsby Pelham 1878 win a dour derby against the Immingham Wellie Throwers Society. It has to be admitted that much the best afternoon was enjoyed by the 100 or so fans who had got confused, wandered up to the once "iconic" Blundell Park, wondered where everyone was, spent a few minutes reminiscing about John Cockerill then retired to the pub.

Tom Shutes - he of the abortive takeoever - has broken his silence. I guess there were good commercial and legal reasons why he never went public before, when John Fenty was relaying his own version of why the talks were going nowhere, but for the rest of us it was bloody frustrating. Shutes's version, now we hear it, is a little different to Fenty's: "For what must be about two years, I have agreed various different versions of a takeover, in good faith - all of which were, in the end, rejected. We’ve simply said to the club, look, we understand that you know you're not ready to transact and that’s no problem at all, we respect that."

It comes down to who you believe. A man you had never heard of until less than a year ago and who isn't from round here and about whom you know nothing, or John Fenty, Grimsby through and through and whose record speaks for itself. That's right: my money is on Shutes.

But this should not be about Shutes. And to the extent it is about Fenty, it is only because the people of North East Lincolnshire have elected him to help look after the interests of the community. Because if Grimsby Town is going to survive, it is only going to be because we are still willing to put our money into it, as paying customers, as stakeholders, as supporters. The memory of having Operation Promotion thrown in our face is still too fresh to feel we will raise funds over and above tickets and merchandise unless we are given a real say in how it is used.

Shutes asserts he will carry on making plans for a stadium on the docks. His drawings are no more or less impressive/banal (delete according to taste) than any others we've seen, give or take a few fireworks. He makes some points about the viability of Freeman Street which, personally, I'm in no position to judge. You may well know better than me.

And all of us collectively know better than Fenty or Shutes. We ought to be allowed to give an informed view. We deserve better than to be mere onlookers in a row about an object at the very core of our souls.