Cod Almighty | Diary

No Grist to the Millers

16 July 2021

Sadly it seems unlikely that Grimsby's teenage talent Ben Grist will be joining Rotherham United. If on some stray news site you find the forlorn headline "Grist to the Millers" above an empty page, pause a moment to reflect on the broken dreams of a sub-editor.

Tomorrow, the Mariners begin their pre-season programme at Cleethorpes Town. The eight years it has been played are wrapped in the social media age, and so it has acquired certain traditions: one or two tweets making dire or excited predictions based on the result, followed by a few dozen more pointing out you can read nothing from a game that will have been forgotten almost before the season itself has started.

Middle-Aged Diary does not intend to get drawn into the debate. I'll just ask the question: does the fact that professional footballers are ending their summer holidays before school pupils have even started theirs prove that the football calendar is broken, the schools calendar is broken, or both?

The debate I was enjoying yesterday was the one over what the club boardroom should be called. Perhaps the desire to rename it after a notable player or manager - one who almost inevitably will have been at least frustrated by a decision emanating from that very room - is intended to instil some humility among the directors, a permanent reminder that they are not served by but should serve the players and coaches. Or perhaps it is the default response when a thing at a football ground needs naming, and there is no sponsor to keep happy.

But if the boardroom were to be named after someone from the backroom, here are five candidates.

Harry Hickson was club secretary from 1898 until he died in 1932, when his death was widely mourned throughout the game. He took up his post before the club had a team manager, and was so effective in his role that there could be no question of Town following the example of other clubs and appointing an ex-player as secretary-manager. A dinner to celebrate promotion to Division One in 1929 was an orgy of justifiable self-congratulation. Not Hickson though - when he spoke it was to draw attention to the acumen of manager Wilf Gillow. Known for his cheery optimism, Hickson contributed significantly to Grimsby's reputation as one of the most hospitable of clubs.

Promotion to the top flight would not have happened if Alderman Frank Barrett had not rescued the club four years earlier. As Gordon Wilson described a year ago, he remained a benefactor, and the boardroom is sited where there was once a stand named for him.

Linking Gillow and Barrett is the club chair of the time, Joseph Stookes. In most respects his background was like all the other board members of the time: local businessmen and keen amateur sports enthusiasts who perhaps rather fancied they knew as much about spotting a good player as any pro, and that really there was no great need for a manager. Stookes seems to have been the man who realised it was no longer so: it was his personal intervention which brought Gillow back to Town, first as a player, later as manager, and he led the board which approached Barrett for support, and accepted all the proposals for reform which he made.

Not my era, but the late 1960s were as dark a time as any the club had faced since at least the early 1920s, until John Fenty got his mitts on it in the 21st century. It is Rob McIlveen's era, so if he says the club might not have survived without Paddy Hamilton, I'll take his word for it.

The secretary then was Dorothy Edwards, the first woman to be appointed to the role at any club in the Football League.

All five are reminders that it possible for a club both to be proud of its traditions and also to innovate. All five are examples the board should have before them.