Cod Almighty | Postbag
The Dock not that brief
26 October 2011
Nostalgia, or learning the lessons of history? You decide.
Good team do double over poor team shock
The Diary of 18 October drew our attention to a piece describing the season when Manchester United were defeated twice by the Mariners as their darkest hour. Further investigation shows this was the 1933-34 season. The side that beat Man United on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day featured George Tweedy, 'Ginger' Hall, Harry Betmead, Jack Bestall and Pat Glover (who scored five, over the two games) to name but a few. In other words, it was a season featuring many of our finest ever players, just reaching their peak.
Grimsby went on to win the second division by seven points that season; by today's reckoning, with three points for a win, it would have been eleven. Manchester United avoided relegation by a single point; if three teams had been relegated in those days, they'd have been down.
So the story amounts to a good team beating a poor team twice. There is, it seems, no statute of limitations on how far back into the past a journalist may go to disrespect a team because they come from a northern town with a grim-sounding name.
from Bill Partridge
Letters Ed responds: Sorry Bill, that's nostalgia. There are no Jack Bestalls anymore.
Not wishing to live entirely in the past ...
Hello,
In response to your request for Town videos, I found this one from Football Focus in 1996 that you may not have seen.
From about the 2min 50 mark, Town losing 4-1 in the FA cup replay to Chelsea. A Paul Groves Volley and a nice bit of taping over Coro too...
Oh, Paul Groves.
Cheers, and keep up the good work.
from Richard Barrelle
Letters Ed responds: The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. Better, as well, sometimes, by the look of it.
McMenemy and the dockers I
Dear CA,
The subject matter of today's diary (25/10/11) struck a chord with me, being a middle aged Town fan who does remember the 70s, although not quite 1972 - my time started when Town were going through the mid 70s post-Lawrie Mac slump, before it turned around and we had that golden period of successive promotions. However, we lived on Park View (off Brereton Avenue) in the early 70s and on a clear Tuesday or Wednesday night I could faintly hear the crowd from my open window - or am I getting so old that I've started doing that thing old people do and remembering things that never really happened?
Anyway, surely the point of Mr McMenemy's visits "down dock" was to say to his long haired and flared trousered players - "look you pampered buggers, this is what you'd have to do if you had a proper job, so the least you can do is get your arses in gear and score a few on Saturday." Sadly, as observed in the Diary today, that option is not available to today's management team. I for one would quite like to see Rob Duffy vomiting over the side of the Ross Leopard in a heavy swell whilst George Kerr stands over him berating him over his inability to score consistently, or see Anthony Elding shadowing a decky learner for a few days off Iceland, but alas that cannot be.
All this ties in with Shouty's recent interview with Humberside when he issued a (sort of) plea to the fans to forget the heady days of "the Championship" (whatever that is) and Anfield 2001 and focus on where we are now. This of course presupposes that we all hang about expecting John Cockerill and Bob Cumming to walk in any minute and say "we have had revolutionary rejuvenating surgery and are back to bolster your shit midfield", or that the reason for the current team's shitness is that we're all mooning over the past and off in a huff somewhere. I think the recent moving tributes at BP to Richard Broadley show there are some younger generation fans out there who probably don't remember Bradley Allen, let alone Mike Lester or Nigel Batch, so it's no use suggesting that they live in the past.
The temptation is always with the likes of me to indulge in nostalgia because THAT'S ALL I HAVE AT THE MOMENT!!! I read that article in the Telegraph a few weeks ago about the old boy who had died leaving all the Town programmes and memorabilia from the 50s, and I thought - fast forward 30-odd years (if I'm lucky)and that'll be me, people leafing through my 1978 Halifax Town programme (2-1 win, Geoff Barker headed the winner in front of the Pontoon, 'case you're wonderin') and maybe by then no one will even remember that Grimsby, on and off for the last 30 years of the 20th century, had an ace little football team.
So my point is, I suppose, us middle aged Mariners are out there, and glad to have lived through some of the good times. Let's hope they come back one day before we're all gone, and let the young 'uns see BP really rock one of these days.
Cheers
from Chris Beeley
McMenemy and the dockers II
Isn't the conventional wisdom that Lawrie and the team's fabled visit to the fish docks was in fact a message to the players: "These are the poor buggers who pay to watch you. They have to get up in the middle of the night to do this horrible job involving cold fingers and really sharp knives for next to no money. So realise how lucky you are to get paid for playing a game." Or something like that. It wouldn't work today of course. The players would think: "Yeah, but I'll be somewhere else next year."
from Phil Watson
Letters Ed responds: I asked Lawrie McMenemy to respond (actually, Charles Ekberg did, for the Grimsby Town centenary brochure): "They work hard for their money in Grimsby, at sea, on the docks and in the town. I always insisted that the players and staff remembered this and give at least 100% effort on the field. Grimbarians do not want to see primadonnas on the field. They will forgive most things if the performer is honest and hardworking, like themselves." McMenemy added: "When I arrived, I told e
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