Cod Almighty | Diary

Hegativity in the 1920s

16 July 2024

Perhaps it is a case of the enemy of my enemy being my friend. Newbegin Diary suspects that supporters of both clubs would put a higher value on a win over Lincoln than over each other, for there is a certainly amicability in Town's relationship with Boston, who we play tonight.

George Pearce, Grimsby's chair from 1931 until 1955, was from Boston. One of his first acts when he took on the role was to send a strong team, full of its First Division stars, to play a benefit on behalf of the failing Boston Town. When Boston Town folded, Boston United were formed in their place, and one of the players in their first line-up was the old Grimsby outside left Billy Marshall.

It is a tribute to Marshall's longevity that he played in the same forward line as all four of the great centre forwards - Carmichael, Robson, Coleman and Glover - who straddle the decades between the wars. Between Christmas Day 1924 and 21 January 1928 Billy did not miss a single match, a feat all the more remarkable as his lungs were forever scarred after being gassed on military service during World War One.

After leaving Grimsby, he spent a single season with Reading which he admitted he did not enjoy. He found it impossible to get enough fresh air, so he was glad to return to Lincolnshire and the coast. He was almost 35 by the time he joined Boston but still he played with all the enthusiasm of someone at the start of his career, even though he had fallen in two years from Division One to the Midland League. When he returrned to Blundell Park to play Grimsby reserves, there were spectators ready to acknowledge he was the finest left winger they had ever possessed.

Time had perhaps lent a certain nostalgia to the memory of his crosses, too often express deliveries which cleared everyone's heads and might have given someone concussion if they had not. But he was quick, and when the change in the offside law in 1925 gave wingers new licence to cut inside, he scored and contributed to some wonderful goals.

We don't have a time-machine, but we have our own memories and they feed our imaginations. 90 years before Nick Hegarty, Billy Marshall, with his ginger hair and his zeal, had Hegativity in abundance. His skull was wrapped in bandages after an earlier collision when in 1929 he scored the goal which sealed a win at Hull, searing in from wide on the halfway line, beating defenders and keeping his feet even as they resorted to foul play. It must have been one of the sights of a golden age of Grimsby football.