Cod Almighty | Diary

Wednesday is but a memory

15 August 2024

Sheffield Wednesday in the second round of the League Cup, you say? That brings back memories of a classic Tuesday night match under the lights at Blundell Park, just short of 27 years ago, when the third division Mariners recorded a magnificent 2-0 win over the first division Owls.

But it wasn’t game over, of course, because there was a second leg to play in those days. Remember them? I remember a few lads in my class leaving school early that afternoon and arriving late the next morning having not done their English homework. They got a telling off, but they didn’t care a jot after witnessing an impressive 4-3 aggregate win.

It's a great draw and fair reward for the team’s efforts on Tuesday night. This Sheffield Wednesday side isn’t a patch on the one we beat in the 90s but, equally, the same could be said of today’s Grimsby side. Both clubs have slipped from where they belong in the minds of the supporters who remember those days. But two divisions still separate us.

Your West Yorkshire Diary thinks a lot about that 1997-98 season, and how the squad at the time of us dumping our South Yorkshire ‘rivals’ out the cup was struggling in the league. I don’t think we even made it into the top half until early December, but that cup run — which included knocking holders Leicester City out in the next round, and teeing up a match at Anfield that we actually lost in the fourth — kept the fans onside as the team took its time to adapt to life in a division that none of us wanted to be in.

If you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, here comes the cold water — because this is our 21st consecutive season playing beneath that level. Getting to the third tier, as clubs like Accrington, Burton, Cheltenham and Morecambe have shown, isn’t beyond a club like Grimsby. More money certainly helps, but it isn’t the long-term answer. Get there and, as Lincoln do, you end up spending a hell of a lot more just to compete there.

There were times in that record-breaking double-Wembley season when we toyed with the opposition. They’d come to Blundell Park and park the bus, before bus parking was used figuratively in football, and still Burnett would pick a lock, or Donovan would slip past a full-back and hang the ball in the air for Groves to head home.

We played with controlled aggression, particularly at home. Back then, it was pass and move, pass and move. Incisive, sometimes intricate play, with twists, turns, clips, and a Jack Lester tumble in the box. We enjoyed lots of possession, but we had intelligent players who could control games, run the channels, and play through the lines. Again and again, wave after wave.

Not so much today, although our goal on Tuesday night provided us fans with a glimpse of what’s possible, and what we’re working towards. For now, though, it’s pass-and-pass, with movement lacking a little. A settled squad will allow partnerships to form. Partnerships looked so obvious in a 4-4-2, with McDermott and Donovan marauding down the right, and Gallimore teaming up with Black or Dave Smith down the left. Groves and Burnett dictating games in the middle, with Lester and Nogan combining up front.

And what can you say about Handyside and Lever? Strong, commanding, imperious — a hat-trick of words you could easily attribute to the safe hands of Davison behind them. Perhaps it’s my age showing, but I struggle to see where partnerships exist in a system that seems to have been adopted by almost every football club across the land, with holding midfielders, wide attackers and false nines operating fluidly. Injuries to key players never helps, mind.

You never really know you’ve got a great team until it’s gone. I’m sure, Grimsby being Grimsby, there will have been sections of our support berating those Town players right up until the very last of those six additional minutes at Wembley in 1998. ‘Bloody useless, Groves! Hitting the bar from 10 yards out!’ and ‘What a soft penalty! Bloody rubbish, Donovan!’

I remember how desperate we were to return to the second division that day. The third division wasn’t where Town should be. A lot has happened to our club, and football, in the last 27 years. UTM!