Cod Almighty | Article

by Various

22 February 2025

In the floodlights the withered leaves collect at our feet and the wind begins to moan, but when we play Gillingham sometimes our dreams come true quite unexpectedly. The Men of Kent are the unexpected backdrop to the meaning of life as this potpourri of potted memories proves. 

Thanks for the memories

Gillingham, you mean so much to so many for so many small reasons: in 2005 Sir John of McDermott reminisced with us about his first ever goal in grown-up paid football and the Men of Kent have been the arbitrary backdrop to something tangible and personal to so many. We remember you, but so rarely for anything that actually happens in a game, for our match reports are a litany of offhand groans about the drab and dreary and our Diaries despairing about old players, especially charismatic card magnet Alan Pouton.

And you were also the backdrop to an infamous urban myth. In 2023 Tony Dabb got out his magnifying glass and pondered the curious case of the Visitation of Dr Kissinger:

"Kissinger: was he or wasn't he? There is a question mark over the history of Dr Henry Kissinger. It is not in respect of his contribution to international relations or civil society.

The unanswered question for us is more parochial, but also a kind of intrigue. What connects one of the world's most notorious purveyors of Realpolitk to Grimsby Town Football Club?

It is common knowledge that Kissinger was a football fanatic. He had been a capable young player as a youth in Germany. And he placed his enthusiasm for the beautiful game high among his priorities, if not necessarily at the top: "Every country," he said, "needs an army, a bank, and a football team". Kissinger was also instrumental in bringing the World Cup to the USA in 1994.

What is less well known to the rest of the world is that three years after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize he was also in the crowd at Blundell Park.

They say.

The legend has it that on April 24th in 1976 Kissinger, en route to Kenya to discuss the 'Rhodesia problem', flew in to RAF Waddington to meet Crosland, the newly-appointed Foreign Secretary.

These were heady times. America's defeat in Vietnam had emboldened the USSR and cold war tensions were heightened. NATO, under greater pressure in northern Europe, needed all of its collective strength. Iceland, sensing an opportunity to strengthen its hand in the Cod Wars, threatened to leave the organisation if it did not get protection for its own waters and get access to the North Sea stocks. Kissinger's visit would have been an attempt to mollify the UK. Give Iceland what they want for the greater good of Western security, and the benefit of USA access to a North Atlantic base. And who better to persuade the UK to swallow this bitter pill than the Minister with a fishing town constituency?

In this context, perhaps it is not so surprising that Crosland was able to persuade Kissinger that their meeting should take place, not on Air Force One on the tarmac at Waddington, but instead in Grimsby, on the Saturday morning, enabling Crosland to attend the 3 o'clock kick-off of Town versus Gillingham, accompanied by his guest."

Yeah, great story, but what are the facts?

"Photographs of a jolly Kissinger sitting alongside Crosland and among the people on the terraces, are abundant and sometimes accompany stories of the trip to Town. The facts? They are of the pair enjoying a Chelsea v Wolves game in the same year, where Kissinger received a “mixed” reception from fans and footballers alike.

So what do eye witnesses say? Susan Crosland's biography of her late husband explicitly states that Kissinger never went to Blundell Park. Crosland and he talked on the plane, she said, and Kissinger left for Nairobi in a hurry.

Nor are there contemporary reports in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph or elsewhere. Though it was the last match of the season, Town rested at 17th with nothing to play for, one might imagine that a visit by the world's de facto 'most powerful man' would have merited a headline and a snap or two in the Telegraph."

Yet some people claim to have seen him there on the day. And the anecdote is trotted out with a frequency that appears to give it authority.

The truth about Kissinger's Grimsby connection, like his appearance before the International Criminal Court, is a fantasy.

But good old Gillingham are the backdrop to many a reader and contributors actual factual memories. Our match reporter has wistful memories of scrambling around under their floodlights looking for a contact lens as Kingsley Black slotted in a winner in 1998. Pat Bell remembers his lonesome trudge to Priestfield in February 1988:

"Acros the ground, on an open corner, an enthusiastic cheer went up from a knot of people as the Town side ran on to the pitch. I realised I was in the wrong place.

I had been late arriving for this evening game and had hurried through the first turnstile I came to. The cheer was like a bolt of lightning – the realisation that the full experience of watching Grimsby depended on me standing amid my own kind. I had to be part of what I had come to observe.

A steward good-naturedly escorted me around the ground, bringing the away contingent to 26.

It is not just about numbers: it is about shared chants and songs, shared memories of players and matches good and bad. It is how we save and shape and build our heritage. You bond not only with a team but with the people who follow the team, part of something bigger than yourself, and on the best days, players and supporters are united, and the experience becomes more than just a game: it becomes an expression of community.”

And for Alex Ramsden Gillingham were the genesis for his Great Grimsby adventure:

"I have my grandad to thank for my lifelong courting of Town. He took me to my first game against Gillingham way, way back in 1998: that was a time before social media and million-channel television, kids. It was a gritty 0-0 draw so I am told. I was only four or five and fell asleep!

The only distant memories I have of the day are being completely overawed by the amount of huge people towering over little me as we climbed the endless steps to the Upper; and, for some reason, seeing the ball get hoofed out of the ground.

It was also the only time that I set foot inside Blundell Park with my grandad as his age and mobility crept up on him.

All those memories, distorted and dramatized over time, make up a huge fragment of our personal fabric. I guess the point is that your football team is always so intertwined in your life. You can never escape it.”

So thank you Gillingham, you have an accidental, arbitrary meaning beyond statistics to so many, for so many reasons. It’s not about the football. We know you understand.

These are the full versions of the Cod Almighty programme articles for the 2024/25 season. An edited version was published in The Mariner on 28 January 2025.