Friday, 11 January 2008
Fish out of water
We do things our own way in Grimsby. We have our own cuisine, which steadfastly excludes garlic, spices and other "foreign muck". We have our own language, as any visitor will know who has been told "giz a pag – I'm playing togger down the Ploggers". We have our own system of government, in which nimbyocracy has been replaced by Fentyism.
And just as our communication becomes suddenly less effective when we go to another town and ask at the bar for a pint of diesel, so some of the finest footballers in Mariners shirts have failed spectacularly to fit in when they have moved on to other clubs.
Tomorrow's visitors to Blundell Park are Wrexham, who supplied one of Alan Buckley's best signings when Shaun Cunnington arrived from the Racecourse Ground in 1988. Cunnington formed a powerful midfield partnership with John Cockerill, and after five years with Town was prized away by Sunderland for £650,000 – where he managed 60-odd games in three seasons and was voted by readers of A Love Supreme fanzine into the club's "all-time misfits XI".
Much of Cunnington's career post-GTFC was spoiled by injury – but the same can't be said of another his replacement in Town's midfield, Paul Groves. Despite scoring five times in only 30 starts for West Brom, Groves was never accepted at the Hawthorns, and his signing seemed a key factor in Buckley's sacking a few months later.
Groves was a huge success back at BP, but struggled again after leaving for a second time. "Weird how the names Donovan and Groves can evoke wistful longing for better times in some fans," a York fan told me recently, "whereas they strike fear into the heart of me in recalling probably the worst City team I've seen."
Kevin Donovan had a hard time at Barnsley too, where fans rated him one of the club's worst ever signings. Speaking of players who did a turn at Oakwell, Peter Handyside looked a Scottish international in waiting while a Mariner; three years after leaving us he was playing – while still aged only 30 – for Northwich Victoria.
At this point I would mention Darren Barnard, who left the Mariners on a Bosman when we were relegated in 2004 because he didn't want to play in the fourth division – and ended up having to join Aldershot in the Conference. But he wasn't much cop when he played for us.
So if non-Grimbarians look at us blankly when we tell them we're taking our grufty cloves to the bagwash, it's clearly their fault for not speaking English properly. And if Everton think they were robbed blind when they paid us £1.75m for John Oster, well, it's not our fault if other teams don't know the right way to play football.
And just as our communication becomes suddenly less effective when we go to another town and ask at the bar for a pint of diesel, so some of the finest footballers in Mariners shirts have failed spectacularly to fit in when they have moved on to other clubs.
Tomorrow's visitors to Blundell Park are Wrexham, who supplied one of Alan Buckley's best signings when Shaun Cunnington arrived from the Racecourse Ground in 1988. Cunnington formed a powerful midfield partnership with John Cockerill, and after five years with Town was prized away by Sunderland for £650,000 – where he managed 60-odd games in three seasons and was voted by readers of A Love Supreme fanzine into the club's "all-time misfits XI".
Much of Cunnington's career post-GTFC was spoiled by injury – but the same can't be said of another his replacement in Town's midfield, Paul Groves. Despite scoring five times in only 30 starts for West Brom, Groves was never accepted at the Hawthorns, and his signing seemed a key factor in Buckley's sacking a few months later.
Groves was a huge success back at BP, but struggled again after leaving for a second time. "Weird how the names Donovan and Groves can evoke wistful longing for better times in some fans," a York fan told me recently, "whereas they strike fear into the heart of me in recalling probably the worst City team I've seen."
Kevin Donovan had a hard time at Barnsley too, where fans rated him one of the club's worst ever signings. Speaking of players who did a turn at Oakwell, Peter Handyside looked a Scottish international in waiting while a Mariner; three years after leaving us he was playing – while still aged only 30 – for Northwich Victoria.
At this point I would mention Darren Barnard, who left the Mariners on a Bosman when we were relegated in 2004 because he didn't want to play in the fourth division – and ended up having to join Aldershot in the Conference. But he wasn't much cop when he played for us.
So if non-Grimbarians look at us blankly when we tell them we're taking our grufty cloves to the bagwash, it's clearly their fault for not speaking English properly. And if Everton think they were robbed blind when they paid us £1.75m for John Oster, well, it's not our fault if other teams don't know the right way to play football.
Labels: aldershot, barnard, barnsley, buckley, cockerill, cunnington, donovan, everton, groves, handyside, northwich, oster, parochialism, smalltown, sunderland, transfers, west brom, wrexham
Friday, 26 October 2007
Whose shoes are the greenest?
Town's opponents this weekend, Bradford City, may be down towards the bottom of the fourth division, but an environmental study published last week ranks Bradford top of the league of Britain's greenest cities.
Blundell Park should witness a clash of the ecological titans tomorrow, then, given the new pecking order of football on the Humber – because when Town fans look at the league positions of Hull and Scunthorpe, Grimsby turns a particularly vivid shade of green as well.
True, the Mariners have a long way to go in the battle against global warming. Substantial areas of the polar icecaps melt every time Town concede another daft goal and waves of heat emanate from Alan Buckley's head. And the worldwide average temperature increases by as much as 1ºC for every month that Town spend outside the promotion positions because of all the hot air generated by the internet messageboards.
The club's new stadium, if it comes to fruition, is unlikely to enhance our green credentials. Out-of-town developments are notorious for encouraging car use, and out-of-town football grounds are doubly notorious for having massive car parks with only one exit road, so that after you've sat and watched rubbish football for an hour and a half you have to sit in your car with your engine running for another hour and a half while you queue up to get out of the bloody place and forget about the whole miserable experience.
Furthermore, let us not overlook the club's habit of rescheduling daytime matches for the peculiar timeslot of Friday night. Not only is Friday night football a blasphemy against all that is good and holy on God's sweet earth: it also incurs unnecessary floodlight use. By the time the club suits have been through the fixture list with a red pen, the club must have a carbon footprint big enough to melt Alaska.
Grimsby's contribution towards saving the planet should not go unrecognised, however. One of the key messages of the green movement is to buy local and cut down on the air miles travelled by the goods we consume before they reach us. And Alan Buckley, to his ecological credit, has always operated a 'buy British' transfer policy, in stark contrast to the carbon emissions racked up while Lennie Lawrence and Russell Slade shipped in 19 trialists every week from France, Norway and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Most of all, a truly sustainable society, rather than depending upon throwaway goods, builds things to last, so that sturdy, reusable shopping bags, for instance, are preferable to plastic carriers. And while the Mariners have recently tended towards the use of disposable managers, it's a fine example of recycling to use the same one three times over.
Blundell Park should witness a clash of the ecological titans tomorrow, then, given the new pecking order of football on the Humber – because when Town fans look at the league positions of Hull and Scunthorpe, Grimsby turns a particularly vivid shade of green as well.
True, the Mariners have a long way to go in the battle against global warming. Substantial areas of the polar icecaps melt every time Town concede another daft goal and waves of heat emanate from Alan Buckley's head. And the worldwide average temperature increases by as much as 1ºC for every month that Town spend outside the promotion positions because of all the hot air generated by the internet messageboards.
The club's new stadium, if it comes to fruition, is unlikely to enhance our green credentials. Out-of-town developments are notorious for encouraging car use, and out-of-town football grounds are doubly notorious for having massive car parks with only one exit road, so that after you've sat and watched rubbish football for an hour and a half you have to sit in your car with your engine running for another hour and a half while you queue up to get out of the bloody place and forget about the whole miserable experience.
Furthermore, let us not overlook the club's habit of rescheduling daytime matches for the peculiar timeslot of Friday night. Not only is Friday night football a blasphemy against all that is good and holy on God's sweet earth: it also incurs unnecessary floodlight use. By the time the club suits have been through the fixture list with a red pen, the club must have a carbon footprint big enough to melt Alaska.
Grimsby's contribution towards saving the planet should not go unrecognised, however. One of the key messages of the green movement is to buy local and cut down on the air miles travelled by the goods we consume before they reach us. And Alan Buckley, to his ecological credit, has always operated a 'buy British' transfer policy, in stark contrast to the carbon emissions racked up while Lennie Lawrence and Russell Slade shipped in 19 trialists every week from France, Norway and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Most of all, a truly sustainable society, rather than depending upon throwaway goods, builds things to last, so that sturdy, reusable shopping bags, for instance, are preferable to plastic carriers. And while the Mariners have recently tended towards the use of disposable managers, it's a fine example of recycling to use the same one three times over.
Labels: bradford, buckley, environment, global warming, hull, lawrence, recycling, scunthorpe, slade, transfers, transport, travel
Friday, 19 October 2007
The man on the Cleethorpes omnibus
Signing players is like catching a bus – you have to wait ages, and then two come at once. And then the privately owned, deregulated bus operator claims some of its routes are making a loss and threatens to close them down unless the council hands over thousands of pounds of public money in 'subsidies'.
Alan Buckley's record in the transfer market is mostly admirable, and sometimes astounding. Buckley is aware of this, and has shrewdly reminded us of it by suggesting that Martin Butler could be the new Garry Birtles. Not all of the manager's acquisitions down the years were quite that successful, however, and it is telling that he refrained last season from comparing Martin Paterson with, say, Murray Jones.
While Town were negotiating his transfer, Butler was described by the club as "an unnamed striker". GTFC then had to confirm his identity, as the media reported it before the deal was finalised – but the commercial department was already complaining to the PR office that if this new striker didn't have a name then they'd have a nightmare getting a certificate of authenticity for his shirt when they flogged it on eBay.
There are times when we need to put aside our reservations and just place a little faith in a manager with a record unrivalled in the Mariners' 129-year history. When Town and Southend were scrapping for top spot in the old third division in 1990, Southend signed a young centre-half from Arsenal, who were top of the league, and the very same day Buckley signed an old centre-half from the club at the very bottom, and we all sighed and lamented Town's characteristic lack of ambition.
That club was Halifax; the player was Paul Futcher; and the rest is history. Nearly 15 years of giddy overachievement, to be precise.
So what of Town's other new player, Shaleum Logan? Other than scoring on his debut against Rochdale last week, the Manchester City loanee showed good pace, agility and tackling – pretty much justifying the description of him by City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who said he seemed reminiscent of a younger Ashley Cole.
The defining passage of Cole's recent autobiography is that in which his agent phones up while Cole is driving, with the details of Arsenal's new contract offer, and the player swears bitterly and almost crashes in disgust at the prospect of having to live on £55,000 a week.
It is to be hoped, then, that Sven was referring solely to Logan's playing style, as Cole would clearly be better off travelling by bus, and we can't have important first-team players relying on the 9X to get to Blundell Park. You have to wait ages for it, and then two come at once.
Alan Buckley's record in the transfer market is mostly admirable, and sometimes astounding. Buckley is aware of this, and has shrewdly reminded us of it by suggesting that Martin Butler could be the new Garry Birtles. Not all of the manager's acquisitions down the years were quite that successful, however, and it is telling that he refrained last season from comparing Martin Paterson with, say, Murray Jones.
While Town were negotiating his transfer, Butler was described by the club as "an unnamed striker". GTFC then had to confirm his identity, as the media reported it before the deal was finalised – but the commercial department was already complaining to the PR office that if this new striker didn't have a name then they'd have a nightmare getting a certificate of authenticity for his shirt when they flogged it on eBay.
There are times when we need to put aside our reservations and just place a little faith in a manager with a record unrivalled in the Mariners' 129-year history. When Town and Southend were scrapping for top spot in the old third division in 1990, Southend signed a young centre-half from Arsenal, who were top of the league, and the very same day Buckley signed an old centre-half from the club at the very bottom, and we all sighed and lamented Town's characteristic lack of ambition.
That club was Halifax; the player was Paul Futcher; and the rest is history. Nearly 15 years of giddy overachievement, to be precise.
So what of Town's other new player, Shaleum Logan? Other than scoring on his debut against Rochdale last week, the Manchester City loanee showed good pace, agility and tackling – pretty much justifying the description of him by City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who said he seemed reminiscent of a younger Ashley Cole.
The defining passage of Cole's recent autobiography is that in which his agent phones up while Cole is driving, with the details of Arsenal's new contract offer, and the player swears bitterly and almost crashes in disgust at the prospect of having to live on £55,000 a week.
It is to be hoped, then, that Sven was referring solely to Logan's playing style, as Cole would clearly be better off travelling by bus, and we can't have important first-team players relying on the 9X to get to Blundell Park. You have to wait ages for it, and then two come at once.
Labels: birtles, buckley, buses, butler, cole, futcher, logan, rochdale, transfers, travel
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