Newcastle United are set to announce their first profit in five years alongside record commercial revenue as their position in terms of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) is thrown into sharp focus.
After recording sizeable losses in their previous two accounting periods, the Magpies were required to submit their latest accounts by midnight on 31 December. They will now be assessed by the league under new rules introduced last year intended to fast-track PSR cases.
Thanks to the sales of Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson in June Newcastle are not at risk of breaching the limit of £105m rolling losses, which would have probably brought a significant points deduction.
But the new financials will reveal the true picture of the club’s battle to improve the squad while staying inside PSR limits. It has not been an easy task.
After significant spending in the transfer market Newcastle recorded losses after tax of £73.4m in 2022-23 and £70.7m in 2021-22, so needed to show a healthy profit to avoid a breach.
The i Paper has seen an in-depth analysis of the club’s likely financial position by Off The Pitch, a football business intelligence service, which predicts Newcastle will record a £27.8m profit when the accounts are revealed later this month.
While commercial revenues have also ballooned thanks to Adidas deals and Champions League participation, that is largely driven by a huge profit on player trading.
If that is the case it illustrates just how close Newcastle were to the £105m PSR limit and why there continues to be caution around spending in January.
Some expenditure – such as on the academy, women’s team and infrastructure – is allowable under PSR rules, but one club insider characterised the last year as “paying the piper” after successive transfer windows with record levels of spending.
That continues to apply now, with Newcastle sources suggesting any incomings will need to be offset by some outgoings to ensure they don’t face another scramble at the start of the summer to comply with PSR.
Dubravka is currently first choice due to Pope’s injury (Photo: Getty)
The club have been busy on that front and want £5m for Miguel Almiron, who has drawn interest from Leicester City, Greek side Olympiacos, MLS side Charlotte FC and two Brazilian sides, and are also open to allowing Kieran Trippier and Sean Longstaff to leave if clubs meet their valuation.
Martin Dubravka is in talks with Saudi Pro League club Al-Shabab but his situation is “complicated” according to Eddie Howe. He is the current first-choice goalkeeper due to Nick Pope’s injury.
If they do generate revenue it will make it easier to do deals. Otherwise any significant recruitment in January would likely require sales in the summer – making them potentially vulnerable to big offers for key men like Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes.
The new accounts will highlight how difficult it is for aspiring clubs to grow in the Premier League’s PSR regime, with even Newcastle’s participation in Europe’s elite competition not fully offsetting the cost of investing in players like Sandro Tonali while also increasing the wage bill with contract extensions for the likes of Guimares.
Off the Pitch’s analysis shows that Newcastle’s first round exit in the 2023 Champions League was costly, with the club only predicted to rake in £28m from that. That’s the lowest of any Premier League club and 25th out of the 32 clubs involved in the competition.
They project commercial revenue – which is driven by a new sponsorship deal with Sela and the tie-ups with Adidas, Fenwicks and In Post – to rise to £64.3m from £46m.
That is a record high but, for comparison, Manchester United’s most recent commercial revenue was £302.9m – which shows just how far Newcastle have to go to catch them up.
Matchday revenue, meanwhile, is predicted to be £40m – again, a new high but also less than half of the Red Devils’ £100m plus figure.
That shows why getting the decision on the new stadium is so important, with insiders believing it holds the key to unlocking new revenue streams worth millions.
Brad Miller, the club’s chief operating officer, suggested in November a new stadium could “double” their match-day and non match-day revenue.
There is brighter news on the horizon for the Magpies, where the feeling is that they have weathered the potential financial storm of 2024 and are in a strong position to retain their best talent like Isak.
As well as the £73.4m loss “dropping” out of PSR calculations for next year – opening up the possibility of more significant spending in the summer – the club are pivoting to a new approach when it comes to recruitment, targeting younger, global talent on the watch of director of football Paul Mitchell.
That includes Lens defender Abdukodir Khusanov, the hugely promising 20-year-old, right-sided centre-back. It is understood that Manchester City are also now pursuing the defender, though, which complicates Newcastle’s pursuit.
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Eleven years since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, Ruben Amorim finds himself no further forward than David Moyes, the first post-Fergie incumbent at Manchester United. Contrast Old Trafford with Anfield, where Arne Slot has assumed the emperor’s robes and tailored them to fit.
That the end of an era did not lead to the ruin of Jurgen Klopp’s creation at Liverpool is a consequence of foundational strength and coaching smarts.
It took a decade for Liverpool to win the Premier League title under John Henry’s Fenway Sports Group, their first for 30 years, with data analyst Ian Graham and sporting director Michael Edwards combining to take the game to Manchester City.
Slot inherited a settled squad governed by established generals shot through with potential. From there he was wise enough to finesse not mess. There were no big summer signings, just two low key arrivals, goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili and striker Federico Chiesa from Juventus.
Klopp’s gift to Slot was the renewal of the midfield at the start of his final season. Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch more than filled the space vacated by Thiago Alcantara, Jordan Henderson and Fabinho.
In the same window United added Mason Mount and Sofyan Amrabat on loan. No greater example can there be of Liverpool’s superior technical department and stable base, an eerie echo of the post-Fergie rebuild when Marouane Fellaini was first through the door under Moyes.
Amrabat, who finally offered something in the FA Cup final in May, is now at Fenerbahce, on loan from Fiorentina. Mount is rehabbing yet another injury having started just nine Premier League games for the club.
The arrival of Ineos as minority owners was supposed to draw a line under the turmoil at Old Trafford. One year on United have yet to establish any kind of forward momentum, with Amorim seemingly more adrift than his predecessors.
Slot, on the other hand, stepped into a premium structure and has simply refined the Klopp vision, forsaking heavy metal attack for a degree of control.
The transposing of Gravenberch with Mac Allister, the former dropping back into the six role, the latter effectively sharing eight and 10 duties with Szoboszlai, has altered the attacking profile a fraction – turning down the pressing heat map whilst taking more touches in their own half, 133 passes in the defensive third to 117 under Klopp, according to Opta.
Another tweak involved the deployment of seemingly out-going Trent Alexander-Arnold in a more traditional full-back role, which has uncomplicated matters for the team going forward and defensively.
Alexander-Arnold still gets forward but more in tandem with Mo Salah, surging on the overlap rather than as a midfield creator.
Liverpool’s midfield had already been fixed (Photo: AFP/Getty)
Powered by the irrepressible Salah, a reconstituted Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo, Liverpool sprinted into a commanding position at the top of the table, one that sees them six points clear of Arsenal with a game in hand ahead of the visit of United.
Many a moon has passed since United travelled along the East Lancs Road so diminished. After the coruscating loss to Newcastle, a match in which United evoked memories among older supporters of the trauma of 1974 when the post Law, Charlton and Best period was rubber-stamped by the Lawman himself, back-heeling United into the old Second Division.
Though Amorim has cast the present in a similarly depressing light, a more temperate view balances gloom with a reality that differs considerably from the picture half a century ago.
In the days before sports rights and broadcast bounties, there was a degree of financial equivalence that has been obliterated now, meaning United were vulnerable to attack from smaller clubs as well as large.
Given universal Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) restraints, it would take a cataclysmic fall by United to be leapfrogged by any of Ipswich, Leicester and Wolves. We can discount the marooned Southampton, for whom no amount of bounce under Ivan Juric would be sufficient to save them.
The latest forecasts from the consultancy sector suggests United’s predicament is unlikely to endure, making them a good bet for investors.
The New York Stock Exchange shows a 28 per cent growth in the value of United shares since March last year, and according to Swiss wealth management brokers UBS, revenues could rocket to £800m, and even surpass £1bn were United to rehome in a new, “Wembley of the north” stadium.
UBS point out that the cost-cutting drive that has landed so negatively with supporters is in fact a move to drive investment on the back of increased profitability and growth potential.
It was always about business over sport for Sir Jim. In short United remain a mega brand in a market that continues to expand and migrate into lifestyle and entertainment.
“Continued interest in sports teams and leagues from private equity and wealthy individuals seeing trophy assets, we see the valuation of Manchester United as well underpinned,” noted the USB analysis, whilst adding the counter punch.
“This is by no means a foregone conclusion given the recent poor performance but the new manager provides a potential turning point for change, albeit one which may take time to materialise.”
Amorim is seeking only a third Premier League victory since the draw on debut at Ipswich in November. After four successive defeats the avoidance of another might feel like a win. Slot has enough points in the bank to absorb a shock, for that is what anything but a Liverpool victory would be.
Amorim’s successor at Sporting Lisbon, Joao Pereira, barely made it to Christmas before being sent on his way on Boxing Day. It seems insane to suggest Amorim is anything but secure.
Then again the same could have been said of sporting director Dan Ashworth, who spent longer on gardening leave from Newcastle than he did in his post at Old Trafford, knee-jerked out of office after just five months.
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We are just a few days into 2025 and already Tottenham Hotspur are coming to terms with losing another key player to a long-term injury. Happy New Year, Ange.
Destiny Udogie is the newest member of the walking wounded club, joining six teammates in an increasingly crowded Hotspur Way treatment room after pulling up against Wolves last Sunday.
It is rotten luck for the 22-year-old, who has now suffered five injuries (four to his hamstrings) in a season and a half at Tottenham. The Italian missed the Euros last summer after undergoing surgery to repair a torn quadriceps.
Early reports indicate that he could be unavailable for between six and 10 weeks.
His absence also exacerbates Ange Postecoglou’s defensive crisis at the worst possible time with fixtures against the Premier League’s two most in-form teams coming up in the next six days.
Spurs face Newcastle on Sunday and Liverpool in a Carabao Cup semi-final next Wednesday. A makeshift back five of whom Pedro Porro is the only regular, will be tasked with keeping Alexander Isak and Mo Salah quiet. Not ideal.
Unfortunately, Udogie’s misfortune was entirely predictable and not just because of his historic fitness record.
Tottenham’s game against Newcastle will be their 29th of the campaign and they have roughly played a fixture every four days since August.
Fifa’s response to long-held concerns over an overcrowded calendar was to invent a Club World Cup in the off-season, an idea that nobody from players to coaches, fans and broadcasters seems to care about.
Uefa are no angels either, after needlessly bolting additional games into their competitions for no reason other than revenue.
Football’s governing bodies warrant some blame for Udogie’s latest setback but it can be carved up and shared around.
Udogie is the only left-back that Postecoglou trusts. Ben Davies, who is also nursing a hamstring injury of his own, lacks the dynamism and attacking edge that Postecoglou requires and has instead been repurposed as centre-back cover.
Sergio Reguilon is still knocking about but only because there were no takers for him last summer. The 28-year-old, who will leave for free in June, has spent the last two seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid, Manchester United and Brentford.
He marked his first competitive Spurs appearance in over two-and-a-half years against United last month with an Instagram post captioned: “Look mum, I played a football game yesterday.” Top bantz from one of Tottenham’s many transfer flops.
This situation could hardly have been unforeseen. Udogie missed 10 Premier League games last season due to muscle injuries and that was without having to play European football on top.
His susceptibility to pulls and strains allied to Spurs qualifying for the Europa League meant that the club should have prioritised buying a new left-back.
Udogie’s injury is a big blow for Ange Postecoglou (Photo: Getty)
For some reason, they didn’t and Postecoglou has a right to feel like he wasn’t properly backed. Dominic Solanke aside, Spurs bought young players with future seasons in mind more so than the current one. That policy may help the club in the long-term but it hasn’t helped the manager in the short-term.
Postecoglou himself could have done things differently. Tottenham’s inability to integrate academy prospects into the first-team and haphazard squad building in recent years forced the Australian to name a reduced 23-man squad for the Europa League to comply with Uefa’s stringent “homegrown” rules.
However, he decided to pick Djed Spence as the fall guy, depriving him of full-back cover on both sides for Spurs’ first six games in Europe. Spence would have been infinitely more useful in those matches than Timo Werner has been.
That call resulted in Udogie playing more European minutes – 258 in total – than he might have done while also limiting Spence’s game time, ensuring he was less ready to step in for Premier League matches.
Postecoglou’s reluctance to use Spence prior to the last few weeks has looked like a misstep given the 24-year-old has acquitted himself well, a foolish red card at the City Ground on Boxing Day aside.
Udogie and Porro have both suffered from dips in form and naturally looked fatigued having started 18 and 16 Premier League games respectively. Spence has only started three, his first against Southampton on 15 December. Why has his chance been so long coming?
Postecoglou’s questionable squad management has placed a further strain on players already operating at the upper limits of their physical capacity.
Being a Spurs defender is arguably one of the toughest jobs in the Premier League given how many high-intensity sprints they make, whether underlapping or overlapping runs forward or high-speed chases back.
While it is unfortunate that Spurs have lost four defenders – Udogie, Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Davies – to hamstring injuries at the same time, it’s not purely incidental either.
Can such a relentless approach work for a team competing in what is widely regarded to be the most intense domestic league on the planet and on four different fronts? Increasingly, it seems like the answer is no.
Last January, Postecoglou acknowledged that the hamstring injuries Spurs were suffering then were “a consequence of the way we play and the way we train”.
He added: “When we get a more robust and deeper squad, we’ll be able to overcome it.”
Twelve months on and Spurs don’t have a significantly deeper squad and don’t seem to be any more robust either. Unless reinforcements arrive quickly in this window or Postecgolou tweaks things, they will remain hamstrung by pinging hamstrings.
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If it wasn’t clear when he arrived on our shores, it is abundantly so now. Ruben Amorim is going to have to overhaul an expensively assembled but substandard playing squad in order to revive Manchester United.
A United manager should never be faced with the prospect of relegation, but that is the cold reality engulfing Old Trafford this winter. Up next it is Liverpool, followed by Arsenal – somehow it could get even worse.
Amorim himself was reluctant to take the job mid-season for fear of not being able to stamp his authority on the squad amid the usual English fixture congestion.
He had no intention of using the January transfer window to begin his revamp of the playing personal. Now he almost has no choice.
The conditions are certainly stacked against him, but that does not mean he or the club’s new overlords are ruling out much transfer activity.
How much is there to spend?
With Erik ten Hag having spent, and largely wasted, another £200m in the summer, funds are limited, given the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) regulators are looking on with interest.
Any moves for several top targets could nonetheless take place in the coming weeks if United can shift any of a whole host of unwanted big earners.
In the eyes of PSR, allowing the likes of Casemiro, on north of £300,000-a-week, to leave, even on loan with his wages covered, will substantially increase United’s currently precarious position, freeing up funds for any incomings.
There are ways to be creative, as Chelsea have done with their “amortisation” approach to the transfer market, spreading the costs of arrivals over the duration of their lengthy contracts.
Several “credit facilities” are available to the club too, should they need them, but that will only further entice PSR scrutiny. Desperate times, however, call for desperate measures.
Who do they want to bring in?
United are keeping tabs on Napoli striker Viktor Osimhen who is on loan at Galatasaray (Photo: Getty)
The i Paper has been told that, despite the perilous financial situation United find themselves in, conversation are ongoing between the club and representatives of transfer targets so that if funds do become available, they can move quickly to get any deal done.
At the very least, a wing-back and a striker are top of Amorim’s wish list. As reported this week, fellow countryman Nuno Mendes from Paris Saint-Germain is top pick to fill the problematic left wing-back role, with the player understood to be keen to make the move.
Another who would link up with Amorim for the second time is teenager Geovany Quenda. The right wing-back is seen by the new boss as perfect for his 3-4-3 system, and an upgrade on the current options. He would represent a cheaper option to Mendes, but Sporting Lisbon are understood to be reluctant to sell mid-season.
For the striker role, Napoli striker Victor Osimhen has been looked at, as has PSG forward Randal Kolo Muani – who is available on loan with an obligation to buy.
Viktor Gyokeres, however, is the one Amorim really wants. The Swedish goal machine is understood to be very keen on the move, with Sporting said to be willing to allow him to leave for around £60m, but only in the summer.
That fee would likely have to rise to his release clause – £80m – for the 26-year-old to head to Old Trafford this month. Unlikely, given their financial position.
Who will leave?
Almost everyone, other than a handful of players, is for sale, at the right price. There are some, however, United are desperate to be rid of.
Marcus Rashford is the obvious candidate to spearhead any fundraising, given he is the club’s second highest earner and has publicly said he wants a new challenge.
However, it is understood that interest in taking him off United’s hands has not been forthcoming as yet. The club, however, would reportedly sanction on loan move away from Old Trafford, if some of his substantial wages were covered. His earnings alone top £16m per year.
Recouping even half that, along with a loan fee, would go a long way to starting any squad rebuild. The same goes for other higher earners – Casemiro and Antony. While all three may not attract a cash buyer, loaning them out to subsidise their salaries would aid United’s PSR cause.
Otherwise, any offers for the likes of Victor Lindelof, Christian Eriksen and Joshua Zirkzee, the latter attracting interest from Serie A in order to save him from his Old Trafford nightmare, will be entertained.
Even first-team regulars are seen as sellable. Diogo Dalot is on Real Madrid’s radar should their pursuit of Trent Alexander-Arnold fail to bear fruit, Alejandro Garnacho has several admirers monitoring his situation, while Harry Maguire, who is out of contract in the summer and faces an uncertain future, is one of few who can hold their heads high this term and say their form has not dramatically declined.
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The Reds have already shut down Madrid’s initial enquiry about Alexander-Arnold and intend to move forward with attempts to tie him down to a new, lucrative long-term contract.
And The i Paper understands that “not-for-sale” stance will not be changing under any circumstances this month – even if, as rumoured in Spain, there is a second approach for the England international.
It is a position that makes sense at Anfield. While Dani Carvajal’s injury makes Madrid’s need for a right-back pressing, a mooted bid of £20m holds little appeal for Liverpool.
They have no issues staying within the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) so even though that fee would go down on their books as “pure profit”, it would damage them at a time when they are closing in on the title.
The risk of losing him for nothing at the end of the season is one they are prepared to take given that within the corridors of power, they still retain a realistic hope of keeping him beyond the summer.
And even if Alexander-Arnold is thinking about Madrid’s approach, there is also justified confidence that he won’t agitate for a move this month or let his focus drop. Madrid’s mischief-making shouldn’t disrupt the form of one of their best players.
So what are the factors that will decide Alexander-Arnold’s long-term future? Here are the main questions that will give us an idea of whether he stays at Anfield or not.
How ambitious is Liverpool’s rebuild?
Alexander-Arnold has formed a strong relationship with Liverpool manager Arne Slot (Photo: Getty)
Given they are peering down at the rest of the Premier League, it is easy to forget that the Reds barely strengthened their squad in 2024 and arrived at the start of the season with real questions about whether their position in the top four was under threat.
A change of direction after Jurgen Klopp left – with the return of Michael Edwards in a key role across Fenway Sports Group and a return to the data-led approach – is yet to really be tested given that Liverpool have not made significant moves in the transfer market. Will the summer of 2025 be a game-changer?
Given he has committed a significant chunk of his career to the club, Alexander-Arnold is entitled to ask whether they are planning a rebuild that will keep them competitive among Europe’s elite.
Could Alexander-Arnold’s friendship with Bellingham turn his head?
Alexander-Arnold’s closest friend in football is England teammate Jude Bellingham.
During the 2022 World Cup Liverpool fans hoped the friendship would deliver the then Borussia Dortmund man to Anfield, so there is a nasty twist in the tale that it may now take Alexander-Arnold to Spain.
You can bet that Bellingham – who has settled well at the Bernabeu, looking every inch the superstar – will be extolling the virtues of life at Madrid.
Under-appreciated in England?
It says it all that for much of his career the debate around Alexander-Arnold in England has been about his defensive deficiencies.
The summer seemed to centre around whether he should be a deep-lying midfielder for the national team, simply because his passing range is unrivalled.
When that unsurprisingly didn’t come off, the criticism seemed to be aimed at Alexander-Arnold for some reason.
While it is true that he is no traditional right-back, there is so much to his game that isn’t truly celebrated in England. He is an extraordinarily talented player, versatile and fantastic on the ball. Would he be better suited to the pace of La Liga?
Does anyone ever turn down Madrid?
Michael Owen might not be the most popular man at Anfield these days but he had a point when he said that it is very difficult to turn down the chance to move to Real Madrid.
Gary Lineker backed up the point in his podcast when he said that – from a player’s point of view – it is almost impossible to say no to the big Spanish clubs.
It is hard to think of too many players who – when given a firm offer by Madrid – don’t accept it. It would be a remarkable show of faith in his boyhood club if he did.
Just how big is Liverpool’s offer going to be?
The Liverpool right-back currently earns £180,000 per week at Anfield (Photo: Getty)
It may not be the biggest motivation but money talks. A move to Madrid would come with wages that outstrip his current level. If he signs a pre-contract agreement, a signing-on fee that would be very substantial too.
Liverpool run a tight ship and have to finance contract offers to Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah too, so can they go to the £300,000-a-week or so that Alexander-Arnold probably wants? They can afford it, but it would be a huge test of Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group and their football policy to do it.
It is difficult to escape the feeling that Liverpool are paying a very big price for the stasis of the summer of 2023, when they employed Jorg Schmadtke to pacify Klopp and some big calls got put off.
What about his personal ambition?
Alexander-Arnold is on the record as saying he wants to be the best right-back who ever played the game, which is some ceiling.
So the onus is on Liverpool to show to him that they are a platform to do that.
Where does Slot factor into all this?
The Liverpool manager has quietly revolutionised Alexander-Arnold’s game, with the player speaking in glowing terms about the changes he has made to the way he plays.
He is a detailed tactical analyst who has been great for Alexander-Arnold.
Carlo Ancelotti deserves to be regarded as one of the best but he is not cut from the same cloth. Perhaps Slot’s meticulous approach is best for the player?
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Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here.
When I told people in interviews or friends in pubs that Blundell Park was the ground that I was most looking forward to visiting this season, there were a few eyebrow raises.
But in that weird hammock between Christmas and New Year you must fill your days with things that make you deeply content, and that means driving up the A46 and beyond.
I wanted my final match of 2024 to be somewhere I’d not been before, some place I knew I’d love from everything I’d read and heard.
I wanted Grimsby, and if that seems weird to you then I’m about to tell you – in 10 parts – why it shouldn’t.
1. The seaside
I was born and brought up just about as far away from the sea as you can get in England. The seaside was a distant place reserved for long, sticky days out in summer, often with grandparents. You had brilliant fun and then you had to decide whether to take your new shoes to the sea and get them wet or wash your feet, get sand on them again and thus put sand in your new shoes.
I’ve always loved looking at the sea, being near it with no obligation to go on or in. I try to go to the Isles of Scilly every year and the happiest days of my working life were spent in the Faroe Islands with KI Klaksvik. There’s something about growing up in a landlocked county in the centre of an island that makes staring into that great expanse particularly soothing.
I was football-obsessed as a kid, perhaps no more than many others around me but yet still intensely overpowered by it. Stickers, magazines, VHS recordings, going to matches with my Mum, three-and-in on the field, stingers, that weird thing they brought out that was effectively a small net to keep a football in and a string that you held so you could do kick-ups forever because you were controlling where the ball went with your hand. You get the picture.
The point is that the two never crossed over. Because we almost only went to home games at the City Ground and because Nottingham Forest were reasonably good until I was a teenager, football grounds were in big cities including, although only once, at the end of the M1 in Wembley. It’s hard to explain, but I never really twigged that you could be next to the sea and watch football.
All of these feelings were supercharged by lockdown. Due to personal circumstances, I pretty much went 18 months without leaving the house regularly and certainly went that long without seeing live football. On one day when restrictions allowed and my clinically vulnerable partner and I were feeling brave/caged in, we drove two hours to Sutton-on-Sea on the Lincolnshire coast, stared at the waves for a while and then drove home again. Somehow it helped.
As a result, these coastal grounds are the ones that I am drawn to the most, both for the aesthetic pleasure and the intrinsic enjoyment that I am blending together two things that I love. It’s like putting together a combination of your two favourite foods and realising that they work as one meal.
2. The end of the line
People are often pretty shitty about seaside towns in England and their people and, as a result, those people can feel disenfranchised. Look at the Brexit referendum map of the places with the highest Leave vote, and note how many of them are communities close to the sea in the extreme north west, east and south east of England.
These are what we might call end-of-the-line towns which the residents consider to be routinely ignored by Governments. The maps for sale in the House of Commons seem to stop bothering 10 miles from the coast in certain areas and ignore entire sections of the north completely.
In seaside towns, people literally rush in when the sun shines and then leave. That repeated wave is also true as a political metaphor. Around Grimsby the decline of the fishing industry took jobs away and there never appeared to be a plan to replace them. That creates resentment and, eventually, democratic mutiny. They wanted someone to listen and there were people of bad faith who listened because too few of good faith ever did.
These towns also – sorry, gear change – tend to create conditions for wonderful, traditional football clubs who exist as the pride of their people: Morecambe, Grimsby, Barrow, Carlisle, Sunderland. I’m aware that probably sounds flippant and patronising, but in my experience it’s true. I hate the use of the word “proper” in relation to anything in football, because it’s entirely subjective. But these are the clubs and grounds I adore the most.
Finally, all of these clubs have typically been through as many bad times as good. Because their clubs also seem to be abandoned or forgotten by those in positions of power, their supporters are usually brilliant with idiot visitors like me who want to listen and learn and generally bother them.
3. The view from the railway bridge
This view from the railway bridge takes my breath away (Photo: The i Paper)
The best place to park for Blundell Park, a secret seemingly shared by every single home supporter, is on or around Harrington Street. From there, you take a short walk past the ground until you reach the railway bridge.
That bridge might just have the best view in English football. Face one way and you have a short burst of grassy scrubland, empty beach and then sea. Face the other and you have Cleethorpes with Blundell Park in full focus, framed by its red-brick environment and endless sky above.
I have picked the perfect day for it. Three days of deep post-Christmas fog have suddenly lifted and the sky has picked its most beautiful blue to make up for lost time. The sun is warm, so long as you stand in a spot just out of the wind but not in shade. In Cleethorpes, the narrow streets and vast open spaces of the beach means that spot does not exist. Just as it should be.
This view (see photo above) takes my breath away and puts a tiny lump in my throat that is immediately cleared by a happy giggle. “This is cultural heritage,” I say to myself, before realising that I sound like Alan Partridge wandering around Norwich.
But still: this is cultural heritage. The rows of terraced houses, each identical when built but over time gaining distinguishing features: Sky dish, new windows, trampoline in garden. Then a football ground plonked in the middle as if it’s nothing at all. You can flick your eyes down the roads on Google maps: “Lovett Street, Tiverton Street, Blundell Avenue, ooh a football stadium, Neville Street, Fuller Street”.
Because Grimsby Town only have one two-tier stand and because Cleethorpes is almost exclusively two-storey buildings, the Findus Stand and floodlights stand impossibly tall. The only other edifice on the skyline that peeks into view is a church and that’s in the background anyway. The metaphor is delightfully on the nose. Now we must get inside.
4. The Main Stand
Walk back down Harrington Street and nip between Nos 93 and 95 and you arrive at the main entrance of Grimsby Town’s Main Stand. There is a magic wooden door (it’s not magic, it’s just small and you have to knock) that allows me access to the area at the back of the stand. Bonus points are awarded for cars being parked here during the game, roughly three metres from the touchline.
Grimsby’s Main Stand is famous because the central area is still original from its 1901 construction, making it the oldest stand currently in use in English league football. It is still largely wooden, with a lattice wooden frame coming out of the roof that is held together by shiny steel rivets.
The seats aren’t particularly comfortable. The desks are tiny. The little gateways were made for Borrowers. The view is blocked by a low roof (you get to play a fun game of “guess where the ball will land when it comes down”) and the metal poles which support the weight of the roof but actually end up making you feel more nervous, a bit like a flight safety demonstration. It goes without saying: it is all beautiful and I love it.
5. The floodlights
The floodlights at Blundell Park are part of English football heritage (Photo: The i Paper)
I’m not a big floodlights guy, which I want to stress because let me tell you there are those who are big floodlights guys. But at Blundell Park they come with some history.
In the 1950s, Wolverhampton Wanderers were pioneers of floodlit football and installed their own to play glamour night friendlies against high-profile opposition (the 1954 match against Honved is written into Wolves folklore).
In 1958, Grimsby bought Wolves’ floodlights off them and, two years later, installed them in the position where they still stand. In 2019, it was announced that the floodlights were to be removed (they were absolutely massive and needed someone to shimmy all the way up to change a bulb).
After much deliberation, the floodlights stayed but were instead reduced in height by a third and had extra LED lights installed. Two of them are also painted in massive black-and-white stripes, giving the whole thing a Subbuteo chic. Someone still has to shimmy all the way up to change a bulb.
Grimsby Town 3-0 Port Vale (Sunday 29 December)
Game no: 51/92
Miles: 176
Cumulative miles: 8,339
Total goals seen: 144
The one thing that I’ll remember in May: Standing on the railway bridge looking at the view of the ground and having a little happy cry.
6. The wind
You come to Grimsby in late December and you expect the wind to be fierce because if it’s not you want your money back. The principle element of enjoying these grounds is to rail against the homogeneity that ceaselessly marches across elite English football. Which is a long-winded way of saying: weather is fun when you’re under cover and wrapped up warm.
Clearances, of which there are plenty in this League Two encounter, hang in the wind so that winning headers is mighty difficult. Defenders and strikers run around in a slight crouch, trying to anticipate the landing zone as if it is a game within the game. Before kick off, the eight home mascots are dressed in full Grimsby home kits and so are freezing. They jump and hop to keep warm, like the worst audition of Riverdance you’ve ever seen.
But by far the best bit is the seagull (or inverted winger, as I’m now calling it). Midway through the first half, a Grimsby central defender arrows another clearance into the sky, where the ball meets a seagull swooping over Blundell Park but otherwise minding its own business.
The seagull is unhurt, dropping a few feet before carrying on its flight, presumably to tell his mates of the incident (serious thought: is this their equivalent of heading the ball back when it’s kicked into the stands?). But the ball rebounds down, where a Grimsby player takes it in his stride as if a) this happens all the time, and b) he had worked out all the angles pre-collision. Lovely, lovely stuff.
7. The Findus Stand
Opposite Blundell Park’s Main Stand is the Findus Stand, paid for with sponsorship money provided by the local crispy pancakes manufacturer (what a second mention that is, by the way). From the back this comparatively enormous grey structure looks, fittingly, like it could be a shipping warehouse.
But from the front, the Findus Stand appears slightly comical for it only runs half of the length of the pitch towards each corner flag, as if it has been slowly eroded by the wind from each side. That appearance is aided by its top-heavy nature: the lower tier is only seven rows deep but the upper far more.
Against the dark during the second half, the orange lights around the top tier provide a warm glow that makes those standing and sitting within it seem like actors on a vast stage. It makes me long to rush back to the railway bridge and see what those supporters look like from there, literally sat above the town.
What makes the Findus Stand most special is that the gaps on either side allow a glimpse at life outside the ground while football is being played. It’s the same at Burnley, Fleetwood and Mansfield if you sit in the right spot and to me it makes watching the game a dozen times more special.
You see some chimney smoke, a car sitting in traffic or a light switched on in an upstairs window and think “Ha, I’m watching football and you’re not”. It does not matter that they probably don’t want to be watching it; you are winning.
8. The sounds
Designers of new sporting arenas are obsessed with sound. These bowls typically have no corners and thus no space for noise to escape from, which allows them to pore over acoustic plans. They are preparing not for football supporters, but an audience.
Now I love loud stadiums, but to me football noise is better when it is light and shade, when it is organic rather than designed and when it is allowed to escape out of corners and into the streets outside.
Blundell Park is noisy when it needs to be. Grimsby score three times and the third goal, scored after the 90th minute and after a wretched mistake, is celebrated with more of a laugh than a roar. But there are also times when you can hear individual voices: “That were diabolical linesman”, “Use the free man” and “Squeeze ‘em, Town”, the last one uttered like a war cry.
The piece de resistance comes whenever the ball is cleared high out of play on the Main Stand side. That old stand has a corrugated iron roof that allows water to drain down easily and protects those below from moaning about any rain. The sound of a football dropping onto that roof, repeated with quicker intensity but lesser sound as it makes its way back towards the pitch, will be enough to make me smile until March. Am I a sad sap? Probably.
9. The sunset
Ingredients for the perfect football sunset: 1) a stand that only runs half the length of the pitch, thus allowing the sun to be seen for longer as it nears the horizon; 2) a ground that is angled for the sun to set where the gap is; 3) a 3pm kick off in winter, so the sun sets while the game is on; 4) fine weather, so you can see the sun, but also grey clouds rolling in to provide context. 5) whichever seat you’re in not to have its view blocked by the roof and a pillar.
The sun sets over Blundell Park during Grimsby’s 3-1 win over Port Vale (Photo: The i Paper)
You can’t have everything, but four out of five isn’t bad. Look at the state of it.
10. The sense of timing running out
The reason that I went to Grimsby, and the reason I’m doing this season-long project at all, is because I have this nagging sense that we must experience all of this while we can and those in a position to do so must campaign so that it doesn’t all get lost.
Grimsby Town have been after a new ground, or wanting to significantly modernise this one, for years. I get why. The press room is a small Portakabin next to where the club mascot gets into his outfit. The space at the back of the Main Stand for supporters to pass and congregate is virtually non-existent.
Football clubs need revenue and that means bums on seats. People have greater demands of service than they used to and that probably stretches beyond uncomfortably wooden seats and tight spaces. The whole issue is exacerbated by the financial inequalities within the Football League because League Two clubs need to raise ticket prices although the product may not be improved. So people expect more for their money.
Change is needed and change is progress. Greater distribution of funds must come to protect clubs in the football pyramid, and I’d much rather that money was spent on infrastructure that provides future-proofing than transfer fees, wages and agent payments. Inevitably that means that we lose some of these sights, sounds and sunsets.
So go to Grimsby if you can, and the umpteen other grounds you haven’t been to yet but always told yourself that you would. Park up on Harrington Road, walk along the beach and climb the steps of that railway bridge. Stare at the view and do a little happy-cry at the stark beauty of it all.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goalof visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season.You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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