With apologies to the good people of their rivals Scunthorpe and Lincoln, Grimsby Town should be everyone’s second club.
As they look to take their second big Premier League scalp of the season against Wolves this weekend – Ruben Amorim never really recovered from his soaking in the Blundell Park dugouts – here’s why they’re a beacon of hope in lower tiers of the EFL.
Civic pride
It is five years since Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit, two local Grimsby businessmen done good, saved the club and great strides have been made. Cup runs and promotion are big ticks but it is the club’s culture that should really warm the heart.
“Our sense of civic responsibility is at the heart of everything we do. Grimsby Town football club is our church, it’s where we congregate and spend time with friends and loved ones,” Pettit tells The i Paper.
Take this example: how many clubs build a new training ground with the desire to make it open to the local community? That is exactly what Grimsby, who are set to announce the location of the new build “soon”, are about to do.
Lower-league data zealots
It began before their FA Cup quarter-final meeting in 2023 when Grimsby’s co-owners cheekily asked Brighton’s Tony Bloom if they could have access to his world-leading transfer algorithms. The answer was a polite no but the seed of an idea was planted.
Grimsby subsequently signed up as one of select band of clubs to use Bloom’s Jamestown consultancy and have gone “all in”.
Fair play. Because while many talk a good game on data Grimsby actually back it up, signing Faroese midfielder Geza David Turi on the back of recommendations.
“We’re already planning for the next two transfer windows – we’re already thinking about what we’re going to do in August and the processes have started now,” Pettit says.
No soulless out-of-town stadiums
My colleague Daniel Storey hailed Blundell Park as the best ground in England and Grimsby’s stadium does feel special.
In an era of soulless out-of-town stadiums it’s heritage should be cherished and on Sunday it’s power will be channeled as they welcome another struggling Premier League club. Good news, too. It’s here to stay.
“You’ve got to take a cold, calculated look at things. I’m in property in my day job, if you look a lot of the stadiums that have been built in the last 20-30 years they’ve been built on the back of retail developments and I don’t think they’re viable in the Grimsby area,” Pettit says.
“We’re not saying ‘Over our dead body’ on the stadium but year-on-year we’ve spent money on it. Building a new stadium in a soulless, out-of-town location isn’t high on our agenda.”
Proper manager-owner synergy
In boss David Artell they have a proper “project” guy, who buys in to Grimsby’s plan. In return he gets the faith of the ownership. Some Premier League clubs would do well to take notice.
“It’s a genuine partnership and he’s a very intelligent guy,” Pettit says.
“When we started and introduced Artell-ball, or whatever you’d call it, we suffered some heavy defeats but now we’ve got a game model that goes through the club to the academy.”
A proper, old-fashioned FA Cup giant-killing?
It’s a long shot but on the face of it, it’s a recipe for a shock. Grimsby feel on the way up, Wolves have spent the season struggling.
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Add in the Blundell Park factor, the weather and a unified, sell-out home support and there has to be belief.
And it may be the start of something bigger, with Grimsby on the edge of the play-offs.
“You look at the examples of Luton and even Brighton and Bournemouth, who are fixtures in the Premier League. We were playing them 20 years ago in League Two. We can dare to dream,” Pettit says.
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