When I look down at the fixture list now (Aldershot, Burton Albion, Accrington Stanley), in between long, wet sobs, I remind myself that, not so long ago, it would have included Newcastle United, Wolves, Leeds United, Birmingham City and Portsmouth. Somewhat incredibly, given our present parlous state, one of our managers was sacked after we ‘only’ managed a 1-1 draw away at Portsmouth. It all seems a long time ago now, as though that history belonged to someone else and another team.
When did the rot start? If you want to know where the story begins we need to delve back, way beyond last season’s relegation-avoider on the final day of the season (and even then only because of the enormous points deduction suffered by Luton Town), you could do worse than start at September 1st, 2001.
That was the day that England famously thrashed Germany 5-1 in Munich, revenge for those many matches we’d been turned over by our Teutonic cousins. Earlier that day, we’d defeated Barnsley 1-0 to go top of the old Division One (now the Championship). Within three seasons we’d sunk to the lower reaches of League Two. I was so happy that day, I made my wife take a picture of me, thumbs aloft, pointing at Teletext.
That result was an illusion. In fact, we’d been playing terribly all season, as we pretty much had the whole time Lenny Lawrence had taken over as manager. We managed to avoid relegation that season (just) but finished bottom the following season and didn’t bother hanging around in League One when League Two somehow seemed more alluring. This is now the longest spell we’ve ever had the in the basement division, the only bright spot being 2005-06 season when we missed out on promotion firstly in the final three minutes of the final day of the season – and then lost in the play-off final to Cheltenham. Even then Town fans weren’t happy, having been subjected to some of the most joyless football seen at Blundell Park for many a year (and, Jesus, there’s been some stiff competition). Manager Russell Slade left after the game against Cheltenham.
Last season, even by the stringent standards of Grimsby Town, was a catastrophe. Alan Buckley, inexplicably brought back for a third time as manager in November 2006, was sacked after nine league games and no wins (in fact, the winless streak went back to March the previous season) and Mike Newell brought in.
We eventually got our first win in mid-November, by which time Rotherham (-17 points) and Darlington (-10 points) had cruised past us in the fast lane. Loan players were brought in, some of them pretty good (and some laughably bad) but the fact was he’d inherited a side that was plunging rapidly into the abyss. The goalkeeper, Phil Barnes, was a liability. The defence was incredibly young (average age 21), the midfield was so disorganised they looked like they’d met on a bus on the way to the game and the strikers had had so little service they’d gotten fat waiting for the ball to appear.
In the January transfer window Newell took action, drafting several loan players in. Results were awful, until we played Lincoln City in March and thrashed them 5-1. The most significant signing was keeper Wayne Henderson, an Irish international returning from injury, who we got from Preston till the end of the season. From the Lincoln game onwards we won five matches and drew another three. Hardly the lightning form that gets teams promotion, but enough – just – to stay in League Two.
What makes our plummet all the more painful is watching Scunthorpe United and Hull City enjoying the greatest periods in their history. We’d been used to stealing all of Scunthorpe’s best players for decades and now, here they were, using us, as a source for players looking to build their careers. Scunthorpe. In fact, at one stage even Boston United were above us. We were officially the worst team in Lincolnshire (as well as the rest of the country).
Despite the catastrophic season we’d just endured there was a strangely giddy feeling about the club over the summer, as though the worst was over and the sunshine was about to return. We’d done enough during the final two months of the season to suggest we should be fine. Newell bolstered the squad with Peter Sweeney, an excellent (if dreadfully unfit) midfielder from Leeds, who’d been on loan during the final few months. He was joined by Adrian Forbes, Barry Conlon and Joe Widdowson. Okay, so we might not be challenging Notts County, but we should do enough.
How wrong we were. Newell was sacked after an “irretrievable breakdown” with chairman John Fenty and youth team coach (and former striker) Neil Woods promoted. This has not been a popular appointment, not because he isn’t liked, but the feeling is we needed someone with experience, someone to galvanize the fragile and combustible squad into something slightly less inept than it presently is. (Personally, I think if he’s given enough time to develop he may well turn out to be half-decent; half-decent being somewhere well above our recent managerial experiences.)
There is the faintest glimmer of hope nestling among the substantial storm clouds permanently circling above Blundell Park. We have, after many years of failing dismally, finally produced a crop of young players from our academy that look like they make professional footballers. Danny North, a built-to-last striker with weight and scoring issues, has been flirting in and out of the team for the past few seasons, as has Peter Bore, a prodigiously talented footballer who, if his laziness and arrogance is knocked out of him may yet make a player. On the fringes of the team there is Josh Fuller, a nippy winger who’s already played a few games, Bradley Wood, an excellent full-back. We’ve already said bye-bye to Jack Barlow who, at 15-years-old, made his first team debut in a pre-season friendly. He went to Hull City for £200,000 two months ago and then there was Ryan Bennett, our teenage captain, who went to Peterborough United at the same time.
“We piss on you fish,” they sing in the Pontoon. We may well do. Personally, I’d prefer if we pissed on their defences.
