My Memories of the Mariners

By Nathan Jackson
December 27 2007

In a new feature that will feature every once in a while I will tell you all some of my own personal favourite memories of away games, starting with Grimsby Town and a cold December evening. Despite a 3-0 defeat at Blundell Park in the 2005/6 season, I have fond memories of our game in Cleethorpes that season because I ended up not leaving Grimsby until about 5:50am after 2 hours sleep.

2 years ago I was in the employment of British Telecom, and one of my work friends was a guy called Dave Parrott. I had worked there for about 7 months at this stage and me and Dave got on fairly well and the fact he was a Grimsby fan didn't really bother me if I'm honest. With the Mariners doing well Dave was in a generally good mood on most occasions that season, things at Sincil Bank were fair from rosey as the Imps were in a relegation battle.

Dave wasn't like most opposition fans though, he didn't take the piss, he didn't antagonise, I suppose it was because Grimsby had recently had two relegations in a row and he knew what it felt like. Dave was one of the genuinely decent people I've met and when our teams were due to face each other in a midweek fixture at Blundell Park, he kindly offered me a place to stay for the night. I wanted to make a day of Grimsby and wanted to go on the train, but unfortunately there weren't any trains back after the game so I was kind of screwed until Dave stepped in.

Skip forward a few weeks and I've completed a half-day shift at work and get ready to catch the train to Codheadland. It had been snowing quite heavily so the game was still in doubt and it even started snowing whilst I was on the train. The game at this point was down to a pitch inspection, meaning that I was heading there not knowing whether the game would be on or not.

Just before 4pm the train rolls into Grimsby and Dave meets me in the Wetherspoons pub just outside the train station and then makes a bit of a hash trying to find the right bus to get to the ground. One there we go into a social club outside the ground that is strictly home-only. At this point I'm feeling nervous but thankfully I wasn't wearing my Lincoln shirt so nothing was giving me away.

After about 90 minutes of feeling extremely uncomfortable and watching what I say, we leave and we head off for our different turnstiles. So we get to the game and well let's just say that City don't play well. Infact we're 3-0 down at half time and I get a text from Dave saying "Your defence is shocking...." something Lincoln fans have heard only too often since.

City shut up shop in the second half and managed to not concede anymore. After half an hour of farce it turns out that I'm waiting for Dave outside the Grimsby turnstiles and he's waiting for me outside the Lincoln turnstiles. Again, Dave doesn't take the piss, well not much anyway. Infact he seemed to be in a somewhat regretful mood that his side had just won 3-0 against their local rivals.

After a 40 minute walk we finally arrive back to his house and I am told my bed will be the incredibly low and broken couch that I am sitting on, great. At about 3:30am and after watching Wishmaster 4 on the Horror Channel, I finally get to sleep but I'm awoken by my alarm 90 minutes later to go and catch my train. After more faffing about for 15 minutes trying to get the key in the door I finally get out and on my way.

Getting back into Lincoln about 7am I find out that my driving lesson is cancelled and so I have three free hours before I have to go to work....instead of sleeping I watch TV and spend the day at work gradually getting quite ill from being frozen to death in Grimsby. Dave eventually turned up at about 1:45pm looking refreshed and not in the slightest bit ill......git.

In the time since then Dave helped out once or twice with this website, including doing questionnares before each meeting. Grimsby would eventually eliminated City in the semi final stage of the Playoffs. I was going to go with Dave to their playoff final against Cheltenham but decide against it, shame really as it would have been good to go again looking back on it.

At the beginning of 2007 I left BT and unfortunately myself and Dave have lost contact, so on Saturday if you see a guy in his early 20s looking miserable even if Grimsby are winning, that's Dave.