Grimsby Town's Blundell Park

Lincoln City and Grimsby Town were in League Two together for five seasons, in which time there were many controversial incidents. City don't have a great record there in recent years though. It's an usual ground with the oldest stand left in British Football, as well as one of the least visually pleasing stands in the world.

Ahh Cleethorpes, fond memories come flooding back after spending almost every weekend of my childhood summers watching my parents put countless 2p in a machine hoping to win more 2p's. Having not gone to Cleethorpes for over 4 years, City were due to play Grimsby Town so I decided to go have a nice little day out in the seaside town. Getting off the train in Cleethorpes station at 10am brought back so many memories and looking around, not much had changed. First job was to secure the location of the footbridge leading to the ground so after a 10 minute walk up the seafront, I came to the end of the road and there it was, the footbridge. So having now made sure of the location of the bridge, I could have some fun. Getting some food meant going in a fish and chips place on the seafront and the food was absolutly gorgeous, I would seriously recommend it, it's the one as you turn right after exiting the sea-front side of the station that's next to the main arcade.

THE AWAY END -  THE OSMAND STAND

Anyway, a few rounds of bowling, House of the Dead 2 and a bit of a snooker later, I finally made my way to the ground. However, something caught my attention, a teddybear machine with some really cool stuff in it. So I put £1 and the first go was a bit of a dud, second one grabbed hold of the toy/teddy replica of a Jamacian on drugs and brought it to the hole and I was thinking, nice one, alas, when it dropped the Jamaican, it was over the hole but somehow, the thing bounced back in after hitting the side, grrrrr.

After several more attempts of trying to get the other ones involved, I'd just create a little orgy in the middle of the machine and there was only one realistic one left to get, thankfully I managed to get it and have something to show for my 5 minutes. The same Jamacian toys are still available in the grabber machines as of 2009.

I really should start talking about the ground itself.

THE PONTOON STAND 

After another trek, I finally got to the ground, or at least one set of turnstiles, after a half mile walk around a council estate full of very crappy houses. I finally made it to the front of the ground. I did the usual of going in the club shop to be meeted by several young women stuffing their faces with chips, after several pieces of chip went in my face from them talking and eating at the same time, I finally got the programme and couldn't get out of the place fast enough. Now, one thing about the turnstiles if you're at an all ticket game, the tickets says, go through turnstiles 5-14, yet no turnstiles are marked with numbers, I had to scurry back through the club shop and into the ticket office to just confirm where 5-14 were.

Finally getting into the ground, I had mixed feelings. The stand away fans in was quite massive, however, the roof was a bit of a problem, if you went to the top, you quite literally had to sit down, for all those who think "I won't sit down," then you won't see half the game because the roof quite literally blocks the view of the far end of the pitch.

As you can tell from the image below, if you're on row Z (which oddly comes straight after row O), you have absolutly no chances of seeing the other goal, the final picture on the right demostrates this perfectly. Anyway, the away end, if you were sat in the right place offered a great view of the action.

THE VIEW FROM THE TOP ROW OF THE AWAY END - MY CAMERA IS POINTED STRAIGHT AHEAD AND NOT AT ANY TYPE OF ANGLE.

The stand to our left was a very neat stand, although in a similar style of the Echo stand at Sincil Bank, it only covered around 1/3 of the pitch. It is strange that Sincil Bank is constantly mocked for it's Echo Stand, but there are numerous grounds with a similar sort of stand, and Grimsby is one of those.

This stand was 2 tiered I have sat in this stand twice, with the view from the upper tier being excellent. You can also see over the stand opposite, meaning that if you so choose, you could watch the ships pulling into the docks....although it would have to be an exceptionally dull game for that.

The stand opposite away fans would be a fairly good end if it wasn't for the colour scheme, if you ever went to Feethams and can remember the all seated stand they had there and that colour scheme, it's basically that, for all those that haven't, the stand has columns of 2 seats wide and each column is alternatively black or white. The final stand is just an average seated stand, very similar to that at Southend in that no matter where you sit (unless it's the front row), you have at least two pillars in your view.

THE MAIN STAND 

Overall I had a mixed day out. We won comfortably and I enjoyed going around Cleethorpes again, however, I didn't feel safe at a single point during the day. I was just expecting a load of Grimsby hooligans to just jump out of nowhere and start attacking me. In the ground the fans were only separated by a small fence that didn't feel secure at all, and had the police not intercepted them then the Grimsby fans could have easily gotten into the Lincoln end.

Walking back to the train station was fun, the only Lincoln fan walking amounst hundreds of Grimsby fans, oh the looks I got. I would definitely recommend walking to Cleethorpes train station via the seafront as it is incredibly safer than walking via the street.

Overall I would recommend this as a day out for anyone at any time of year with the exception of winter (although City only ever seem to play there at that time of year) obviously because there isn't a lot to do. However, be very careful if you're a local team supporter because you'll never feel safe until you get home again.

THE CARLSBERG STAND

Grimsby didn't really create much of an atmosphere on any of my visits, although there was a tiny section of fans in the bottom tier of the Carlsberg Stand that were constantly goading City's fans. The only other brief sections of singing throughout the matches I've been to have came when Grimsby have just scored, other than that it was virtually silent.