I first started following Grimsby Town in 1964 when I was at Grimsby Nautical College and if they had a midweek game I'd go along just to see some football, my weekends were spent back in Brum and down the Villa. When I actually started to go to sea getting home to see the Villa was almost impossible so, only sixty hours ashore between trips put paid to that so I decided to make The Mariners my 'second team' and went to as many matches as possible.
In 1971 They signed a young bloke called Lawrie McMenemy as manager and the style of football he got them playing was way above anything I'd seen at Blundell Park before, I can't remember the exact sequence of his first four games in charge but it went something like won 4-0 won 4-1 won 4-1 won 4-0 and promoted to Div Three in the same season. Since then it's been a bit of a yo-yo job between the third and fourth tier with the exception of Alan Buckley's reign when we reached the dizzying heights of a top six finish in Div Two. But it wasn't long before they settled back to bouncing around in the third and fourth divisions again.
The best player I saw playing for them was Matt Tees who I suppose you could say was a poor man's Andy Gray, when he hit the ball it stayed hit. One memorable incident was when playing against Hartlepool he cracked one from about 25 yards out and fair play to the goalkeeper he got his hand to it, trouble was that it smacked his hand against the cross bar and broke his wrist!
Kevin
Memory added on May 19, 2016
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