England’s high scorers push for promotion
Only Barcelona have scored more home goals this season than this non-league club. They are unbeaten in the league since the 21st October. The team I am talking about is Grimsby Town.
Grimsby Town aren’t exactly the biggest club in the world they play on the coast in Cleethorpes and their stadium has a capacity of 8,500. Grimsby situated in Lincolnshire, a county that hasn’t got the greatest of Footballing talent, Scunthorpe United is the only Lincolnshire team left in the football league.
It was only 7 years ago when Grimsby Town had narrowly missed out on a play-off spot that would have given them the chance to get into the Premiership. In the 2001/02 season Grimsby beat Liverpool 1-2 in a fourth round League cup match, it was a memorable night for the Mariners. It wasn’t for me as I was at that match and being a Liverpool fan it was dreadful, what made it worst was my Dad was also at the game and he is a Grimsby fan. To this day I still get reminded of that night at Anfield.
The club went through a serious cash flow problem in 2003/04 which in the end cost them their status in what was Division 2, as they finished bottom of the league in that season. Grimsby entered the fourth tier of English Football which was renamed League 2 a couple of seasons after being knocked out of the old Division 1 now the Championship.
The 2005/06 season proved to be costly for Grimsby Town as the Mariners lost the most important match in the club’s recent history when they missed out in the play-off final 1-0 to Cheltenham Town. The club did get to the Johnstone Paint Trophy Final at the new Wembley in 2008 but lost 2-0 to MK Dons, this was a brief highlight in Grimsby’s decent down the leagues.
However fortunes seem to be changing for the Mariners of late. They are on an unbelievable 16 game unbeaten run in the Blue Square Premier. Over the Christmas break they did the double over local rivals Lincoln City beating them 1-2 away and winning 3-1 at home. These results have given them the momentum to push on for a play-off spot.
In the first 10 games of the season Grimsby had only won 2 of them and were staring another relegation battle in the face. The team pulled together and joint managers Rob Scott and Paul Hurst have done a brilliant job in turning the season around.
Results have been excellent and so have scoring goals. Grimsby currently average 4 goals a game at home, this is largely thanks to top scorer Liam Hearn who has scored 3 hat-tricks so far this season taking his tally to 24 goals, his recent hat-trick was scored at the weekend in the 6-0 home win against Bath City.
Hearn has been on the radar of many clubs during this January transfer window, however if Grimsby can hang onto the fans favourite then, he and strike partner Anthony Elding who has scored 12 goals this season can help the Lincolnshire club push for a place back in the football league.
The Mariners currently sit 9th in the league and are now 5 points from a play-off place. February and March will prove to be crucial to Grimsby in their season as they have games against York City, Southport and Fleetwood Town, all teams that are in and around the play-off places. If Grimsby can win these crucial games then they have a great chance of getting back into the football league.
Daniel Clark@ClarkyD92
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