Wow, Grimsby Town!

Me in my Grimsby Town shirt in 2016, wearing it in support of the team in advance of their successful playoff promotion back to the Football League that year.

Back in 2015 I started an accidental and unlikely friendship with the supporters of Grimsby Town FC. Grimsby is a small fishing town on the north east coast of Lincolnshire, on the estuary of the Humber River. Their football team was founded in 1878 and is one of the oldest in the world. They have had a full history of ups and downs, have played at every one of the top five levels of football in England, and have a modest trophy haul, including divisional championships and playoff promotions and two Football League Cup wins, the second most important cup in English football.

Of all of those matches played over a century and a half few were as big as last night’s. Grimsby Town were drawn at home against Manchester United in the League Cup. It was a classic David v Goliath set up. Town is settled mid table in the fourth division (League 2) and Manchester United, despite horrific form in the last couple of years, are who they are, one of the most valuable global sports businesses, with a legendary history and a near permanent (but not absolute!) lock on Premier League and European football.

Last night was a match for the ages. The struggling visitors went down 2-0 on a couple of well worked, if a little lucky, goals from a hugely motivated home side, who were playing in front of some of the most diehard supporters in lower league English football. The only question in the second half was whether Town had the legs to sustain what was certainly going to be an onslaught from the billionaires from Manchester. Withstood it they did, but it cost them two goals, and when the referee blew for full time after 98 torrid minutes, much of which was played in a monsoon, the two sides remained drawn.

That meant penalties. The first five penalties for both sides were near perfect, but Town missed their third, requiring their keeper Christy Pym to come up with a spot of magic or risk going out. Pym saved United’s fifth penalty and the context continued. Every kick was scored from then out, including both keepers scoring on each other and it wasn’t until they started into the second round off penalties that united’s Bryan Mbeuno hit the cross bar and sent the supporters into giant-killing heaven.

Having been on the winning end of a historic giant killing myself, I LOVE watching these things happen, something which is unique to football in general in which clubs from different levels of the pyramid play each other in Cup matches. For supporters it is an indescribable moment. The tension builds and builds, especially if you are defending a lead. Going to penalties makes it worse. But the relief and joy and pride that is released after the victory, and the subsequent sinking in of the magnitude of the occasion makes it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

This is why we follow our teams, especially the ones we have a real stake in. It is for the drama and community and the emotional roller coaster ride that passion takes you upon. I’m so happy for my Grimsby Town friends. I know what they are feeling today – the glow of something truly special still lingering in their hearts, stunned smiles pasted across their faces. A lifetime of suffering through cold nights and desperate relegations and crappy ownership and a glory era that ended 90 years ago – all of that gone by the wayside this morning, traded for a feeling that you will never know except by experiencing it.