I first met Bernard Morley in 1987 when I started going to away games and got involved with the Grimsby Town Supporters Sports and Social Club. He was already Chairman by then, at a time when it was far more than just a travel club. It was a thriving organisation, in terms of both the sports and the social and Bernard didn’t just have a finger in most of the pies; it was usually both hands.

Of course he was already into his sixties by then, but full of energy and enthusiasm and when the position of manager of the Grimsby Town Supporters Sunday League football team became vacant in 1988, he took that on as well. He wasn’t just the manager though; he was the Physio, kit man, half-time drinks maker and chauffeur to half the team at times when we were short on cars to get out to Nettleton. It was amazing how many people you could pack into a car in those days without getting nicked by the police.

Not content with being both chairman and football manager, in April 1989 Bernard volunteered to take over as travel organiser as well. In many ways it was the worst committee job of the lot, because people would ring up at all hours to book seats, forgetting that it wasn’t his full-time job and that he organised the coaches out of the kindness of his heart and never received a penny for doing it. People frequently let him down as well, by booking and then failing to turn up on the day and then there were the cloud cuckoo landers, who would ring up and ask if the £10 fare to a London area destination included a match ticket! His patience must have been sorely tested at times, but he only ever threatened to pack in the job on those rare occasions when passengers had got seriously out of order or damage had been done to a coach, usually on a trip to a derby match when the idiots tend to crawl out of the woodwork and onto the bus. Of course he never carried out his threats.

Bernard tried never to disappoint anyone who wanted to get to an away game but didn’t have transport of their own, although sometimes there was so little demand for a coach that his trusty Nissan Bluebird made the journey instead. Those car trips could be eventful though and I remember us coming face to face with a double decker bus after going the wrong way up a one-way street on a rainy night in Hartlepool. We even got lost coming back from a night match at Scunthorpe once and finished up at the end of the runway at an abandoned airfield. I still don’t know how the hell we managed it. The Nissan did come in handy in Sunderland though, where it was taken for a local and we were able to park right outside the turnstiles at Roker Park.

Although the social side of the Supporters Club gradually died away, Bernard continued to organise the travel with as much enthusiasm as ever, right up until the time he became ill. I remember going round to his house last year to pay for some seats for Cardiff on the Saturday after we’d beaten Lincoln. He already had about a dozen coaches full, was surrounded by piles of coach tickets and the phone never stopped ringing. But with the help of family members, he got the job done and I would imagine that everyone who wanted to go to Wales got a seat on a coach. Most people, including me, couldn’t have managed a mammoth task like that at half his age and wouldn’t have wanted to, but there he was at eighty years old, still doing the business and always with a smile on his face.

Bernard Morley was someone who got on with everyone, young or old, and over the years, thousands of supporters must have crossed his path and enjoyed his company on the way to away games or in the Pontoon Stand at home matches. Bernard was liked and respected by all who knew him. Of course there were times when someone would step out of line, usually a misguided youngster, but he was always ready for it and the sight of an angry Bernard storming down the bus waving his walking stick in a menacing manner was usually enough to encourage improved behaviour. He rarely held a grudge though and the object of his wrath might be banned from the coach for good one week but was invariably back on it the next.

The faces on the coaches were always changing as supporters came and went for a variety of reasons, but Bernard was a constant, only missing two games in the time I travelled with him, one an F.A. Cup match at West Ham due to bereavement and the other when he had a hernia operation. Of course, it goes without saying that he was back for the next game, and anyway it was only a trip to the tin shack down the motorway he was absent from, so he didn’t miss much.

Bernard will be greatly missed by all who knew him and it is to be hoped that when the new stadium is built, a fitting and permanent tribute to a truly remarkable and wonderful man will be an integral part of it.

Rachel Branson