In response to an appeal on the club’s official website, the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust has stepped in to sponsor the six youth team players, who were previously unsponsored, for the remainder of the season.

Mark Courtley, Sam Woods, Omar Ali, Josh Burge, Craig Parker and Liam Davis will all now be sponsored by the Trust, as part of our ongoing commitment to supporting the GTFC youth system.

The importance of bringing through our own talent cannot be overestimated. Looking back over the last thirty years, Ryan Bennett, Peter Bore, Danny Butterfield, Gary Croft, Kevin Drinkell, Tony Ford, Peter Handyside, Nick Hegarty, Jack Lester, Mark Lever, Gary Lund, John McDermott, Dave and Kevin Moore, Danny North, John Oster, Andy Taylor and Paul Wilkinson have all come up through the Grimsby Town youth team to make their mark in the first team. Some have gone on to long careers with Town, whilst others have brought money into the club through transfer fees at a time when it was really needed.

A quality youth system can both save and make a club a small fortune and of course it can be the foundation of a successful team on the pitch. Look at the promotion winning team from 1979/80, which went on to great success and an extended stay in the old second division. Obviously, it’s essential to mix the youth with experience to produce a team capable of winning things, as Alan Buckley has consistently done during his three spells at Blundell Park, but unless your club is bankrolled by a backer with a bottomless pit of funds, the fewer quality, experienced players you need to fork out large amounts of cash for the better.

We’ve all seen the trouble Grimsby Town has had bringing players into the club, even on loan. It’s garbage, but Grimsby seems to have acquired a reputation as the last place on earth players should want to come to and in the past we’ve lost out on some quality players due to our “grim” location and ended up with a few donkeys because they were all we could get. Thankfully we seem to be getting away from bringing in players just to make up the numbers now and this has been helped in no small part by the fact that our squad has been bolstered by Bennett, Bore, Hegarty, North and Taylor all breaking into the first team over the last couple of seasons.

The Grimsby Town youth system now fields teams from under-9s upwards through the School of Excellence and with the bigger clubs talent spotting boys at even younger ages than ever, it is important for the club to catch the best local lads, so we don’t miss out on them, as has happened in the past.

If you would like to help us do more to support the GTFC youth system, you can join the Grimsby Town Supporters Trust. Over 50% of your membership fee (£15 a year, which is reduced to £12 if paid by standing order) will be invested in the youth system, with the remainder being used to purchase GTFC shares and sponsorship. For further details, visit our website www.gtst.net.