HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF – PART SEVEN

In February 1988, then Commercial Manager Ed Egholm commented in the matchday programme, “Currently we see the club clinging tenaciously to every slender thread and fighting for survival and doesn’t it restore your faith in human nature when people like Fred Clyburn and Terry Gavin through Action ’88, have already raised in excess of £10,000 for the club.”

Action Group ’88 was created by Town director Bill Duffield after club officials came to the realisation that something had to be done to secure the club’s existence. Following a meeting with Messrs Clyburn and Gavin, the three businessmen agreed that for Grimsby Town to survive the season, they needed to get the local business community involved and so they created a package whereby companies invested a minimum of £1000 which was either converted into shares or became a loan to the club. Members then received a free season ticket for the Findus Stand for the next five years. 

In just over a month £10,000 was raised and Action Group ’88 met with the Town directors to nominate their representative to the Board as Commercial Director. Eventually local businessman Brian Glover (pictured left) was appointed in this capacity, by which time a further £10,000 had been raised.

Glover went on to instigate a successful plan of action to raise more money, which ensured that the club survived the close season in 1988 and had at least some money to spend on new players for the new season.

Given that the club had just been relegated to Division Four, the commercial department nevertheless secured a four year deal with new kit suppliers Scoreline, sold all the programme advertising, obtained a sponsorship agreement with brewers Whitbread and sold all the perimeter advertising. Virtually all the executive boxes were also sold, as were the matchball sponsorships and a good percentage of match sponsorships and the number of Vice Presidents was doubled.

In addition to local businesses supporting Town via Action Group ’88, the local food industry and food-related companies together with Great Grimsby Borough Council also got behind their local football club as a shirt sponsorship deal saw Grimsby Town officially become the best team in Europe(‘s Food Town).

All in all, it was a fantastic achievement by Brian Glover, Action Group ’88 and the local business community and was vital to the success which was soon to follow. Who knows? Without Action Group ’88, there might have been no club left for Alan Buckley to come in and manage and eventually take to Wembley three times.

At the beginning of the 1988-89 season, the programme notes stated that:

“Not only has Action Group ’88 become a successful platform for raising money for Grimsby Town FC, but the fellowship created in the once a fortnight meetings makes the involvement very pleasurable. Long may it continue.”

And continue it did – for about five years anyway. But as with all the other fundraising organisations I’ve written about, it continued with ever decreasing public exposure. There was never a great deal written about Action Group ’88 in the programme, except for when they sponsored matches or underwrote the Grand National Draw, which they helped to instigate twenty years ago. They were doing a great job, but rarely did anyone blow their trumpet for them.

Yet again, Action Group ’88, like its fundraising predecessors, was almost certainly a victim of the success it had helped to create and yet again, it eventually faded away because that double promotion-winning success blinded everyone to the reality that, in the long-term, triumph and disaster go hand in hand and with this club as with so many others, one will always inevitably follow the other.

It would be nice to think that we will one day learn from our mistakes, but history suggests that we are destined to keep repeating them.