HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF – PART NINE

“Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No...history just burps and we taste again that raw onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.”A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Julian Barnes (1989)

Barnes’ raw-onion sandwich (which let’s face it, would never have been a big seller at the Pontoon kiosks) for a meat pie as dodgy as the MK Dons’ penalty at Wembley and the centuries for decades and you have a fair summation of the subject matter of the previous eight instalments of ‘History Repeating Itself’.

When talking about the repetition of history, Barnes was referring to a quote by Karl Marx (pictured left after vowing not to shave off his beard until Tottenham Hotspur won another game during the 1882/83 season), who in turn was commenting on something G.W.F. Hegel said way back in 1830.

“What experience and history teach is this – that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.” Lectures on the Philosophy of World History:Introduction.

Again, substitute nations and governments for football supporters and their clubs, and Hegel’s theory is an accurate reflection of what I’ve been banging on about for the last few months.

Over forty years, we had Supporters and Junior Supporters Clubs, the Youth Development Association (twice) and Action ’88, all of whom did a fantastic job of raising money for Grimsby Town. Indeed it would be fair to say that the club probably wouldn’t be here today without them, not in the Football League at any rate. Yet they all ultimately faded out of existence, because nearly everyone forgot that supporting Grimsby Town is like being a trawlerman. One day, the sun is out, the sea is calm and your net is bulging, the next you’re in a force ten gale, in danger of sinking and the catch is so poor, you end up paying the owner for the privilege of working on his boat.

Hegel (pictured right, with the look of a man who could easily have been a Town fan had he only been born a century later) was bang on really. We’ve learned nothing from the continual rise and fall of GTFC and its supporters’ organisations, which doesn’t really bode well for the Trust! Longevity has decreased with each supporters group. The Supporters Club lasted twenty-eight years, the Junior Club twelve, the YDA eleven and nine years and Action Group ’88 half a decade.

The Trust recently passed the five year mark since its official launch, so how long will we go on for? It’s hard to say. I keep harping on about it, but the fact is the Trust Board is very small. We recently lost two board members because they just don’t have the time to commit anymore. It’s a real struggle and we badly need new people to become involved, particularly those with a financial or events organisation background or who are interested in taking our Junior Mariner scheme forward. If you’re interested, please email us at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it , call us on 0870 4711827 or write to us at: GTST, 26 Humberstone Road, Grimsby, DN32 8BP.

Like the club, our survival depends on the continuing support of the fans (ideally in larger numbers) and it’s also vitally important that we keep people aware of our existence with regular publicity, such as we receive in this programme.

If we follow the trends and the Trust folds, it will hopefully be because the club is successful and the fans believe (rightly or wrongly) we’re not needed anymore. But wouldn’t it be great if this generation of supporters paid attention to history for once and prepared for the worst even whilst hoping for or expecting the best?

I’ll close today with a quote from Phil Ball, the now Spanish-based author who back in 1989 was writing for Sing When We’re Fishing fanzine.

“Supporting Town makes you a better person. You begin to realise that true love is only nurtured by imperfection and the expectations and demands you make of people gradually lessen, until you begin to appreciate what is really important about them.”

So next time you feel let down by your football club (or your Trust), try and look at the bigger picture.