When the stress of watching Town became too great last season, Chris Smith turned to non-league football and nostalgia to restore his sanity.

I’m not a betting man. I’m an “I was actually going to back that big winner, look I even wrote the betting slip out...” man.

Incidentally, I worked as a betting shop manager in a different life and gave the job up partly because I missed watching Grimsby as I worked nearly every Saturday. That’s sad really as we were relegated twice in the three or so years that I did the job so it could be argued that I had a lucky escape.

However, it does occur to me in more bitter moments that I’ve stuck out a job for the thick end of twenty years in the hope that things will get better and I want to be there to see it.

My ‘occupation change’ appeared to work in the first few years of Saturday freedom, which coincided with Alan Buckley’s first stint as manager and a couple of quick promotions but… Anyway, I can feel a bit of the Ronnie Corbett coming on so back to the point. Where was I? That’s it, whingeing.

Because when I don’t make the odd game, I wear the cloak of martyrdom when it turns out that I have missed that all too rare occurrence, namely a Town win.

Earlier in the season we drew two sides in different cups on Wednesday nights. Normally I have to ask for Tuesdays off to cover a midweek game, so I didn’t have a problem getting a swap for the Blackburn game but to be honest, I didn’t try too hard for the latter game against Chesterfield, suffering as I was from early season misery.

Mind you, I didn’t waste the Tuesday night and a glance at the non-league fixtures showed that I had a choice of North Ferriby United, Brodsworth Welfare or Askern Villa at home.

Askern Villa were known as Askern Miner’s Welfare until this season’s name change. However, I was informed on the gate that this was the club’s original name and one of the reasons that they had reverted was a bid to secure Football Foundation funding and that it was thought that the “miner” in the name had negative connotations. A bit sad really but as an Askern enthusiast told me, “we haven’t had a chuffing penny off anyone”.

I chose Askern as it is in South Yorkshire and therefore it was a freebie on my travel pass. It was also only £4 to get in and I’ve never seen a poor game there. Oh, and they play in black and white stripes. Proper stripes mind. Not the ones that disappear on the back of the home strip. Good and traditional. I was also interested as they were playing Scarborough Athletic, a reincarnation of the Scarborough FC who briefly graced the football league and a team I sadly didn’t ever get to see because of one drink or another.

Scarborough are a well supported club at Northern Counties East level. They are at Step 6 but take several hundred away to games, which is a bonus to many teams at that level, like Askern, who were getting gates of 30 to 40 last season. The gate tonight looked to be about the 200 mark and it was an even contest with Scarborough taking the lead in the first half after a period of dominance, although Askern had chances too. Scarborough appeared to wrap it up when going 2-0 up early in the second half and although Askern did pull one back, it finished 2-1 to the away team.

I was standing in their small stand and got talking to a couple of lads, Rich and Stewart who had travelled down from York. Rich remembered how Town used to take stacks of fans to York and how we would normally win. It was nice to reminisce about ‘lucky’ grounds where we’d pinch the points on a Saturday afternoon.

Now, you may be wondering why the hell you are reading an article you initially thought was about Aston Villa with the supporters trust spell checker obviously having the night off, but here comes the Grimsby connection.

Rich is a mate of that ex-Town stalwart Lee Nogan who now coaches at Huddersfield, whilst playing for Whitby Town in the Unibond League. In fact he spoke to Lee at half time and I passed on a message that he could always come back, although I gather his reply was along the lines of “chuffing hell I got enough stick when I was there last time”.

It’s nice to know he still has something to offer football though and I wish Rich well as a York supporter. I’d like to see them back in the league having seen Town reserves there the last two seasons. I really like the ground for some reason and traditionally it’s a good day out. We also got free Kit Kats courtesy of the announcer there last year who is a mate of another Town fan. And before I forget, the reserves games there have bettered a lot of the first team Town games.

What is nice about the non-league game is the commitment which has been lacking in some of the journeymen players of which Town have had a surfeit over the years. And value for money. A few weeks earlier, Goole’s only registered Mariner and I went to watch North Ferriby United play at home to Witton Albion in the Unibond Premier League which is at Step 3 level. To play at this standard is a tremendous achievement for a team playing in what is a small village. This was directly after our home game against Chesterfield and we made kick off in enemy territory with half an hour to spare.

It was a little pricier at £8 and a bit more for a good quality programme. After about 10 minutes, it was clear that this was to be the better game. Ferriby took the lead with a good goal but Witton pulled back two goals, one of which was a penalty, and pretty much survived an onslaught from Ferriby for the rest of the game. Witton’s goalkeeper, Greg Smith, had a chat to the fans in the second half during a lull and remarked on the nice set up. Despite agreeing, we felt we had to disabuse him of the fact that we were from the wrong side of the bridge and were actually Grimsby supporters. Turns out he knows Peter Handyside and Tony Gallimore. He thought Gallie’s nickname of “Gallonmore” was fair comment and said he’d pass our love on.

He had a cracking game as well and had it not been for the form of Phil Barnes at the time (Where did it all go wrong? – Ed.), I’d have said sign him up. But he also had a nice common touch that isn’t seen too much in the professional game.

Oddly enough, we’d been talking about Peter Handyside on the way over, but given the way Town had been playing, nostalgia was being hit on a lot more, so perhaps it wasn’t really a coincidence but more a case of two fans trying desperately to feel good by remembering the good old days.

North Ferriby has friendly stewards as well and the older chap I spoke to would, in the 1940s, alternately watch Hull City one week and then go over the river the next week on the paddle steamer and watch what was a Division 1 side at the time. And he did that because he loved football and a trip to Blundell Park meant top flight football.

How times have changed!