Like the town, our football club and its fans also need to stop wallowing in past disasters and move on. There are those who believe that Grimsby Town expired and was buried on that Saturday afternoon at the Pirelli Stadium, but reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

Admittedly it’s in pretty poor health and has been for years but, contrary to popular belief, with a rigorous course of rehabilitation and some TLC (no, I don’t mean Miss McCutcheon and her yogurt), the prognosis is reasonably good.

Some say that Neil Woods is not the man to bring us back to health because he’s too nice to be a successful manager and that you have to have a ruthless streak. I would say that if you can look a young kid in the face and tell him that he’s not being offered a pro contract and he can’t still be Dorothy, then you can deal with anything football management throws at you, and he’s been doing that for most of the last decade. What does he have to do to prove he’s hard enough, invite all and sundry out for a fight in the pub car park or have undignified public spats with the players or chairman? You don’t have to be a bastard to be a football manager and it doesn’t always help.

So far, I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Mr Woods since his re-appointment was confirmed. He knows as well as we do that the loan culture has to end and that we have to start playing our talented youngsters. He’s wasted no time in swinging the axe at those of his predecessors’ signings, who may do well elsewhere, but just aren’t right for Grimsby. He’s been here long enough to see where it all went wrong, but he’s also experienced life at the club when things were going well. Whilst not a local by birth, a twenty year association with Grimsby Town means he’s almost one of us now and if he succeeds in turning our fortunes around, we will all conveniently forget he’s actually a Yorkie and let him drive his sheep through Town Hall Square if he so wishes.

Key to Woods’ success or failure as a football manager will be how he sells the club to the players he wants to bring in. Whilst our wages are competitive, for reasons already stated, Grimsby probably wouldn’t be many players’ first choice. So how do we put a positive spin on the club of which Alastair Campbell would be proud?

Well, for a start you don’t sit around and wait for players to get back to you like Alan Buckley did. That was how it worked in the old days, but not anymore. Instead you stalk them like Russell Slade did with Michael Reddy. If they don’t call you back or they’re undecided, you telephone them at all hours of the day and night until they feel like the most wanted player in the world and cave in. They may think you’re bordering on insane, but that’s a given in football management so it won’t matter.

Our nosedive into the Conference could be a sticking point as could our limited resources, so you point out that whilst we may not be rolling in it, at least we know where our money comes from and that it actually exists. We may have dropped out of the Football League whilst other clubs have gone into administration and prospered, but this is because we honour our debts, so you won’t find yourself going weeks without getting paid.

When selling Grimsby as a town, you point out that whilst it may not have the looks, it has the personality. It may not be the prettiest or most exciting place in the world, but it’s actually not that bad. Like every other town or city in the country, it’s got areas where you’d have to be mad to set foot at night without a taser gun and a roll of duct tape, but between it and Cleethorpes there’s miles of beach, a theme park, leisure centres, parks, an excellent cinema, better than average shopping, no shortage of pubs and nightclubs, some decent schools...the list goes on.  Sure there’s places with more to offer, but how many people take advantage of all the attractions that are on their doorstep? They don’t. They overlook what is right under their noses and bugger off abroad on holiday or drive two hours to a shopping centre that isn’t that much better than the one in their home town. So why not come and do that in Grimsby?

Then there’s the fans. Granted they can be quick to voice their dissatisfaction, but if you give one hundred percent, earn your wages and aren’t just a hardworking donkey, they will love you. And you will love them for the passion that sent them to Accrington on a Tuesday night when we weren’t even playing to support Stanley against our relegation rivals. That’s how much the club means to them and how much you will mean to them if you do the business.

If I was going to launch a  “Grimsby’s Not Shite” promotional campaign and I needed a poster boy, I’d look no further than Neil Woods’ best signing to date, Lee Peacock (and that’s not just because I’ve had a bit of a thing for neck tattoos ever since seeing George Clooney in From Dusk ‘Til Dawn).  The man is legend material, the real deal, the kind of old school footballer I was beginning to think would never come here again and yet, according to the interview he gave recently, he loves it here. He’s settled here and so are his family. In fact he’s never settled anywhere so quickly. Is that really Grimsby he’s talking about? Yes it is. Are you listening Watford?

Our team next season needs to be made up of Peacocks and young cocks, a perfect blend of youth and experience, strutting their stuff  on the pitch and not giving a damn what anyone, apart from their own fans, their manager, their teammates and their mothers thinks of them. We need to take a leaf out of the Special One’s book. No-one likes us? We don’t care. In fact we bloody love it because it means we’ve got under your skin and that will make us fight even harder, run even faster and tackle like we’re possessed by the spirit of Bob Cumming. And by the time we’ve played you off the park, you won’t just not like us, you’ll hate our guts and wish you never had to play us again. Blundell Park will become a fortress. No, not a just fortress, a place of execution and when we’ve murdered you on our own patch, we’ll come and do you all over again on yours and...

The world according to Jose – a wonderful place...and that’s what Blundell Park used to be. For years it was indeed a fortress, somewhere opposing teams weren’t that keen to come. However, in recent seasons, it has become more sandcastle than fortress and about as intimidating as an anorexic in a tutu. So, what went wrong? Well, obviously it’s old and small and rather shabby in comparison to all the new build stadiums that have risen up around the country since the early eighties when the Findus Stand was considered de rigueur. But a big part of the problem is that ever since the idea of a new stadium at Great Coates was first mooted, all those in favour have gone out of their way to slag off Blundell Park and remind everyone how totally inadequate it is and how shoddy the facilities are.

It was all done with the best of intentions, but in the relentless pursuit of that shiny new beacon at the gateway to Grimsby, we have undermined the home that has served us admirably for 111 years and is still perfectly adequate for our present needs. It wouldn’t be so bad if we had something to show for our disloyalty to Blundell Park but, given the current economic climate, the new stadium seems as far away as ever.

If the council hadn’t taken so long to make the right decision or the local wildlife hadn’t been so inconsiderate to our plans, we could have had a brand spanking new stadium by now, but I can’t help being relieved that we haven’t. An arena with all mod cons is no guarantee of success on the pitch. Just look at Darlington and ask yourself whether their fans would rather have ten seats each at the appropriately named Northern Echo Arena or one at their old ground Feethams. It’s good to have ambition, but football isn’t “Field of Dreams” and if you build it, they won’t always come. Posh food bars, toilets with room to swing an Irons fan in and fancy restaurants will only pay for themselves if there is something worth watching on the pitch and anyone who thinks it will be otherwise once the novelty has worn off is an idiot. Likewise any player, who isn’t just in it for the money and a solid gold hook on which to hang his designer suit, should be drawn towards quality on the pitch rather than off it. If not, then he probably isn’t worth signing anyway.

Right now, we need a new stadium like another demand from the Inland Revenue so, for now, it’s time to stop dreaming about what could be and embrace what is. Love Blundell Park, with its antiquated wooden stand, its dressing rooms the size of a new stadium cupboard, its toilets built in the days when women were much thinner and its general air of being gradually worn away and left behind by time. It’s our home and when somewhere feels like home, you overlook the shabbiness and imperfection that you wouldn’t accept in somewhere to which you feel no emotional attachment.

Blundell Park is also our history. It’s the place where our ancestors saw Wheelhouse, Tweedy, Bestall, Betmead, Buck, Glover and all those other greats play. It’s where we played in the 1930s equivalent of the Premiership, finishing fifth in our first season. It’s where McMenemy, Newman, Kerr, Buckley and others before them led us to promotion and where Spurs, Everton and West Ham were dumped out of the cup. The terrace in the corner where I stood when we beat the Toffees has now gone, but the memory has not.

Yes, Blundell Park has seen better days, but it has also seen some truly great days and all the palatial WCs and post-free views in the world cannot guarantee you that. Our home may be a museum piece, but there’s nothing wrong with museums. Negative people will hold up the past in order to emphasise how poor the present is, but our history should be used to inspire us to emulate the achievements of our predecessors. So remember those great games of the past and believe that they can happen again.

As the home game against Barnet showed, Blundell Park filled to capacity is a pitbull rather than a poodle and can affect the outcome of a game in a way that a sparsely occupied super stadium cannot. Pulling in the crowds week in week out is therefore key to success on the pitch, but to do that, the club first has to reconnect with its fans. Grimsby Town Football Club has become estranged from its supporters and the community and without them it is nothing. In fact, without the people of Grimsby and the surrounding area it literally wouldn’t exist. The club was formed by locals in the Wellington Arms 132 years ago and has been a part of the community ever since. Local people raised and donated the equivalent of millions of pounds to pay for stands, floodlights, players and, on more than one occasion, to keep the club afloat. John Fenty and Mike Parker may be the ones bailing out Grimsby Town at the moment, but they know as well as we do that a football club without its fans is like the team finished up all too often this season; pointless.

The fans have become alienated from the club because they no longer feel like it belongs to them. John Fenty saved Grimsby Town from a fate worse than ITV Digital with his money, but in so doing “ownership” of the club passed to him. Never before has one man had such a significant shareholding in Grimsby Town and whilst it’s only fair that his shareholding should reflect his huge investment, being in the majority has rendered the shares certificates held by everyone else completely worthless (as opposed to virtually worthless) and left the fans feeling disenfranchised. Not such a problem when times are good, but a recipe for disaster when things start to go wrong.

When he took over the chairmanship in July 2004, Fenty was quoted as saying, "We have to bring quality football and a work ethic back to Blundell Park. We have to market ourselves in a way that touches people." The Slade era was the closest he came to achieving that. Since then, the football has got worse and so has the marketing.

Four years ago we were a signature on a contract and ninety minutes away from a return to League One that would have made heroes of John Fenty and Russell Slade. Instead we choked at Cardiff, Slade was branded a deserter and Fenty went from benevolent saviour to Beelzebub in the eyes of many as he oversaw our slide into the Conference.

Since Cardiff, both bad decisions and bad luck have contributed to his demonisation. The appointment of the loyal but uninspiring Graham Rodger was a terrible cop-out, especially with the club on a downer from failure at the Millennium Stadium,  whilst the third coming of Alan Buckley was a decision based more on sentiment than sense and, despite a third Wembley appearance, one comeback too many. With Newell he could be considered unlucky as, on the face of it, the appointment seemed a decent one and anyone who says they foresaw how bizarrely and disastrously it would turn out is either a liar or clairvoyant.

John Fenty is not the devil. Yes he’s a Conservative, but that doesn’t make him Satan, although admittedly it’s sometimes easy to confuse the two. Nor is he a dictator, but when one man holds the purse strings and effectively makes all the decisions, that leaves him open to the accusation, especially when those decisions have horrible consequences. It doesn’t help either that there has been no-one in his entourage with the bottle to tell him when he is behaving like a child. Much of the abuse he has received in the media and on the messageboards has been unwarranted, but he hasn’t helped himself with the petulant rants that appeared on the official site and the very public spat with Radio Humberside. Undoubtedly he was provoked, but sometimes you have to bite your tongue and take the moral high ground, rather than sinking to the same level as your denigrators.

Like the idealist who enters politics believing he can change the world, so John Fenty took over the chairmanship hoping that he was the one who could reverse the club’s fortunes and take us up the Football League and into a new stadium. Six years later, with a large chunk of his fortune gone and with his ambition even further away than ever, it’s no wonder if the pressure has got to him and the cracks have begun to show.

Enter Mike Parker who, it is to be hoped, will remove some of that pressure by sharing the financial burden and responsibility and reining in Mr Fenty whenever he feels like giving someone a verbal punch in the face. The particularly cynical will no doubt argue that we will simply be exchanging one despot for two on a job share once both have an equal shareholding, but what do they have to gain by behaving in a manner that would alienate even more fans? It’s not like they’re in it for the money. At present Grimsby Town Football Club is like the child with a face that only a mother could love. We’ve never been a great investment, but sticking your money in now offers as much chance of a return as giving it to Lehman Brothers to put into subprime mortgages. You’d have to be mad. Either mad or a football fan.

Yes, lest we forget, John Fenty and Mike Parker are not shady, middle eastern businessmen with no connection to the area or the club. They are local lads made good and long term Mariners fans and regardless of how much money they have, that makes them as mad as the rest of us. In fact, given the amount of money they’ve invested in a failing football club, they should probably be at the front of the queue for the straitjackets and the funny farm. Mike Parker could be off enjoying his retirement. Instead, he’s signed up for a load of stress and abuse if things don’t turn around fairly quickly. What a total barmpot.

Nevertheless, I’m delighted that this particular madman has chosen to take responsibility for commerce, marketing, community engagement and the youth system. The knowledge and experience gained from many years at a high level in business, not just locally, but nationally and internationally, should be invaluable in terms of selling the club, to the fans, media, sponsors and other potential investors. Likewise his business acumen will be vital to the continued success of the Grimsby Town youth system, which now faces an £80,000 cut in its annual funding because of relegation and a total loss of grant funding if we don’t return to the league within two seasons.

Unless our big financial backers take their money and run and send us into administration, it’s highly unlikely that the fans will ever feel the same sense of ownership of their club that they did in the past when they paid for the stands we now sit in and helped buy a legend like Joe Waters. The amounts of money involved mean that “privilege” is now reserved for those whose bank balances have at least six noughts before the decimal place. However there is a way for the disenchanted and disenfranchised fan to make a difference in a more modest but very significant way.

Our youth system is one of the few areas within the club that isn’t in need of major overhaul. Under the leadership of a certain Mr Woods, the youth team has gone from strength to strength, winning trophies and putting the first team to shame. In the last couple of years, our School of Excellence has cast its nets even wider and now runs teams across eight age groups, from Under 9s to Under 16s, in arguably a far more professional and progressive manner than the first team has been run until recently.

There is room for improvement in terms of increasing the number of players who successfully make the transition from youth to first team, but there is a solid structure in place, thanks in no small part to supporters just like us, who raised thousands of pounds during the 1970s, 80s and 90s to ensure that the youth system remained in existence.

The time for supporters to act has now come again. £80,000 is a lot of money, but it is a figure within the reach of the collective might of Mariners fans. Based on our average attendance this year, if every fan raised twenty quid, the shortfall in youth funding would be covered. The disillusioned will say that those responsible for getting us relegated should stump up the cash, but when the next John McDermott, Kevin Drinkell, Tony Ford, Ryan Bennett or Peter Bore makes the leap from the youth ranks to the first team, how much more satisfying will it be for us, as fans, to know that we did our bit to make it possible? Those players will always belong to the supporters, even though we won’t be the ones paying their professional wages and they will carry our passion and pride and love for the club within them because they are locally grown.   

Relegation to the Conference may have felt like the last straw, but Grimsby Town is like the family member or friend with whom you have a love-hate relationship. Sometimes they will embarrass you horribly like those dads who insist on re-capturing their youth on the dance floor at weddings. They will also lose the plot from time to time, forgetting what really matters and causing those closest to them to wonder what the hell they saw in them in the first place.

Then, just when you’ve given up hope and you’re about to tell them to sling their hook, they will turn around and do something to make you incredibly proud of them and, if you’re really lucky, they’ll get a taste for it, causing you to completely overlook their past failings and marvel at how you could ever have doubted them.

Look back through the club’s history and you will see this isn’t the first time that Grimsby Town has been in the mire or its fans disillusioned because they think their club doesn’t give a toss about them. We’re on a maddening loop and whilst I’d like to think this will be the last time, we’ve ignored the past and made the same old mistakes on so many occasions that I’m not overly optimistic. However the positive thing to take from our history is that whilst we keep screwing up, we always put things right in the end. So, take heart and keep the faith. Grimsby Town Football Club will be back and it will make us proud again...however long it takes.

R. Branson (2010)