Are we like Morcambe? Yeovil? Macclesfield?

For me, towards my mid forties I still think of Grimsby Town as a good club, a club I grew up watching mostly in the second tier. Visits to the third tier were always brief, one way or another and the fourth tier very rare and we pretty much got straight back out and up again.

Obviously, the last 17/18 years have been horrific in my eyes with the majority spent in the fourth tier, and for me, incredibly six season out of the football league. Pretty much all under the reign of statistically the worst owner we have ever had.

My question is, after reading some comments on social media about our standing in the football world, are we now a similar club to the likes of Morcambe, Yeovil or Macclesfield?

What other owner have we had ?

Quoted from golfer

What other owner have we had ?

Quite a lot since 1878. But only one has taken us to such depths.

Quoted from fishboyUTM

For me, towards my mid forties I still think of Grimsby Town as a good club, a club I grew up watching mostly in the second tier. Visits to the third tier were always brief, one way or another and the fourth tier very rare and we pretty much got straight back out and up again.

Obviously, the last 17/18 years have been horrific in my eyes with the majority spent in the fourth tier, and for me, incredibly six season out of the football league. Pretty much all under the reign of statisitcally the worst owner we have ever had.

My question is, after reading some comments on social media about our standing in the football world, are we now a similar club to the likes of Morcambe, Yeovil or Macclesfield?

[img]https://i.imgur.com/nBwHGzP.gif[/img]

[img]https://i.imgur.com/Bm4AHtV.gif[/img]

Quoted from golfer

What other owner have we had ?

Someone may correct me on this but I think the first time the club had truly consolidated ownership in one place was in the Ramsden days. Prior to that the shareholdings may have been big or small but they were not in the hands of one person even in the days of FA Would and Arthur Drewery.

Oddly enough, the reason Bill Shankly gave for leaving the club in the mid-50s was lack of ambition by the board and unwillingness to give him the money for good players. Nothing new there then.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Someone may correct me on this but I think the first time the club had truly consolidated ownership in one place was in the Ramsden days. Prior to that the shareholdings may have been big or small but they were not in the hands of one person even in the days of FA Would and Arthur Drewery.

Oddly enough, the reason Bill Shankly gave for leaving the club in the mid-50s was lack of ambition by the board and unwillingness to give him the money for good players. Nothing new there then.

Historical perspective is good. But that's only half the picture, as I'm sure you'll know Ron. In Shankly's time we were in the third division having recently been in the first - after the most successful era in our history.

Recent years have been the worst. We've never been as low down in the leagues as we were in the Conference, i.e. 5th flight. The previous time we were in Non-League there were only TWO divisions in the Football League so going out meant we were in the 3rd flight.  We were in the 5th tier for 6 years. Previously it'd only been 1. Either side of that last Non-League spell we've had NINE seasons in the bottom division of the FL.

We have only challenged for promotion once in those nine years. In that time we've had at least 3 seasons of fighting relegation from the 4th tier - we only survived the first because of Luton's massive points deduction.

Now I for one don't advocate spending money that we haven't got. But you've got to ask why we haven't got a lot of money. Years of moribund management, wasted money pursuing pipedreams of new stadia (what was it, £700k? written off in abortive fees on Great Coates which clearly wasn't going to happen when out of town retail died), failure to exploit the Op.P feelgood factor, alienation of fans and other potential investors, managerial merry-go-rounds.

So in answer to the original post, yes we are on a par with Yeovil. Mid-lower 4th division clubs for whom a tilt at promotion to the 3rd would represent success. That's the stature of club that we have become under John Fenty's control.

It's times like this that the only great thing about the club seems to be the fans. Shamefully that mostly accounts for nothing on the field of play, we've been witnessing Town capitulating to teams who have a following in the mere dozens for years now. Fortress BP is a hazy memory.

So yes as we scrap it out at the bottom end of League 2 again, as a club and a team in terms of success we're currently no better than Yeovil, a club who don't even have a message board.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

Historical perspective is good. But that's only half the picture, as I'm sure you'll know Ron. In Shankly's time we were in the third division having recently been in the first - after the most successful era in our history.

Recent years have been the worst. We've never been as low down in the leagues as we were in the Conference, i.e. 5th flight. The previous time we were in Non-League there were only TWO divisions in the Football League so going out meant we were in the 3rd flight.  We were in the 5th tier for 6 years. Previously it'd only been 1. Either side of that last Non-League spell we've had NINE seasons in the bottom division of the FL.

We have only challenged for promotion once in those nine years. In that time we've had at least 3 seasons of fighting relegation from the 4th tier - we only survived the first because of Luton's massive points deduction.

Now I for one don't advocate spending money that we haven't got. But you've got to ask why we haven't got a lot of money. Years of moribund management, wasted money pursuing pipedreams of new stadia (what was it, £700k? written off in abortive fees on Great Coates which clearly wasn't going to happen when out of town retail died), failure to exploit the Op.P feelgood factor, alienation of fans and other potential investors, managerial merry-go-rounds.

So in answer to the original post, yes we are on a par with Yeovil. Mid-lower 4th division clubs for whom a tilt at promotion to the 3rd would represent success. That's the stature of club that we have become under John Fenty's control.

I agree Kingston, I was just answering the question about ownership.

The Ramsden days are the only ones when I can remember the owners making positive steps to invest in the team with a view to building something worthwhile ie top division. The day that struck me as significant was when we had Drinkell, Ford and Wilkinson and Lund upcoming and we signed Kevin Kilmore. When you sign someone everyone rates but you could live without in that season, then that was real future investment.

This may be a bit simplistic, and I’m sure someone will point out some exceptions, but through my 40 years of watching we are basically operating in the same way we always have.

Crowd numbers play a big part in our finance, with the odd bonus from a cup run or a little bit of TV money, and maybe (though not so often these days) the sale of players for profit.

To me it’s the rest of the world that’s moved on, with a number of changes that we’ve never benefited from;
- Because of massive TV money in the top (2) divisions the gap has widened to unprecedented levels
- Foreign ownership and associated bottomless levels of finance was unknown 40 years ago
- Non League teams (like Salford for example) didn’t attract mega money backing to enable them to buy their way up the League

With good management and prudent ownership plus a bit of luck (big cup draws etc.) I believe we could and should be able to be sustainable as a decent League 1 club.
We may get the odd dalliance with the Championship, but to maintain this would mean some massive change in our financial make up, and that seems a little unlikely in the short to medium term.

At the moment we have lost 6 more than we have won so I would be happy next season if we go into the last 4 games winning 6 more than we had lost.

Quoted from fishboyUTM

My question is, after reading some comments on social media about our standing in the football world, are we now a similar club to the likes of Morcambe, Yeovil or Macclesfield?

Looking at the different clubs crowd potential I would suggest we are a bigger club than those mentioned.

Populations....
Morecambe  34,768
Yeovil  45,000
Macclesfield  52,044
Grimsby and Cleethorpes  127,350

Quoted from promotion plaice

Looking at the different clubs crowd potential I would suggest we are a bigger club than those mentioned.

Populations....
Morecambe  34,768
Yeovil  45,000
Macclesfield  52,044
Grimsby and Cleethorpes  127,350

I'd agree, I posed the question as I find I'm often questioned for demanding more of our club. Especially the younger generation who seem to think fighting relegation from the league is normal and surviving as a league club is a great success to be celebrated. I find that very sad and degrading for a club such as ours.

Populations....
Morecambe  34,768
Yeovil  45,000
Macclesfield  52,044
Grimsby and Cleethorpes  127,350


Grimsby & Cleethorpes is 159,616 including Immingham as it's a unitary local authority.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

Someone may correct me on this but I think the first time the club had truly consolidated ownership in one place was in the Ramsden days. Prior to that the shareholdings may have been big or small but they were not in the hands of one person even in the days of FA Would and Arthur Drewery.

Oddly enough, the reason Bill Shankly gave for leaving the club in the mid-50s was lack of ambition by the board and unwillingness to give him the money for good players. Nothing new there then.

…...and he left mid-season to manage Workington who finished below us at the end of the season.

Quoted from rancido

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…...and he left mid-season to manage Workington who finished below us at the end of the season.

Exactly! Similar to Hurst - he would have rather gone to struggling Shrewsbury rather than stay with a newly promoted Mariners.

And yes, I would blame Fenty for Shankley leaving if I could...

Lack of ambition has obviously hampered us for donkey's years.

Quoted from promotion plaice

Looking at the different clubs crowd potential I would suggest we should be a bigger club than those mentioned.

Populations....
Morecambe  34,768
Yeovil  45,000
Macclesfield  52,044
Grimsby and Cleethorpes  127,350

But in practice we're not.

Morecambe's acheivement is brilliant when you consider how out on a limb they are and it not being particularly prosperous AND, like us, half of it's 'catchment area' is in the sea.

Yeovil obeviously has 360 degrees of catchment area on land, so the pop nearby is bigger than 45k but not by much as it's largely rural. Bit more prosperous than NE Lincs though.

Macclesfield probably benefits by access to a bigger pool of players, but crowd potential limited by proximity to the big clubs of Greater Mancland.

Our last 7 season in the League Two have produced finishes of:

15th
16th
22nd (saved by points deductions for other sides)
23rd (relegated)
14th
18th
17th (position with four games to go).

Within that you've got a six-season spell in the Conference which produced a highest finish of 3rd.

Whichever way you look at it, we're not a big club.  Not even at this level.  League table is all that counts, on that basis we're really not that different from the sides listed.  Bringing in the local populations and then the attendances just highlights how badly run GTFC is, especially in the last 15 years.  Gloss it over if you wish but it's a failing club.

The odd season here and there we may overachieve or underachieve.  Over a sustained period of time the club has spectacularly underachieved.  Managers, players, support staff have all come and gone in that period.  One common denominator has stayed put throughout...

I think the discussion is about the size of the club and not what we have (not) achieved.

Just because we have languished in the lower (non) league does not mean we are not bigger than those mentioned.
It just means we have been very poorly run.  UTM  

If Manure got relegated they would still be the same size club.  Just not realising their potential.  

Quoted from Civvy at last

I think the discussion is about the size of the club and not what we have (not) achieved.

Just because we have languished in the lower (non) league does not mean we are not bigger than those mentioned.
It just means we have been very poorly run.  UTM  

If Manure got relegated they would still be the same size club.  Just not realising their potential.  

If Manure were relegated and then relegated a couple of more times and only had one ste back-up would they stay as big a club as they are?

Leeds used to be considered one of the biggest in the country. It's got the potential to be but it's way off the pace now. 27 years since they won the League.

West Brom used to be big beasts, but again only having the odd season in the top flight in the past 25 years, they're not.

We're a lower league version of West Brom.

Not just Morecambe, Yeovil and Macclesfield we should be comparing ourselves to I'd say

There are the likes of Crawley, Stevenage, FGR who have all only got recent league history, but it's what we are up against

I guess somewhere along the line, we'll all stop looking back and maybe start looking forward to a hopefully brighter future, but it will need some kind of strategic planning to move us onwards and upwards

Just treading water, season after season, will mean others move past us and to most of the footballing community, we will be seen as some half-@rsed out-on-a-limb club who way back when had a bit of footballing fortune  

Quoted from Civvy at last

I think the discussion is about the size of the club and not what we have (not) achieved.

Just because we have languished in the lower (non) league does not mean we are not bigger than those mentioned.
It just means we have been very poorly run.  UTM  

If Manure got relegated they would still be the same size club.  Just not realising their potential.  

How do you define the size of a club?  If we're talking numbers then it has to be on the numbers coming through the gates, in which case we're 9th in League Two.  Upper mid-table.  Good but not quite good enough.  I'm not sure the population of the local area is an indication of how big a club we are.  Especially as in modern history we've never really captured the imagination of the local population on anything that remotely resembles a sustained period.  

I think how we're run is ultimately reflected in where the club is.  We're run badly and as a result we're in our natural position of lower mid-table.  Better running of the club would no doubt result in an improvement in our position and therefore our 'size'.

That's just my take on it.  But I'd be curious to know why anyone thinks we're a 'bigger' club than our league position states.

Don't forget that we're also a very impoverished area. That's bound to affect things if people don't have the money in their pockets to get to games. It's not just the size of the local population which matters.

Though we were a 2nd Division team for most of my formative years, we wouldn't be able to establish ourselves as a second tier team in this day and age where money (and therefore potential attendances) are the be all and end all of the game. I'd say that with our 'size', we ought to be a top half of League Two, bottom half of League One club. We're minnows in terms of attendances/stadia size compared to most of the Championship clubs these days and considerably smaller than half of those in League One.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing a bit better than we've seen since our return to the League. We've seen various managers come in and attempt to play different sorts of formations and none have ever really looked like working. Back in the days of Buckley when we were punching above our weight, you know how we were trying to play, even if it didn't work out all the time. Jolley, Slade and Bignot have all chopped and changed the formation and line-up so often that it's no surprise that we've not developed a set style or any partnerships between players. That's the biggest disappointment with Jolley for me. He obviously wants to play with 3 at the back which is fair enough and has attempted this quite a few times this season. However, there has been absolutely no continuity in the line-ups with defenders brought in one week and dropped the next and forwards and midfielders in and out of the team from week to week as well. Injuries obviously play a part but the one thing we did develop during the good run in at the end of last season was a clear plan, a mostly settled defence and continuity in the forwards, however limited they were.

It always struck me that Bignot was floundering around looking for something which just clicked by chance and it has seemed that Jolley is doing the same much of this season as well. I only hope that he finds the players he needs during the early part of the summer and can play them regularly during pre-season to start to develop partnerships.

Its all about potential isn't it?

Very few clubs drop into division 4 / 5 and retain big gates. But they have the potential to increase their gates again as they rise up the leagues.

We can all remember Hull, Swansea, Bournemouth, Huddersfield,Brighton and many more with very low attendances when they were in lower divisions.

If we have a unitary authority population of nearly 200k then clearly there is the potential there to get 10-12000 gates with the right set up.

We got pretty low attendances even in the second tier, so it would be a difficult thing to achieve. The only thing I know for sure is we will not achieve it under the present owner.

Quoted from lew chaterleys lover

Its all about potential isn't it?

Very few clubs drop into division 4 / 5 and retain big gates. But they have the potential to increase their gates again as they rise up the leagues.

We can all remember Hull, Swansea, Bournemouth, Huddersfield,Brighton and many more with very low attendances when they were in lower divisions.

If we have a unitary authority population of nearly 200k then clearly there is the potential there to get 10-12000 gates with the right set up.

We got pretty low attendances even in the second tier, so it would be a difficult thing to achieve. The only thing I know for sure is we will not achieve it under the present owner.

It's under 160k so you can knock 20% off the potential too, so 8-10,000.

But we won't acheive that with the way the club is run. Maringer is right that relative poverty of NEL is a constraint. That makes it even more important to market the club well and be innovative.

Intereting topic.

Where I live in Swansea 1/3 Of children live in homes below the poverty line but the area sustained a premiership club for around a decade. Yes the catchment is a bit bigger but I remember going down the Vetch and there were only about 2k crowds there. Football is not even the primary sport in the area however the club have been successful in sucking away young fans from the regionalised WRU structure. They were also lucky with the council who effectively used the new stadium there to regenerate a very deprived area.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

It's under 160k so you can knock 20% off the potential too, so 8-10,000.

But we won't acheive that with the way the club is run. Maringer is right that relative poverty of NEL is a constraint. That makes it even more important to market the club well and be innovative.

The potential could be there but when you look at the last time we were at Championship Level - 1998/99 to 2002/03 our highest season average was 6681 and that was the first season after promotion. In fact you have to go back to 1981/82 when we last averaged over 8,000 for the season.

Quoted from Swansea_Mariner

Intereting topic.

Where I live in Swansea 1/3 Of children live in homes below the poverty line but the area sustained a premiership club for around a decade. Yes the catchment is a bit bigger but I remember going down the Vetch and there were only about 2k crowds there. Football is not even the primary sport in the area however the club have been successful in sucking away young fans from the regionalised WRU structure. They were also lucky with the council who effectively used the new stadium there to regenerate a very deprived area.

Exactly. Anything can be done witlh the willpower, the energy, the money the contacts and the ability to carry it out.

One of Mr. Fenty's mistakes is that he thought a new stadium would solve all the problems. Even that would be no good if the people with the same skills run it.

There are a whole host of towns, including Swansea, who have just as many problems as us, bit make a much better fist of it in terms of football.

Quoted from rancido

The potential could be there but when you look at the last time we were at Championship Level - 1998/99 to 2002/03 our highest season average was 6681 and that was the first season after promotion. In fact you have to go back to 1981/82 when we last averaged over 8,000 for the season.

Exactly my point