Two years ago this evening…

Two years ago this very evening, many of us (myself included) were toasting the appointment of Ian Scott Holloway as new Grimsby Town manager as we looked forward to seeing in 2020, a year brimming with optimism and excitement. What could possibly going wrong?

Two years on, the the league we find ourselves in and of course the wider world are very different places. Though I’ll probably stop short of blaming him for the untimely deaths of millions of people around the planet, Holloway himself is largely accountable for the sorry state the club found itself in, and in many ways remains as of this moment.

Which got me thinking. Was the appointment of Ian Holloway the most singularly cataclysmic decision ever made by anyone at GTFC in its 143 year history (granted, only Swin has been around long enough to have witnessed the whole lot)? There have been other notable ones for sure; Neil Woods, bless him, probably wasn’t the right appointment at the time and of course we have the appointment of JSF himself. But while Fenty took many years to run the club into the ground, Holloway made his mark in less than 12 months. So for me, it’s the worst, pound for pound in terms of time taken and size of mess made.

But what about you?

P.S. - happy New Year Fishy friends - praying that 2022 is better than the last couple for each and every one of us…

To be fair to Fenty I thought at the time he had pulled off a real coup getting Holloway and I was over the moon with the appointment if I'm honest.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I don’t think there is one single decision.

It’s just been 20+ years of sloppy dysentery with the occasional solid stool induced erection.

Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I do wonder if more could have been done in the 90s, pre-Fenty, to modernise the club during the halcyon football boom. It’s easy for me to say that now though.

Threatened with the torture of listening to a Coldplay album, I’d have to say either not capitalising on the feel-good factor of the 15/16 season or that monstrosity of a kit in 06-07 (the Blackburn Rovers style half and half scarf banjo string twanger).

I’ll stick my neck out and say I expects it to be a disaster from the start…I’ve got friends and colleagues (sadly none of them sad enough to post on here) to back me up.

Is he the worst manager ever had? Probably not, but, he was an remains a charlatan. He was a flipping snake oil salesman before he came here and we’d be no better off, covid or not…his crowning glory will be a scrappy win at scunny. That is all.

I was delighted with the appointment, but was convinced he wouldn’t last more than 12-18 months. A wild journey and then a parting of ways felt inevitable from the very beginning. Nobody could have foreseen covid, nor Holloway clearly losing the plot in pre season- one friendly, playing darts etc

We wouldn't have been relegated under Holloway, might have been close but given the Jan window i'm sure he would have brought reinforcements in

I think Fenty convinced Holloway that the season would be a none starter, we then ended up playing catch up on and off the pitch

The only bit i don't get is why Holloway didn't at least have a discussion with the new owners

Quoted from Simon

The only bit i don't get is why Holloway didn't at least have a discussion with the new owners

Yeah, never really understood that.

Must admit when Holloway made that speech in the Lower Trust bar I thought this is either going to go very well or it's going to be a disaster, there's not going to be any middle ground.

Yep I don’t think anyone can blame you for your optimism at that time. It was brilliant. A premier league manager from the not too distant past rocking up at BP. Finished the season well with some good players and good football - Billy Clarke the highlight.

I think his whole deal centred around the involvement of Alex May but I won’t say any more.

Quoted from quebec38

I think his whole deal centred around the involvement of Alex May but I won’t say any more.

Exactly. Holloway was here to trouser it in (multi-pocketed combat slacks with reinforced gusset and button fly). The fact that Holloway was a director and shareholder suggests he wasn’t in it for the salary.

…and he certainly wasn’t in it for the ‘project’, free donkey rides and bracing sea air.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taJ4MFCxiuo[/url]

If the season hadn't ended due to Covid I still think we would have been ill prepared for last season but we might have kept hold of players such as Vernam and Clarke.

There is a huge difference between a manager/director sitting on his backside at home and allegedly not speaking to any of his staff/players for 6 months than doing the same for 6 weeks.

We will never know how much Covid impacted his reign or just how much he knew about Alex May but I think we all knew it was never going to be average with him at the helm.

Holloway in 19-20 did well, brought in some decent loans, and we looked like we were moving forward with something to build on.
It all fell apart when we assumed the league would shut down 20-21 season so we’d look clever by spending **ck all on decent additions.  Holloway (who was a big part of that decision in my opinion) then found the perfect escape route by claiming he wasn’t happy with the take over

Makes you wonder about the big IF!

Had the new owners kept him on as Manager, and with a budget way above the one offered by the previous encumbant, with all his contacts in the game, where could we have been. He attracted some decent loans, can't deny that. Just a pity we can't say the same about his permanent signings. But had he been given a decent budget, who knows.

Que sera, sera!

Quoted from WayneBurnettsJockstrap

Makes you wonder about the big IF!

Had the new owners kept him on as Manager, and with a budget way above the one offered by the previous encumbant, with all his contacts in the game, where could we have been. He attracted some decent loans, can't deny that. Just a pity we can't say the same about his permanent signings. But had he been given a decent budget, who knows.

Que sera, sera!

Are you seriously saying that Hollow-words would have brought in players better than Menayese Coke and Matete to keep us up?

His last 6 months were a total transfer disaster, loans and permanent deals.   Mohsini, Gomis, Sisay, Gibson, Jackson, Taylor, Morton, Rose, Morais, and many  more.....

Where could we have been? Relegated sooner surely! He was in the process of getting rid of Mckeown, and pinning our hopes on players who have since pretty much vanished without trace.  

Hindsight is brilliant, works every time.

Quoted from Simon

We wouldn't have been relegated under Holloway, might have been close but given the Jan window i'm sure he would have brought reinforcements in

I think Fenty convinced Holloway that the season would be a none starter, we then ended up playing catch up on and off the pitch

The only bit i don't get is why Holloway didn't at least have a discussion with the new owners

Becauee it’s clear he wasn’t here for actual footballing reasons, remember the £100k (£500) that he allegedly pumped in to the club…he lotwrelly gave up once th May thing broke….that tells you all you need to know. flipping charlatan…

We wouldnt have been relegated under him😂😂😂😂

Lying conniving conman. Despise him

If not the worst decision then certainly up there. Funnily enough the only two managerial appointments I can remember that pleased the vast majority of the fan base were Holloway and Newell. Proper due diligence on both would have saved us a lot of pain.

There was this massive expectation and furore that came along with him. I think 99% were shocked at the appointment and thought it was going to be a new (good) chapter in our history. There was rumours of the likes of Charlie Adam and other ‘name’ players signing for us, but, the reasons we got relegated we’re due to being under prepared for the season, covid clauses in contracts and convicted fraudsters.

It sent the feel good factor about the club through the roof and I remember talking to customers all over the country about it, it’s like we’d finally been put back on the map. Sky, bbc and itv were actually sending reporters to the ground and we were getting more than ‘snippets’ of news.

Quoted from ex-merseymariner

His last 6 months were a total transfer disaster, loans and permanent deals.   Mohsini, Gomis, Sisay, Gibson, Jackson, Taylor, Morton, Rose, Morais, and many  more.....

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?  

I was happy at the time, mainly because I’d taken the best part of £350 off the bookies as a result, but also thought he’d bring us on in a footballing sense.

By the end he was an absolute lunatic, ranting & raving, completely detached from reality and should’ve probably been sectioned.

After we played Orient away and the furore was still fresh I was travelling to a friends house the other side of London and met some Millwall lads on the train…they were pissing themselves at town fans…there words were ‘snake oil salesman’ and ‘have a Google on message boards of the clubs he’s ‘managed’’…

I wasn’t a fan when we got him but I did what they said and it just reinforced what I thought. flipping charlatan…

Worst decision ever? Not even the worst management appointment - Newell, Lyons, Roberts, Laws and Law all make Holloway's appointment look acceptable.

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

Worst decision ever? Not even the worst management appointment - Newell, Lyons, Roberts, Laws and Law all make Holloway's appointment look acceptable.

Neil Woods getting the job after his caretaker spell for me. Christ there’s been loads….

The day he arrived I was quite excited by the prospect of someone who was clearly a bit of a narcissist but quite high profile and had been around a bit, my assumption was that he’d bring in a few half decent players that he’d worked with before and maybe another coach to work with Limerick and Ben Davis and be his successor if he moved upstairs..

I was quite suspicious though of him saying he was buying shares in a club (business) that the major shareholder had been openly trying to off load. Why would you do that unless you saw a big payday on the horizon? Maybe Fenty sold IH some snake oil here?

The other reservation that I chose to ignore was…. why had he been out of the game as a manager for so long? This I believe was the main factor in things going badly wrong on the pitch as though Clarke was a really good addition and he got a tune out of Chas I think IH was quite out of touch, had fewer playing contacts that he told everyone he had and didn’t really understand the game at this level.

I believe the period he had out of the game was the factor that sent us down more than anything as his recruitment and scouting network/process completely failed us alongside the inadequate preparation and it has to be said a COVID wage policy that didn’t support attracting decent talent.

Would we have gone down if he’d stayed? Yeah I think we would have done as the squad though large just wasn’t good enough.

Worst decision in the history of the club? Not sure as it sits as one of many on and off the pitch in the last 2 decades I’m afraid.

The main thing that does not sit well with me is his departure and his lack of honesty when he made out in the local and national media that he was the victim in the whole scenario, to a degree I can live with him being a bad manager as it happens and he was appointed by Fenty who got more wrong than right but the lies and lack of honesty and integrity is unforgivable in my view.

Quoted from psgmariner

Neil Woods getting the job after his caretaker spell for me. Christ there’s been loads….

I forgot to mention Bignot.......

His recruitment was decent at first though, Clarke as mentioned but also the 2 lads from Burnley. Possibly luck given the dross that came in in the summer!

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

Worst decision ever? Not even the worst management appointment - Newell, Lyons, Roberts, Laws and Law all make Holloway's appointment look acceptable.

If one of those names is Brian Laws than I completely disagree.

Quoted from Abdul19

His recruitment was decent at first though, Clarke as mentioned but also the 2 lads from Burnley. Possibly luck given the dross that came in in the summer!

Benson only got a chance because Simeon Jackson floored Hessenthaler at the kick off. I got told that Holloway almost sent Benson back the week before!

Benson and Glennon set the standard of loans Holloway could attract and he followed it up with Gomis, Morton, Preston, Bennett, Edwards and two others.

Edwards was alright but the others were forgettable; especially the two that I've forgotten.

Windsor and someone else

The most catechismic decision?

Probably when Fenty decided not to put the club into administration while the penalties for doing so were less penal.

Life’s full of ‘what ifs’ though. And what happened in the past is history.