Gregor Robertson

Has written an article about the recent events at Grimsby Town!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art.....2#Echobox=1609707603

I'm not subscribed to the times, if anybody here is subscribed would you mind copying and pasting into this thread please so others can enjoy.

Quoted from Davec

Has written an article about the recent events at Grimsby Town!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art.....2#Echobox=1609707603

I'm not subscribed to the times, if anybody here is subscribed would you mind copying and pasting into this thread please so others can enjoy.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art.....yJjlnoZGJYRPkJg8N4X0

This may save people having to click on the link.

New year, new era? That, at least, is the fervent hope among the Grimsby Town faithful after a denouement to 2020 that left many wondering what on earth was happening to their beloved club. Politics, scandal, a takeover saga, ultimatums, claims and counterclaims — it has been quite a few weeks for the 142-year-old club.
And in the end it was all too much for Ian Holloway, the manager, who swept in on a wave of optimism 12 months ago but resigned two days before Christmas after complaints about boardroom politics.
In truth, Grimsby’s perilous position near the foot of Sky Bet League Two probably played its part in Holloway’s decision but, in any case, it now falls to Paul Hurst, who led Grimsby back into the Football League in 2016 and returned to Blundell Park last week, to avert relegation.
The 2-1 home defeat by Cambridge United on Saturday — Grimsby’s seventh in their past ten games — caused the club to drop into the bottom two and showed that Hurst, 46, has quite a job on his hands — but, despite it all, his return adds to a renewed sense of hope.
Last week, the club’s majority shareholder, John Fenty, after repeatedly shifting the goalposts, finally agreed terms for the sale of the club to a consortium of three businessmen, Tom Shutes, Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit.
Fenty had faced mounting pressure from fans to sell the club after his business dealings with Alex May, a convicted fraudster, emerged last month, leading to his resignation as deputy leader of North East Lincolnshire council.
May, formerly known as Alick Kapikanya, was sentenced in 2014 to six years in prison for his part in a £3.5 million mortgage fraud that targeted elderly homeowners in Manchester. May had been invited to attend several games at Blundell Park and offered to invest £1 million in the club, which Grimsby say was refused after a wave of opprobrium.

Fenty, who was the council’s cabinet member for regeneration, skills and housing before his resignation, had set up a property development company with May, Town Centre Living, which he failed to update on his official register of interests. May had also been introduced to other councillors to discuss regeneration projects.
All of which is acutely connected to the club because the future of Grimsby is tightly interwoven with the town’s regeneration plans. There are hopes that a new community stadium — in the town centre or at the derelict docks, both of which are earmarked for investment — will be at the heart of redevelopment. Apart from the political winds of change felt in this part of the country, and the investment that is expected to follow, the growth of the offshore wind industry and the multimillion-pound Greater Grimsby Town Deal, which promises to revive swathes of abandoned industrial areas, all point to a changing landscape.
Shutes, who leads the consortium seeking to buy the club, is also a member of the board steering the Greater Grimsby Town Deal. He is a London-based property developer and philanthropist whose grandfather was involved in Grimsby’s fishing industry, but the other two consortium members are Grimsby born and bred.
Stockwood, who grew up on a Grimsby council estate, is vice-chairman of the insurance broker Simply Business and previously held management roles at Match.com, the dating website, and lastminute.com, the travel website. He is author of Reboot: A Blueprint for Happy, Human Business in the Digital Age.
Pettit, whose family owned a butcher’s shop in the town, is a founding partner of Revcap, a private equity property business, and formerly worked for Lehman Brothers, the global financial services company, and Clifford Chance, the law firm. At the heart of their takeover bid, it seems, is a desire to extend the club’s influence in the community.
So Grimsby are at a crossroads. Where Holloway is concerned, meanwhile, rarely has a manager promised so much and delivered so little. A year ago, Fenty wooed the former Blackpool manager over fish and chips in Papa’s, a restaurant on Cleethorpes pier. Holloway was prepared to buy £100,000 worth of shares, was handed a seat on the board and moved to the area. His appointment was part of the same vision to make Grimsby great again.
Without the arrival of Covid-19, and other off-field distractions, things might have been different. Holloway, though, walked away having signed 16 players in the summer, most of whom are simply not good enough, and rather than build a team to make people “proud”, he left them with a 30-man squad in desperate need of overhaul.
On Saturday goals from Adam May and Paul Mullin gave Cambridge a 2-0 half-time lead. Elliott Hewitt halved the deficit with 18 minutes to play and there was plenty of effort to find an equaliser, but Hurst knows that a chronic dearth of creativity and goals must be addressed in this month’s transfer window.
“You can put a dog on the pitch and it will run around,” Hurst said, “but you won’t do very well with 11 dogs.”
Hurst, who has managed Shrewsbury Town, Ipswich Town and Scunthorpe United since his first spell at Blundell Park, knows about the potential waiting to be realised. “This club is a massive part of the town, and the area,” he said. “For the size of the club, you’d struggle to find a more passionate group of fans.
“Little things stick in my mind from being here before: when a new shirt is on sale they’re queueing down the street. And you saw, at Wembley [in the National League play-off final in 2016], the number of fans who travelled down, the passion that’s there.
“So it could be a very different football club moving forward. A new era. But my job is trying to get things right on the pitch, improve the playing squad, because whatever happens I want it to be a club that’s in the Football League. We’re in the bottom two. Relegation is the last thing I’d want — whether I was here, or sitting on my sofa at home — having been part of the hard work it took to get us back in the League. We must do everything possible to make sure we stay here.”

Quoted from Tinymariner

This may save people having to click on the link.

New year, new era? That, at least, is the fervent hope among the Grimsby Town faithful after a denouement to 2020 that left many wondering what on earth was happening to their beloved club. Politics, scandal, a takeover saga, ultimatums, claims and counterclaims — it has been quite a few weeks for the 142-year-old club.
And in the end it was all too much for Ian Holloway, the manager, who swept in on a wave of optimism 12 months ago but resigned two days before Christmas after complaints about boardroom politics.
In truth, Grimsby’s perilous position near the foot of Sky Bet League Two probably played its part in Holloway’s decision but, in any case, it now falls to Paul Hurst, who led Grimsby back into the Football League in 2016 and returned to Blundell Park last week, to avert relegation.
The 2-1 home defeat by Cambridge United on Saturday — Grimsby’s seventh in their past ten games — caused the club to drop into the bottom two and showed that Hurst, 46, has quite a job on his hands — but, despite it all, his return adds to a renewed sense of hope.
Last week, the club’s majority shareholder, John Fenty, after repeatedly shifting the goalposts, finally agreed terms for the sale of the club to a consortium of three businessmen, Tom Shutes, Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit.
Fenty had faced mounting pressure from fans to sell the club after his business dealings with Alex May, a convicted fraudster, emerged last month, leading to his resignation as deputy leader of North East Lincolnshire council.
May, formerly known as Alick Kapikanya, was sentenced in 2014 to six years in prison for his part in a £3.5 million mortgage fraud that targeted elderly homeowners in Manchester. May had been invited to attend several games at Blundell Park and offered to invest £1 million in the club, which Grimsby say was refused after a wave of opprobrium.

Fenty, who was the council’s cabinet member for regeneration, skills and housing before his resignation, had set up a property development company with May, Town Centre Living, which he failed to update on his official register of interests. May had also been introduced to other councillors to discuss regeneration projects.
All of which is acutely connected to the club because the future of Grimsby is tightly interwoven with the town’s regeneration plans. There are hopes that a new community stadium — in the town centre or at the derelict docks, both of which are earmarked for investment — will be at the heart of redevelopment. Apart from the political winds of change felt in this part of the country, and the investment that is expected to follow, the growth of the offshore wind industry and the multimillion-pound Greater Grimsby Town Deal, which promises to revive swathes of abandoned industrial areas, all point to a changing landscape.
Shutes, who leads the consortium seeking to buy the club, is also a member of the board steering the Greater Grimsby Town Deal. He is a London-based property developer and philanthropist whose grandfather was involved in Grimsby’s fishing industry, but the other two consortium members are Grimsby born and bred.
Stockwood, who grew up on a Grimsby council estate, is vice-chairman of the insurance broker Simply Business and previously held management roles at Match.com, the dating website, and lastminute.com, the travel website. He is author of Reboot: A Blueprint for Happy, Human Business in the Digital Age.
Pettit, whose family owned a butcher’s shop in the town, is a founding partner of Revcap, a private equity property business, and formerly worked for Lehman Brothers, the global financial services company, and Clifford Chance, the law firm. At the heart of their takeover bid, it seems, is a desire to extend the club’s influence in the community.
So Grimsby are at a crossroads. Where Holloway is concerned, meanwhile, rarely has a manager promised so much and delivered so little. A year ago, Fenty wooed the former Blackpool manager over fish and chips in Papa’s, a restaurant on Cleethorpes pier. Holloway was prepared to buy £100,000 worth of shares, was handed a seat on the board and moved to the area. His appointment was part of the same vision to make Grimsby great again.
Without the arrival of Covid-19, and other off-field distractions, things might have been different. Holloway, though, walked away having signed 16 players in the summer, most of whom are simply not good enough, and rather than build a team to make people “proud”, he left them with a 30-man squad in desperate need of overhaul.
On Saturday goals from Adam May and Paul Mullin gave Cambridge a 2-0 half-time lead. Elliott Hewitt halved the deficit with 18 minutes to play and there was plenty of effort to find an equaliser, but Hurst knows that a chronic dearth of creativity and goals must be addressed in this month’s transfer window.
“You can put a dog on the pitch and it will run around,” Hurst said, “but you won’t do very well with 11 dogs.”
Hurst, who has managed Shrewsbury Town, Ipswich Town and Scunthorpe United since his first spell at Blundell Park, knows about the potential waiting to be realised. “This club is a massive part of the town, and the area,” he said. “For the size of the club, you’d struggle to find a more passionate group of fans.
“Little things stick in my mind from being here before: when a new shirt is on sale they’re queueing down the street. And you saw, at Wembley [in the National League play-off final in 2016], the number of fans who travelled down, the passion that’s there.
“So it could be a very different football club moving forward. A new era. But my job is trying to get things right on the pitch, improve the playing squad, because whatever happens I want it to be a club that’s in the Football League. We’re in the bottom two. Relegation is the last thing I’d want — whether I was here, or sitting on my sofa at home — having been part of the hard work it took to get us back in the League. We must do everything possible to make sure we stay here.”

I don't know about other posters but I am still trying to get my head round the Holloway situation.

Yes his managerial record was mixed, but we know ourselves how boardroom antics can play a huge part and all of his successes were at a higher level so that held weight. The idea that he was to move here, invest in the club and spoke of leaving a legacy would sway most Town fans to say wow, at last we have a new and exciting future to look forward to.

I could not understand the love in for Fenty, but I told myself he was just being considerate and would perhaps look to others to buy Fenty out in future years as the revolution got underway.

Yet here we are a year on, 23rd in division 4.

Amazingly though, the Holloway / May / Fenty saga has set off a chain of events that actually WILL bring about change, and change far greater that we could have imagined a year ago!

As Mrs LCL says, there is always a reason for everything although we cannot see it at the time.

Quoted from Davec

Has written an article about the recent events at Grimsby Town!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art.....2#Echobox=1609707603

I'm not subscribed to the times, if anybody here is subscribed would you mind copying and pasting into this thread please so others can enjoy.

Bought the paper today for the first time in ages. £2.20! Can't imagine I'll be buying another one anytime soon.
Very surprised to see we have a big write up - fairly well balanced I thought.

But Ian Runaway went on Soccer AM and gave a "very honest" talk that mentions hardly any of that.

Probably the best article on our current situation as you would expect from Gregor.

Another one sticking it to Fenty, very well written I'd say and on point. UTM!!!!

Cheers Tiny.

Quoted from Cambridgefish

Bought the paper today for the first time in ages. £2.20! Can't imagine I'll be buying another one anytime soon.
Very surprised to see we have a big write up - fairly well balanced I thought.

If I’d paid £2.20 for a newspaper then I’d be recycling it in the toilet, even Andrex is not that expensive.

I'll be the first to say it ,it looks kike Alix May did us a massive favour.