Groves May Not Sign!

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 01/07/2002

PAUL GROVES has revealed that he may not sign the three year contract offered recently to him by the club, due to the meagre resources Town currently have at their disposal. In an interview with Radio Humberside, the Grimsby player coach confessed putting pen to paper was far from a formality.

"There are lots of things to weigh up and we'll just have to see what happens. I've got to look at every possible scenario and hopefully we can sort something out.

"There's lots of things to take into consideration like having the resources available to do the job.

"We're in negotiations and it could go either way. It's a big job and you have to take everything into consideration. Me and Graham (Rodger) are looking to a speedy solution, and obviously we need to speak to the club," the Grimsby player manager revealed.

Groves, who miraculously guided the Mariners clear of relegation last season, is still on a player's contract, despite being at the Blundell Park helm since January this year. Following Grimsby's achievement of staying in Division One, the ITV Digital fiasco has left Town crippled financially: the squad of players at Blundell Park is currently barely enough to even field a team, making the task of keeping the Mariners in Division One next season much harder than it ever has been in the past.

Groves has already trimmed the squad by releasing David Smith (Swansea), Ben Chapman (probably Boston) and Dutch midfielder Menno Willems.

With Mick Boulding, Bradley Allen, Danny Butterfield, Wayne Burnett and Simon Ford having come to the end of their contracts and only an outside chance of Terry Cooke being offered new terms, Town will probably be forced to turn to first year professionals to make up the numbers.

With the financial situation unlikely to improve much in the short term, Groves may feel that continuing as a player for two more years, leaving the 6 highly successful months in charge at Blundell Park as the only managerial experience on his CV, would place him in a better situation to stay in the game after his playing days are over. The alternative would be to remain in charge at Blundell Park under extremely testing circumstances, and make the best of the limited resources at his disposal.

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