Let's Back the Ground

By: Dave Boylen
Date: 13/12/2006

WITH the upturn in the Mariners' performances out on the football field, the appointment of Alan Buckley being a move in the right direction, and with results improving, it seems that Chairman John Fenty can now put all his resources into the application for the new ground.

I know that John himself has put in an awful amount of work to secure the planning permission for this ground to be built, and if it gets refused I think the club is in serious danger of losing its Chairman. That is my main fear.

What amazes me is the lack of support from certain prominent local politicians. On the Council, a certain Andrew De Freitas comes to my mind. He always seems to be hanging around the Football Club boardroom at big high profile football matches at Blundell Park, but where will he be when we want his support for the Football ground? Come on Andrew, get in there and wave your Black & White scarf and vote for the ground! You know you have been supporting the Mariners for years, even when I played for them all that time ago. I used to see you outside the ground asking for autographs, in fact I probably signed a few myself.

Another prominent high profile politician who is strangely quiet about the new ground is our local MP Mr. Austin Mitchell. Are you for the ground or are you against it Austin, please give us a answer? This cannot drag on for another ten years. People are just fed up with the whole scenario. Where ever you look around the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area there seems to be no worthwhile investment in the local community. If permission is granted it will lift the whole area, not just the football side.

The Winter Gardens is going to be closed so that is another venue to be replaced, and I am sure that there will be space in the new ground to accommodate that hole. Plans for a sit down dining room which will be able to cater for about 200 people I am sure that is in the plans. Going back to the Chairman of the Football club, he is still a young man who learns very quickly. He is the right man to take this club of ours into the next generation. We have not got a fortune to spend; this club never has had, we will always be on a small budget.

We cannot, if permission is granted to build the stadium, drag our heels any longer. Get behind John Fenty, show your support. In my opinion it needs to go through this time because if it does not we are in danger of losing the Chairman, which will be a tragedy to Grimsby Town Football Club. These are only my own private feelings. John Fenty has not mentioned anything to me at all, but I have seen how hard he has worked on this project and it will be a right kick in the teeth to him personally if it gets refused.

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