Issue 1 March / 2016

FREE!The inside track on the success of Operation

Promotion Issue 1 - March 2016

TRUST NEWSMARINERS

Image by Lee Blease

Issue 1 March / 2016

CONTENTS

THE TALE OF OPERATION PROMOTION / 4, 5, 6 This town knows - the story of how more than 2,000 Grimsby Town fans shrugged off Play Off disappointment to raise £110,000 for their football club.

WHEN HARRY MET GRAHAM / 10 Thanks to the generosity of Town fans and the support of the Mariners Trust, Harry Haddock is back…and has been meeting ex-England managers!

CHRIST THE REDEEMER SAYS A PRAYER WITH HARRY / 11 Yes. You read that correctly. The story of how Harry Haddock went to Brazil and was snapped at Christ The Redeemer.

NEW STADIUM UPDATE / 12 Lots of work is going on behind the scenes with regards to a new community stadium for Grimsby Town Football Club. We update on this issue - and our efforts to introduce safe standing at Blundell Park.

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Special thanks go to Lee Blease, Anne Boyers, the Grimsby Telegraph, Paul Savage and Stuart Raithby for the use of their photographs in this publication.

For more information visit www.marinerstrust.co.uk or visit www.facebook.com/marinerstrust

The Mariners Trust is a collective of Grimsby Town supporters who have a direct say in the running of the football club. There are approximately 1,400 members of the Trust. We are a Community Interest Company (CIC) and are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Our registration is IP29571R. We are a not-for-profit organisation and our work is for the benefit of the wider community and not for the financial benefit of our members. We work under the model rules and guidance of Supporters Direct and we are also members of the Football Supporters Federation (FSF). Find out more at www.marinerstrust.co.uk/about/

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TERRY RUDRUM, CHAIRMAN “Welcome to our first newsletter. Our aim is to achieve the best possible supporter involvement in the running of the football club by being a positive, inclusive and representative organisation which is open to all. The Trust re-launched four years ago and our membership has increased from 140 to 1,400. The Trust board consists of a dozen individuals who have a wealth of business knowledge and experience, whose key role is to identify and achieve sustainable income streams. In return for a financial commitment to the football club, we have two board members who sit on the main club board, taking a full part in the organisation. Our main income is derived from membership, events, merchandise, the 100 Club and the running of all the ground bars, which has been a great success. The response to Operation Promotion was fantastic and is a great testimony to the support that this club generates both locally and through its exiles. Thank you all for your continued support.”

Image by Lee Blease

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When Bristol Rovers converted their final penalty in the Conference Play Off Final at Wembley, Grimsby Town fans trudged out of the ground despondent with a long, fruitless journey home ahead of them. While many fans and clubs would have wallowed in self-pity and the disappointment of missing out on promotion to the Football League, Grimsby Town supporters showed they are a class above.

Within just a couple of days of the Wembley disappointment, the Mariners Trust had come up with an idea to raise money to help manager Paul Hurst’s pre-season transfer budget.

The Mariners Trust launched Operation Promotion on 1 June with the aim of boosting Paul Hurst’s transfer kitty for next season. The plan was to raise £20,000 in eight weeks with all proceeds raised added into Hurst’s existing budget for the Mariners’ 2015/16 Conference assault. The intention was for this money to be used to fund a new, key player for next season. What happened next went down in history.

OPERATION PROMOTION: THE STORY OF HOW 2,000 GRIMSBY TOWN SUPPORTERS SHRUGGED OFF DEFEAT AT WEMBLEY TO RAISE £110,000 FOR THEIR CLUB

FAN POWER!

Issue 1 March / 2016

After discussing the idea with the club – who fully supported it – the Trust promised to add £5,000 to the grand total. Local supporter Lee Mullen also agreed to match the total up to £20,000.

“We thought that was an ambitious target that would supplement the manager’s playing budget for next season,” explained Dave Roberts, Trust secretary. “Little did we know what would happen next.”

Thanks to a story in the Grimsby Telegraph and the hard work of fans on social media, the appeal went viral. Within just a few hours of the launch, we’d managed to meet our £20,000 target.

By the end of day 1, we’d raised £25,000 – and that didn’t include the extra cash promised by the Trust or the Mullen family. By the end of day 3 we’d hit £34,000. And by the end of the first week we homed in on £40,000. After two and a half weeks we’d nailed £50,000.

“There were fans of all ages donating money - Andrew Newman who donated to become a squad player for the season, comedian Lloyd Griffith donated his time to put on a fundraising night of comedy and then we had the young fans donating their pocket money,” Dave added. “It was an incredible response.”

The efforts of supporters helped attract some fantastic media coverage - from the Grimsby Telegraph and Cleethorpes Chronicle, to BBC Radio Humberside and BBC Look North. We were even featured on Talksport Radio and Colin Murray was so impressed he featured our plight in The Metro newspaper.

By the end of the campaign Moira Stuart was discussing the scheme on Radio 4 and it featured on news

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Image by Lee Blease

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broadcasts on Radio 1. Football magazine Four Four Two covered the scheme and celebrity Adam Richman, he of Man v Food fame, even found the time to donate to the cause.

By the time the dust had settled and the two-month fundraising period expired, more than 2,000 Town fans from across the world had donated more than £110,000 - a ‘frankly unbelievable’ effort according to Mariners Director John Fenty.

The fund has already been put to good use by Paul Hurst and has helped with following

• Paying a fee for Omar Bogle who was secured on a three year deal

• Help retain nine members of the 2014/5 squad

• Pay for a full time goalkeeping coach (Andy Warrington)

• Provide the impetus for an improved squad of senior players with league experience

• Key loan signings

In addition there have been improvements to the training facilities at Cheapside and to the coach for travel to away games. Hopefully these will help the existing players and with Paul still looking to add another striker to the squad then everything possible is being done to achieve promotion.

“There is no doubt that, as well as the financial impact, Operation Promotion has galvanised support for the club and brought club and community closer together,” Dave added.

“That is exactly the aim of the Trust and it would be fantastic if at the end of the season we can all say ‘we did that’.”

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Our annual Trust Open Day took place on August 2, 2015 and was greeted with similar success to previous years.

Grimsby Town fans were not only able to watch their favourite

players train, but also had the chance to meet them and have pictures taken with them throughout the course of the morning.

Fans were given the unique opportunity to watch from the pitch as Paul Hurst and Chris Doig led his side through a Sunday

morning workout.

Wi th var ious s ta l l s and activities around Blundell Park, fans were kept well entertained, even having the opportunity to take a penalty a g a i n s t o n e o f To w n ’s

goalkeepers.

Alongside usual activities, the Open Day also offered fans the

chance to collect their Operation Promotion purchases, as well as purchase any additional items they liked the look of.

We would like to thank everyone who volunteered their time to making this day such a great success, and hope that it can be replicated in seasons to come!

MARINERS TRUST OPEN DAY

Images by Anne Boyers

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A s y o u k n o w M a r i n e r s Tr u s t h a v e t w o representatives on the Grimsby Town board, Dave Roberts and Jon Wood, but what do they actually do? Here Dave gives us an overview of what the role involves.

The first thing to say is that both myself and Jon are very aware that we on the GTFC board to represent our members and the wider supporter base. Realistically there will always be a huge variety of

ideas and opinions and our task is to stay close to our supporters and do our best to understand the key issues and views. To this end both Jon and I retain our season tickets in the Main Stand and spend a lot of time talking to supporters around the ground at home games and similarly choose to stand/sit with our supporters at away games rather than take advantage of the boardroom hospitality on offer. That said it is often advantageous to network with other club directors and so we cover

YOUR BOARD MEMBERS: THE MARINERS TRUST HAS TWO REPRESENTATIVES ON THE BOARD OF GRIMSBY TOWN. THIS IS HOW THEY REPRESENT YOU.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE

Image courtesy of the Grimsby Telegraph - (l/r John Fenty, Dave Roberts, Jon Wood and former Trust chair Chris Parker)

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“Initiatives such as the cheaper season tickets for over 75's and U21’s, as well as free entry for over 85’s, came from the Trust”

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this off by meeting them in the boardroom after home games.

A key point to make is t h a t o u r

involvement is as little or as great as we want it to be and there are no barriers what so ever in terms of the

information we a r e a b l e t o

access.

Formal board meetings take place every other month and any issues in between are covered off with separate meetings or by phone/e-mail. Contrary to some people's belief all decisions are made as a group and within that myself and Jon have a full say on every issue and if there is ever a need we both have a counting vote (ie not one between us.)

The key frustration for us is that for the majority of things discussed we are bound by confidentiality and are often unable to communicate back to the Trust board let alone our members. We wil l a lways communicate what we can and the club will always cover off the communications relating to players which is a big part of our discussions.

In terms of duties Jon is very much involved in the youth department and our relationship with Oasis Academy whereas I am much more involved with working on the week to week operations with the club's senior management team. This involves looking at

things such as ticket prices, merchandising and commercial deals. Initiatives such as the cheaper season tickets for over 75's and U21's as well as free entry for over 85's have come from this involvement.

As well as the week to week involvement I also sit on the sub committees for the community stadium project and the team looking for potential new investors.

These areas in particular are very difficult to say much about publically but rest assured there is lots of great work going on in the background and although I am frustrated by the pace of progress I remain very excited about the outcome of both projects.

The current GTFC board are very much a working board and as well as board duties it is not unusual for board members to "muck in" and do jobs a r o u n d t h e ground to save m o n e y a n d m a x i m i s e t h e funds available for the team.

My contribution to this is that I help prepare and set out the first team kit for every game so blame me if you see any mistakes.

Hopefully this has given you a good insight into what we do and you can see the benefit of having Trust representatives on the GTFC board . If ever you have a question you want raising please do not hesitate to contact me at daveroberts@marinerstrust.co.uk

Issue 1 March / 2016

FROM THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA TO FRASER ISLAND, VIA MEETING GRAHAM TAYLOR, HARRY HADDOCK HAS ALREADY MADE HIS WAY AROUND THE WORLD…

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Since the success of Operation Promotion and the re-launch of Harry Haddock, the Mariners Trust has been inundated with photographs from around the world of Town fans clutching their favourite fish.

From snaps with Town legend and former England manager Graham Taylor, to relaxing on Fraser Island several thousand miles away,

Grimsby fans have taken Harry on their travels. He’s even made it to the Great Wall of China!

If you have a photo of Harry in an exotic place - or even somewhere not quite so exotic! - please let us know.

Send photos to board@marinerstrust.co.uk and we’ll feature the best in our next edition.

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Thanks to Joe Turner for this amazing photo! He said: "It's a pic of Harry loving life in Rio with none of other than Christ himself. We both said a few prayers while we were there and got many funny looks

from bemused tourists. Here's to a prosperous, and promotion-al, year!"

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As you know last year the council engaged consultants to look at whether or not a community stadium would have social and economic benefits for the Borough. The result of this study was an overwhelming YES which we think was a major turning point and something that was probably underplayed.

This essentially gave the council the confidence to move to the next stage which is to identify the best site and so the same consultants undertook a first stage feasibility study which looked at 19 different sites.

The result of this was to move to more detailed studies on six of the sites which includes the club's preferred site of Peaks Parkway as well as two sites added by the council , Freeman St and Dockside.

The current situation is that the consultants for the new work have been selected and they are targeted with coming back with the recommendation by June. The study will look

deeper into all of the criteria necessary for the project to move forward - e.g. land availability and cost, accessibility, location, infrastructure and commercial viability.

With everything we have seen we still believe Peakes Parkway is the best location but we remain open minded and w e w o u l d e n c o u r a g e e v e r y o n e t h a t w h e n t h e recommendation is made it is accepted by all and we focus on making it happen.

We are very encouraged by some of the work going on behind the scenes and by the determination of the council to make this happen. It might be taking longer than we would all like but the process is very robust and we are very confident of a positive outcome later this year.

Last year you will recall that we achieved a lot of attention when we declared our intention to push for a section of safe standing in the Pontoon Stand. This wasn't just a publicity stunt but was something we really believed we could

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NEW STADIUM & SAFE STANDING UPDATE

Photo courtesy Paul Savage

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achieve. This was based on conversations with the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA) and the suppliers of rail seats who both saw us as an ideal test case to apply for a three year trial given our current non-league status which made it impossible for us to playing at championship level within the time frame. It was also done on the back of feedback from supporters which showed 85% thought there should be a choice to stand (although only about 15% actually want to stand).

Just as a reminder Blundell Park was converted to all seating in 1995 at which point the licence was updated and remains in place to this day. As the rules stand whilst we are in the National League we can actually do what we like in terms of converting to standing but as soon as we regain Football League status the all seating licence comes back into force. In terms of cost it doesn't make any sense for the club or willing sponsors to convert for what could, hopefully, be for just one year hence why we applied for a three year trial.

So what is the current position? Unfortunately following a meeting with the Department for Culture and Sport they have declared that a trial would not be possible and if we do convert we would either have to convert back or not use that

section at all WHEN we return to the FL. We find this a very disappointing outcome given the encouragement we were given and the fact that in every all seated stadium in the country large sections of fans are standing throughout the game.

This in our view is more dangerous and, as we have seen at Blundell Park, leads to considerable damage of seats. This whole issue is something that the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) are strongly pursuing but they will need to persuade the government to push through a change in law to make it happen.

The plot thickens even further in that at the same meeting we mentioned that we are hopeful of moving to a new community stadium and therefore we assume that we would have to apply for a new licence which could then include some standing. Apparently not!

The DCS are not able to give us that re assurance at this moment in time and it could well be that the current all seating licence would transfer with us to the new ground. Hopefully things will be much clearer by the time we get to the planning stage for the stadium.

Image by Lee Blease

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JUNIOR MARINERS

Our junior section gives young fans (19 and under) chance to be part of Mariners Trust for just £5 per year.

On joining new members receive a joining gift and also throughout the season we run a number of free events and competitions. These include prizes such as chance to play on the pitch, mascot places and free tickets. We’ve also run very successful FIFA tournaments for our younger members.

Junior members are sent a card on their birthday and we are also looking to do more special events particularly around Xmas and pre season.

When the club have been lucky enough to play at Wembley we have been able to obtain mascot and flag bearer places for some very lucky junior members.

Overall the amount we re-invest back into the junior section is far more than the subscriptions we receive but we recognise that these are the fans of the future and we are really keen to encourage as many as possible to start and then keep supporting the club.

To join just fill in the form contained within this brochure or visit www.marinerstrust.co.uk

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WIN A SIGNED SHIRT!Image by Lee Blease

Fancy winning a Grimsby Town shirt signed by the 2015/16 first team squad?

This is your chance!

We have a fantastic Town shirt to give away to one lucky person in this easy to enter competition. We need some help creating a new name for the Junior Mariners section of the Trust.

Think you have a great name for our younger fans?

If we agree with your suggestion not only will your name be used for our younger Trust members but you will also win a signed shirt!

To e n t e r j u s t e m a i l y o u r s u g g e s t i o n t o enquiries@marinerstrust.co.uk by 30 April. Don’t forget to include your name. Good luck!

CAN YOU HELP THE MARINERS TRUST? WE ARE ALWAYS IN NEED OF HELP - WHETHER IT’S HELPING OUT AT AN EVENT,

FUNDRAISING OR PROMOTING OUR WORK. EVEN A FEW HOURS A MONTH CAN HELP. FIT THE BILL? CONTACT US ON

ENQUIRIES@MARINERSTRUST.CO.UK