Chris Smith has a dual personality!
Over the years he has been, is, a Bees STH but also a 50/50 Bees / Mariner
It’s a geographical thing as many of you will understand
Here is Chris’s guide to help all you need to know about Grimsby (and Cleethorpes!)
The sights, beer stops cafés and of course fish (but not cod!) and chips!
I was in Cleethorpes recently to watch Grimsby Town confirm their usual early exit from the EFL Trophy. Still, as we say to our detractors, the fourth round of the Carabao Cup isn’t for everyone.
As plenty of my friends know, I’m torn on this one but as one of my friends in Town’s ticket office said ‘Once a Mariner….’
Anyway, I thought I’d put a bit of a personal guide on this page for my Bees friends who will be making the journey soon.
Make no mistake, this area has been in decline since the ‘Cod Wars’ when our fishing industry was sold down the river.
It’s hard to believe that Grimsby was once the world’s biggest fishing port. The Nazis tried to close it down with the ‘Butterfly Bomb’ raid in 1943 which left the area littered with what effectively became landmines.
Cleethorpes is where the ground is and has much more going for it.
Parts of the town are a bit shabby but the resort itself is far better than its unfair reputation. There are lots of pubs and eateries and excellent fish and chips. It is also much friendlier than my early years watching Grimsby when the Cleethorpes Beach Patrol wasn’t the local coastguard but one of England’s earliest football hooligan firms who sent the likes of Leeds, Newcastle and Chelsea packing on occasions in the early 1980s.
Just wiped a tear from my eye.
Right!
There are plenty of good bed and breakfasts and most visitors head for the prom and the area by Cleethorpes Pier which was drastically shortened in WW2 so the Nazis couldn’t use it as a landing stage.
It was never rebuilt.
On the pier is Papa’s, a fish and chips restaurant.
You can do much better but its popular with the ‘comforts’ (a derogatory word for Yorkie daytrippers-come f’ t’ day, stay f’ t’ week as we mock).
Its a Hull company and what would those cod-crunchers know about proper fish?
There are plenty of good food outlets on the road alongside the prom but I’d give the prominent Seaway a miss.
Around the corner is Ernie Becketts’ takeaway (used to be a top restaurant before Covid).
Nearby Steele’s is excellent as is the Ocean Fish Bar, also close, on St Peter’s Avenue.
If you walk south away from the pier, beer aficionados will like Willy’s (stop giggling at the back) which is a microbrewery. It’s opposite the lifeboat and coastguard stations. Plenty of other pubs and the Fisherman Arms is well worth a visit.
If you arrive early or need to clear your head after a heavy night, you can walk down the prom, round the leisure centre and go down the path where the beach turns into a salt-marsh which the locals didn’t originally like but it does its job as an important flood defence and is now a significant nature reserve.
The Cleethorpes light railway runs along this and you come to a place called the Brew Stop.
Great hot chocolate and bacon sarnies and you can get bottled beers there. Cross over the footbridge and after a few minutes you are at Cleethorpes Lakeside station on the light railway.
This is a brilliant place on a hot summer day with regular live music (there is a strong scene locally).
Still worth a visit as it hosts the Signal Box Inn which proudly boasts to be the smallest pub on the planet and I’m told it does some decent pints too.
If you carry walking down the path where the Brew Stop is you come to Humberston and there are wide expanses of beach which is very pleasant to walk on but beware as the tide comes in very quickly.
There are regular bus services from the pier to the football ground with a bus stop opposite what I have unkindly called Blunder or Bungle Park over the last few decades.
Again there are a lot of very good fish and chip shops with some doing excellent matchday specials. Avoid the Mariners fish and chips/pizza etc eatery. You can do much much better.
The only pub near the ground is The Blundell Park Hotel which is home fans only.
The Imperial is now housing and that was a real home fans boozer too. We used to go in there having travelled from London for home games and were in there when everyone in the pub of five bars was awaiting Millwall (no-show like Reading-private joke!)
We all had pronounced London accents at that time, several would easily pass as cockneys, and when a friend ordered the drinks you could hear a pin drop. Thankfully, a local shouted hello in recognition of said friend and we lived to drink another day.
There are some real gems in Grimsby though.
Stanley Street is a fifteen minutes walk away on the impoverished East Marsh but hosts Mathews Chippy.
It is the cheapest in the UK. While the portions are a bit smaller, it is still a filling meal and comes in at £3 I think.
That is fish, chips and either mushy peas/beans/curry sauce/gravy. Top nosh. It is takeaway only and open 430-7pm.
The owner has his own fish-smoking business and strives to supply cheap meals to the folk of one of the poorest wards in England. They don’t do cod which is held in low regard by the locals. That is why the inflatable fish are called Harry Haddocks. Cod is for Yorkshire folk. And peasants.
The Barge Inn at the end of Alexandra Dock was my old local by what passes for a bus station in Grimsby.
It’s a bit quirky but my favourite pub was always the Wheatsheaf on Bargate, a ten minute walk from Grimsby Town station with a bus stop opposite where you can get to the ground in about fifteen to twenty minutes.
It does some really good food and beers.
Anyone who really does like their real ale should visit Docks Beers on King Edward Street in Grimsby. Beer aficionados must visit.
You can actually get their products delivered to your door (overnight hotel?!!) so have a look at their website. A friend of mine helped establish it. He is a big Town fan and anyone is welcome there.
It is probably a thirty minutes shuffle to the ground but if you walk a few minutes to Cleethorpe Road, any buses go to the ground, though like many provincial towns, the service is very limited after 6 or 7pm. I got sober well before the brewery was established so haven’t had the benefit of sampling their beers but friends and visitors rate them very highly.
The Enigma cafe Enigma Cafe will be open all Tuesday afternoon and early evening and it is a a very short walk from the ground
That is where me and my friends will be before the game so please drop in. It’s used by away fans with repeat customers! Great range of food and a limited selection of alcohol. Proper fry-ups too as well as roasts.
My favourite dessert is the choice of fruit crumbles with strawberries an optional extra.
A really great range of good value food and you can get beers/wine in there. My friends and I always meet here before Grimsby home games.
Hope you like the photos!
By the way, should you avail yourself of a cod and chips, I don’t know you and never knew you.
Blundell Park
As for the game itself, the ground is very dated. Town went all-seater as a result of the Taylor report and saw capacity go from 22000 to 9500. It is now about 8700. Expect the home fans to bellow ‘We are from Grimsby, who the **** are you?’, a song given to us by Aalst Ultras who regularly visit. Visitors normally come out with ‘Sing when you’re fishing’ which is our anthem anyway. Normally met with ‘We p*** on your fish, yes we do!’
The Pontoon is the traditional home end and opposite the Osmond where Brentford fans will be housed but isn’t the same since it was converted from terracing.
One of my Bees friends has been to Blundell Park regularly and swears you could see the stand with its wooden terracing bounce when Grimsby fans celebrated a goal. Chelsea tried to get in once and I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
The most noise comes from ex-Pontoonites like me who sit in the Upper Findus to the left of the away section. The Man Utd fans would not have enjoyed the baiting from there as their team was run ragged.
I dropped on for a ticket here and have used my TAPs to help out other Bees. I temporarily don’t hold a Town ST so knew I’d be able to get in one way or another.
UTFM and COYB
#haddocknotcod
Chris Smith
All the best clubs have a Supporters Trust
https://www.marinerstrust.co.uk/
Fish and Chips, Pubs and cafe’s – links and locations
Mariners (Avoid!)
Pubs
The Blundell Park Hotel (Home fans)
Wheatsheaf (10 mins to rail station – bus stop to ground outside)