2023-24 Prediction League; Game 13 v Grimsby Town FC (away)

[Div3North]

Grimsby Town

V

Accrington Stanley

2023/24 Prediction League Game 13 v Grimsby Pelham(away)

As a team, we didn’t have a bad week last week - a point at Morecambe and three points from Vegan Greenpeace ….. PL players scored two TenFromLens at the seaside (nige b and Teach) and lots got one bonus on top of their nul points for predicting the right result, but on Saturday - when all but three thought we’d win - we managed our favourite (prediction) score of 2-1, and as a result we had seven players with ten points, seven with 5 points, and four with four points; two draw-mongers got one point each (one for our two, and one for their one), and only one player got nothing as a penance for predicting a defeat - didn’t you, Your Lordship? And mab - who’s been putting down “2-1 win” for all but about three games in twelve seasons - put “4-1 win” and missed his second TenFromLen as a result …………. 4-1? That’s as bad as some of Wynonie’s guesses of years gone by ……… anybody know what happened to Wynonie? Or DaveinGermany? Or our other/onetime regulars who brightened our days?

Starter for Ten, then: what’s the largest number of players and staff ever sent off in a game (and I’m not talking about Sunday in the Park games) ……… and as an adjunct, why is Ecuadorian side Barcelona’s reserve GK (Damian Lanza) best remembered?

Grimsby (or Great Grimsby) is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire. It adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation, and is 45 miles north-east of Lincoln, 33 miles (via the Humber Bridge) south-south-east of Hull, 28 miles south-east of Scunthorpe, 50 miles east of Doncaster and 80 miles south-east of Leeds. In 2021 it had a population of 86,138. Sometime in the 9th century AD, Grimsby was settled by Danes: local folklore claims that the name Grimsby derives from Grim, a Danish / Viking word for fisherman. The common suffix ”-by” is derived from the Old Norse word ”býr” for village (cf Norwegian: by, Danish: by and Swedish: by). The legendary founding of Grimsby features in a medieval romance, "The Lay of Havelock the Dane", but historians see this account as a myth. Grimsby is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a population of around 200, a priest, a mill, and a ferry. So there!

“Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur vikur fimm megingrimmar;
saurs vara vant, er várum, viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum.
Nú'r þat's más of mýrar meginkátliga látum
branda elg á bylgjur Bjǫrgynjar til dynja.”

(translation:
"We have waded in the mire for five terrible weeks;
there was no lack of mud where we were, in the middle of Grimsby.
But now away we let our beaked moose [= ship] resound merrily
on the waves over the seagull's swamp [= sea] to Bergen".

Rögnvald Kali Kolsson (also known as Saint Ronald of Orkney (c. 1100 – 1158)), was a Norwegian earl of Orkney who came to be regarded as a Christian saint. That may be good, but his 12th Century poetry isn’t ……………….. Nice to know that nothing’s changed, though …..

Famous Grimbarians (look it up!) include Joanne and Kevin Clifton (“Strictly”), Michele Dotrice (“Betty” in "Some Mothers …), 931-game record appearance title holder from the EFL Tony Ford (“He’s big, He’s bad, He’s older than me dad, Tony Ford, Tony Ford”), Ian Huntley (Soham murderer) and his girlfriend Maxine Carr, comedian and actor Freddie Frinton (“Meet the Wife”), actress Patricia Hodge (“Rumpole” et al), footballer Duncan McKenzie, and actor Patrick Wymark

Before the late 1960s many public houses in the area were owned by the local brewer Hewitt Brothers and had a distinctive local touch, but Hewitt’s were taken over in 1969 by the brewer Bass-Charrington. The pubs have been re-badged many times, closed or sold off. The Barge Inn is a former grain barge converted into a pub/restaurant. It has been moored at the Riverhead quay since 1982, and is therefore likely to sink in late 2025 ……

Second Starter for Ten; a week or three back I asked about players scoring against former teams … actions, as we know, have consequences - so what were the consequences when Perugia loanee Ahn Jung-hwan scored an extra-time winner for South Korea which knocked Italy out of the 2002 World Cup Finals?

Grimsby Town FC was formed in 1878 after a meeting held at the Wellington Arms public house in Freeman Street, Grimsby. Attendees included members of the local Worsley Cricket Club who wanted to form a football club to occupy the empty winter evenings after the cricket season had finished. The club was originally called Grimsby Pelham, this being the family name of the Earl of Yarborough, a significant landowner in the area. In 1880 the club purchased land at Clee Park which was to become their ground until 1889 when they relocated to Abbey Park, before moving again in 1899 to their present home, Blundell Park. The original colours were blue and white hoops, which were changed to chocolate brown and blue quartered shirts in 1884.

In 1888 the club first played league football, joining the newly formed 'Combination'. The league soon collapsed and the following year the club applied to join the Football League, an application that was refused: instead the club joined the Football Alliance. In 1892 they finally entered the Football League, when it was expanded to two divisions. The first game was a 2–1 victory over Northwich Victoria.

The 1901–02 season saw promotion to the First Division, having finished as champions; two seasons later they were relegated, and within a decade they would be a non-League side again, failing re-election in 1910 and falling to the Midland League. However, they finished as champions at the first attempt and at the subsequent re-election vote, replaced local rivals Lincoln City in the Football League. (Bet that went down well!)

Grimsby Town and Hull City were the only two professional teams which had official permission to play league football on Christmas Day (because of the demands of the fishing industry), but that tradition disappeared following the dramatic reduction of their trawler fleets in recent years.

They trolled up aNd down the Leagues for many years, and changed managers as often as some people change socks; in 1954 Grimsby became the first English football club to select a foreign (caretaker) manager with the appointment of Hungarian Elemér Berkessy: they play at Blundell Park (in Cleethorpes); they won the second Division (tier 2) in 1900/01, and again in 1933/34, winning 27 of their 42 games and scoring 103 goals (with 42 of them by Pat Glover) to head PNE by 7 points; they stayed in the top Division until 1947/48, when they lost 28 of 42, earned a GD of -66 (111 conceded), and went down with - but ten points behind - Blackburn……. Bill Shankly managed them from June 1951 to January 1954, and said of them:

“Pound for pound, and class for class, the best football team I have seen in England since the war. In the league they were in, they played football nobody else could play. Everything was measured, planned and perfected and you could not wish to see more entertaining football.”

Then he resigned and went to Workington ………………

They dropped out of the FL in 2009/10, losing 3-0 at Burton on the final day of the season, and were out of the League until 2016, when they won their place back by beating Vegan Greenpeace 3-1 in the Playoff Final ………. in 2021 they went back to the Bananarama, but came back on the bounce in 2022, Doing It Unto Solihull Moors 2-1 aet (from a sixth-place finish) after seeing off Notts Co and Wrexham in the previous rounds ……….

Another Starter for Ten; how did Millwall’s 1995/96 season in the Championnat (then called The Endersleigh League First Division) earn the description “tragi-farcical”, given that on 9th December that season they were top of the League?

Last season the Mariners finished 11th in League Two (P46 W16 D13 L17 GF49 GA56 for 61 points, behind Swindon on GD) …. Fifteen left (only three of them staying in the EFL), and eleven came in, including one Harvey Rogers, plus Stevenage’s CF Danny Rose, LW Charles Vernam from the Imps, striker Donovan Wilson from Sutton, CB Toby Mullarkey from Rochdale, Arthur Gnahoua from Morecambe, Blades GK Jake Eastwood, and Rekeil Pyke from the Shrews …… At home, their record is W3 D2 L1, but away they’ve drawn 3 and lost 3; overall, P12 W3 D5 L4 GF16 GA17 for 14 points and 18th place ….. wins against Salford and Gillingham by 2-0 and Barrow by 2-1; four points from their last two games, but none from the three before that ……….. we haven't played in the League since 2017, but we’re ahead 6-4 with two draws, plus we beat them 1-0 away last season in the Trophy

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick off time, which is 15.00 hours on Saturday October 14th; as well as Shanks, managers have included Lawrie McMenemy, Paul Hurst (twice, including currently), Stanley Holloway, Alan Buckley (three times), Russell Slade, and Ron Ashman …. Bearing in mind the 5-3 win at Harrogate on Tuesday, I make us slight favourites, but not having lost in three means we’ll probably get a right drubbing …… And the most dismissals in a game that I can find is from a youth game in Paraguay between Tenient Farina (which I think translates as “I hold flour”) and Libertad (which means “Get off me” in Spanish) in 2011, when the Ref (Nestor Guillen) sent off all 36 members of both squads …… and in that same year in a 5th-tier game in Argentina between Claypole and Victoriano Arenas the Ref (Damian Rubino) improved on that by sending off every player and coach from both sides …. Claypole manager Sergio Michielli claimed that “the referee overreacted”, and that “Most players were trying to separate people. The ref was confused” ………….Damian Lanza was Ecuador's Barcelona team's substitute GK; when first choice Maximo Banguera was sent off for two yellows, Lanza - as he was waiting to come on - was heard making baseless accusations against the Ref, leading to him being sent off before he came on .......... Cue a mass brawl and the Riot Police .......And Perugia loanee Ahn Jung-hwan (who scored for South Korea and eliminated The Azzurri from The World Cup) found that on the following day Perugia’s owner had cancelled his (Ahn’s) contract, saying that he wouldn’t pay a guy who “ruined Italian football” (I thought they’d managed that without his help) ………and Millwall’s 1995/96 season went from triumph - top on goals scored, ahead of Sunderland just pre-Christmas, to tragedy when Sunderland beat them 6-0 (causing them to drop to to seventh), and after that - having taken 32 points from their first 16 games - they won only 20 more points from their last 30 games, dropping into the relegation slots on the last day of the season after a 0-0 at Ipswich, which caused them to be relegated ……… on Goals Scored!

And a huge cheer for Cheltenham who have, at last, scored a League goal in the 39th minute of their twelfth League game ……….. I make that 1,029 minutes …….. and all they got was another draw (with Derby) …….. P12 W0 D2 L10 GF1 GA20 Pts 2 ……….. Ooopsie!

Good luck to Everyone! …………. Keep the Faith! ………. And thanks for playing!

[ossy kid]

Grimsby 2-0 Stanley

[Watchdog]

Accrington Stanley to win 2-0

[Greger]

Grimsby 3 Stanley 1

[AccyMad]

2 apiece each please

[Taypot]

Grimsby 3 Stanley 0

[Chimer]

Feeling vaguely optimistic, so 2-0 Stanley.

In passing, has nobody got anything at all to say about Tuesday's 5-3 (presumed) thriller? Not that this is the place for it, but still .....

[choirboy]

Grimsby 1-2 Stanley for me please!

[Kiwi Johnny]

1-0 Stanley

[Div3North]

Grimsby 2 Stanley 1

[mab]

🙂 Grimsby Town 1 - 2 Accrington Stanley 🙂 please for me 🙂

[MikeA]

2-1 Accy please

[accytom18]

Grimsby Town 0-3 Accrington Stanley

[Lord Stiffupperlip]

Grimsby 1 - 1 Stanley please

[nige b]

1-1 for both myself and The Angemeister please, bloody hell we've agreed on something, only taken 22 years