Grimsby Town

We love regional rivalries, the kind where nobody from more than 10 miles away cares and nothing is on the line except local pride. In the Grimsby Town page on Wikipedia, which we can assume was written by a Mariners supporter, it says Town is “the most successful of the three professional league clubs in historic Lincolnshire, being the only one to play top flight English football. It is also the only club of the three to reach an FA Cup semifinal (doing so on two occasions). It has also spent more time in the English game’s first and second tiers than any other club from Lincolnshire.”

Take that, Scunthorpe United and Lincoln City!

We won’t get into this debate, but the Mariners haven’t been in the top tier since 1948, they haven’t been above the fourth tier since 2004, and they spent the 2021-22 season out of the Football League.

Town’s best season was certainly 1997-98, when they won the League Trophy, beating Bournemouth in the final on their first-ever trip to Wembley. Their second trip to the national stadium was just four weeks later, when they beat Northampton Town in the playoff final to get back to the second tier.

They lasted four seasons there before the wheels came off; they suffered two straight relegations into League Two, and in 2010 they dropped out of the Football League entirely. They made it back in 2016 and lasted five years. In 2022 they won the playoff final to get back up, though. They also had a solid run in the FA Cup, reaching the quarter-finals before losing to Brighton 5-0.

2024–25 SEASON: 9th in League Two, 1st Round FA Cup, 2nd Round League Cup

2025–26 SEASON: League Two (promoted in 2022)

You guessed it: Scunthorpe United and Lincoln City, though neither is in their league this season. Hull City would qualify as well, but they are now two leagues above them and haven’t played Grimsby Town in more than 20 years.

The Grimsby Town Women’s FC, in just their fifth year in existence, are in the East Midlands Regional Football League Division One North at tier 6. Contact the club for fixture locations. There is also a Grimsby Borough in that league, so that sounds like a derby.

There’s this song that supporters across the country taunt each other with: “You only sing when you’re winning.” Grimsby Town, in a masterpiece of English self-deprecation, sing about themselves: “We only sing when we’re fishing.” You’ll see it on scarves and posters around as well.

They also sing a slightly modified version of the Greasy Chip Butty Song from Sheffield United, replacing the gallon of Magnet with a barrel of Tetley’s. See the Blades’ profile for the rest of the lyrics.

It’s called Blundell Park, and they have played on this spot since 1899. It is a proper old ground. The latest major renovations were in 1982, when the two-tiered Young’s Stand opened. Opposite that is the old Main Stand, much of which dates to 1901; it’s considered perhaps the oldest stand in the country.

Away fans will be behind one goal in the Osmond Stand (built in 1939), and home rowdies are opposite in the Pontoon Stand (1961), which gets its name from the old fishing days. While much of that industry is gone, if you sit in the Upper Young’s and look out over the Pontoon, that big building you see is one of the largest frozen-fish storage facilities in the world.

TOURS: None

GETTING THERE: Cleethorpes is actually the closest station at about a 20-minute walk. Trains run only from Grimsby Town Station, though. From Cleethorpes, walk the main road or the seafront. Grimsby Town Station, the main one in town, is over two miles away. Bus 10 (North Sea Lane) from Old Market Place, just outside the station, will get you there in under 20 minutes, but getting a bus after the game is a hassle with traffic. A taxi is less than £10 each way. Just stay in Cleethorpes and walk.

PUBS: Right outside Grimsby Town Station is a Wetherspoon called the Yarborough Hotel. The closest pub to the ground is the Blundell Park Hotel, right across the street. And there’s one inside the ground as well. There are also several good ones in Cleethorpes, where away fans seem to hang out. These include the Coliseum Picture Theatre and the smaller Scratching Post.

GRUB: Fish and chips! They’re everywhere, especially in Cleethorpes. They were quite good at Ocean Fish Bar over that way, as well as at St. James Fish behind the Grimsby Town station. Mariners over by the ground is more of a traditional pregame chippy. There’s probably other food in town, but we didn’t eat any of it.

AROUND TOWN: It’s too bad you can’t stroll the docks among the rusty boats and crusty fishermen, hearing tales of the sea and learning bawdy songs in steamy pubs. Instead, it’s a major industrial port that you can’t really visit. The most famous building in the city is the Grimsby Dock Tower, which is rarely open to the public.

You can get a sense of the glorious past at the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Center, a large museum, and you can tour the Ross Tiger, a fishing vessel converted to a museum in 1992. Model railway geeks will love the tiny Immingham Museum.

Otherwise, Cleethorpes is worth a walk around for an old-timey beach tourist feel with about a dozen fish and chips places. And then you’re off to the ground!

And now Paul will tell you about his trip there:

I am working my way through the 92 league clubs, so I had to get there eventually; they were in League Two at the time. (And yes, Lincoln, I’ll get there too!) Also, since I spent a few summers in the Alaska fishing fleet, I have a fondness for fishing towns. And as you might imagine, everyone assured me the fish and chips there would be excellent.

So I waited for a derby to pop up, and sure enough, I got to see the 2019 visit of Scunthorpe United, from just 30 miles up the road. A River Humber derby! I eagerly read the stories about extra police coming on, and about trouble that popped up at previous games, and about the 2,000 supporters making the trip from “Scunny.”

I rolled in the night before, got some excellent fish at St. James Fish by the station, and the next morning set out to explore. A few hours before the game, I was over at the ground, where I asked somebody in the club shop for another chippy recommendation. (I might be a fried fish addict.)

This is the kind of experience you have at clubs like this: The man walked me 15 minutes down the road to a wonderful place—Ocean Fish Bar in Cleethorpes—while regaling me with tales of Grimsby glory and expressing constant incredulity that I even knew about the Humber derby, much less came to see one. I offered to buy him lunch, but he declined, wished me a pleasant day, and then walked back to the ground.

I checked out Cleethorpes for a bit (it’s the seaside entertainment district) and then decided to follow the seafront back to the ground. Shops were closed for the season, and all was quiet—until a train pulled up to the Cleethorpes station. Out poured “the Scunny lot,” many hundreds of loudly singing (and I presume highly intoxicated) visiting Irons heading for the game along the seafront.

For half a mile of open space, it was literally just me and them, with the latter closing in. They didn’t appear menacing, but then again they could easily have assumed I was a local. So I walked faster and thought of the most “dumb American” thing I could possibly say should they catch me.

There’s a point where you have to take a footbridge over the railroad tracks to get to the ground, and that bridge was crawling with cops. So I was briefly between the cops and the Scunny lot, not wanting to be associated with either. I got there ahead of the crowd just as they started coming up the steps behind me. As I approached, the officers had a stern look, to say the least.

I looked at the first one and said, “Is it this way to the SOCK-er game?” Half of them laughed, the other half looked confused, and I knew I would be okay. They waved me on, then started shouting instructions at the throng behind me. I went in for a cracking game of football.

Scunthorpe won it, 1-0, sang their guts out the whole time, threw flares onto the pitch, and then burned Cleethorpes to the ground. Okay, I made that last part up. But I do love a derby, and especially a small, petty regional one that nobody else in the world gives a crap about.