Grimsby Town V Watford Fa Cup Round 4, 26th January 1985

I played against South Shields Institute of Marine Technology which was right on the North Sea. Was early January and pitch covered in snow and used orange ball - farkin freezing. Was waiting for a corner, put hand on goalpost and it stuck to the metal

 

I can just see Les Simmons going there for his hols in the 80s.

 

What an entertaining game on a dreadful pitch. GT must have given them a rocket at half-time after a lacklustre first half probably suffering a hangover from the midweek League Cup exit at home to Sunderland (bloody Clive Walker who always scored against us), a game that should have seen us progress to the semi-finals. Our second and third goals were lovely moves which just showed how good we could be at times even with a injury hit team. Great memories.

 

Couple of things. Only seems to be one dugout and that is quite a drop on the closest corner in the photo!
Edit - Just noticed dugout on far side!

 

That was a really cold month in the UK, if many games were played I'm surprised.

 

Not so much the air temperature which was cold but the ground is right next to the North Sea and the wind chill was the worst part of it. If I remember rightly it had snowed heavily and then melted which made the pitch a quagmire.

Regardless of that we won after we were so crap in the first half and we had the best fish and chips ever after the game.

I'm pretty sure it's the same day Arsenal lost at York and we stopped at the same services as a couple of their coaches, they were less than complimentary, one of coach drivers sat down near us and said "Oh look Elton's poofs are 'ere".

We responded in kind by wishing them luck in the next round and left...quickly.