When Grimsby missed out on promotion to the Football League in May a few fans decided to set up a crowdfunding campaign to help their manager buy new players. They hoped to receive £20,000 but ended up with over £110,000

Grimsby Town missed out on promotion to the Football League by the closest of margins last season. By the time their players lined up for a penalty shootout against Bristol Rovers in the Conference Premier play-off final, they had already completed a mammoth season: 46 league matches, a two-legged play-off semi-final and 120 minutes of football at Wembley. It all came down to nine penalty kicks, and all that effort came to nothing; Bristol Rovers won the shootout 5-3 to return to League Two and Grimsby were back where they started.

When asked how he felt after that defeat at Wembley the Grimsby manager, Paul Hurst, was understandably deflated. “Devastated would be a good word,” he said, as he reflected on the long, unforgiving campaign. “It wasn’t our day. No matter what I say here it doesn’t change the fact that we’ve lost the game and lost out on promotion back to the Football League that we all desperately craved.”

Hurst wasn’t to know it at the time, but a few Grimsby fans were about to give the club the lift it needed. “When we lost the play-off final, we sensed that people were taking the positives out of that rather than being negative,” says Dave Roberts, a Grimsby fan who sits on the club’s board as part of his role with the supporters’ body The Mariners Trust. “A few of us thought we really wanted to help the club go one better next season, so we decided to have a go at raising some money to help the playing budget.”

The trust decided to set up a Crowdfunder campaign with the hope of raising about £20,000 for the manager to spend on new players. Their plan was given a boost when Lee Mullen, a local fan who won the jackpot in the Euromillions lottery back in 2011, decided to help out. “He agreed to match anything the fans could raise up to £20,000,” says Roberts. “Announcing that got us off to a really good start and within the first day we achieved that £20,000. Within the very first day we knew something special was going on.”

The pledges kept coming, with every fan giving in accordance to their means. “Overall we’ve had about 2,000 individual pledges and raised £110,000,” says Roberts. “We received everything from private pledges of £2,500 to a little boy who wrote in to say: ‘Can you give my pocket money of £4 to the manager so that we can get promoted?’.”

With more money comes more pressure to perform, but the over-riding emotion at Blundell Park is excitement. “There’s no doubt that the expectations have gone up a notch, but that’s part of the game,” says Roberts. “If we are going to get out of this league, the pressure is going to be there anyway. The manager has already been allowed to spend some of the money as the club knew what was going on. He’s always mentioned wanting a goalkeeping coach and now we have one of those too. Fingers crossed we will be competitive again and hopefully go one extra step next season.”

The off-season has been unusually busy at the club, who are giving away merchandise to many of the fans who donated. One supporter has been rewarded with a special treat for his £2,500 donation. Andrew Newman, who made the local news when he unveiled banners about the club during WWE’s WrestleMania event, has been given a place on the team squad.

“Obviously he won’t be playing or anything like that,” says Roberts, “But he was down at the club yesterday as part of the team photo. It’s fantastic as he’s a real, dedicated fan who travels to games. I don’t know if he’ll get a runout this season but, at the end of the season if everything is done and dusted and we are promoted, it might be a consideration.” That’s probably not what the manager had in mind when he heard about Operation Promotion, but with a few new players in the squad, Grimsby are looking well placed to avoid the heartache they suffered at Wembley in May.