Grimsby Town CEO opens up on ‘amazing’ Mariners achievement

Grimsby Town CEO Debbie Cook admits she is “really proud” of what the club have achieved over the past two seasons. The Mariners have had a successful couple of years, achieving promotion from the National League in the 2021/22 campaign, before reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup alongside recording an 11th-placed finish in League Two last term.

Cook was appointed as the club’s CEO in June 2021, a month after the takeover of the Mariners by Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit. The chief executive believes relationships that have been built among the club’s staff have been key to their recent success, while also helping them through some difficult moments.

Speaking to the What The Footie Podcast, Cook said: “What an amazing couple of years we’ve had. I don’t think we could’ve anticipated promotion in the first year from the National League at the first time of asking, and then Grimsby Town – in case anyone missed it – were quarter-finalists in this year’s FA Cup for the first time in over 80 years.

“Then actually, we also, in finishing 11th in League Two, had our best league finish in 15 years, so I’m really proud of that. What I’ve taken from those couple of years is relationships are everything. Being authentic in your leadership style I think applies wherever you go. Those relationships are absolutely critical when things aren’t going so well.

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“For anybody that remembers our first season, it wasn’t all plain sailing. We started off really well in that 21/22 season, we were hovering around either the top or near the top of the league, and then I remember myself and my daughter going to our game away at Wealdstone, and after that I don’t think we won a game for ten performances.

“Our supporters were calling for us to sack our manager, and it kind of felt a different place, but the relationships that we built in the good times really helped to see us through those challenging times.”

Rather than making ambitious statements, Cook is focused on helping the club to continue to improve so it is ready to take the next step towards League One. The CEO insists that progress needs to continue both on and off the pitch, but acknowledged that strides had already been taken in that regard.

“You’ll never hear us as a board coming out and saying ‘right we want to be in the Championship by 2027’. That’s not where we’re at, but our fans should never read into that that we’re not ambitious, because we absolutely are,” she added. “We want to improve every area of the football club, so when that promotion to League One comes, we’re ready, not [securing] League One promotion and then us going ‘oh, what does it mean to be a League One football club?’

“Without a doubt, we’ve talked about prioritising our first team in this next season, and trying to get as much money as we can into that area of the business, but in order to do all that, the back office functions of the football club have got to improve. Our commercial revenue for example has more than doubled in the two years that I’ve been here, it’s actually gone up by 76 per cent, but if we want to continue to kick on, we’ll need more income into the football club. It’s my job to think about how we do even better.”