From the nadir of non-league football to one of the most memorable FA Cup runs in modern times, Grimsby Town have been on quite the journey over the past four decades.
Through all of the highs and lows, one man has helped bring each match to life for those at home. John Tondeur, dubbed “The Voice of the Mariners”, has been providing commentary home and away for the football club for 40 years on BBC Radio Humberside – but it will soon come to an end having announced that he will be hanging up the microphone at the end of the 2023/24 season.
The Cleethorpes-born local fell in love with the club at the tender age of seven. Taken to his first game back in 1959 by his father to watch the Mariners take on Norwich City, John would make Blundell Park his second home when he became the voice for the club in 1984.
Affectionately known as simply “JT,” his first time in the commentary box was to witness a 2-1 win against Huddersfield Town on March 31, 1984. Back then, as opposed to a 90-minute-long commentary, goal flashes were the norm. John’s first year in the press box for the 1983/84 campaign saw the Mariners finish fifth in the old Second Division (equivalent now to the Championship) but Town endured a rough spell later that decade with back-to-back relegations in 1987 and 1988 seeing them drop down to the Fourth Division.
However, 1988 would prove to bring a change in the Mariners’ fortunes, as the club hired Alan Buckley – who has since regularly sat alongside John during his broadcasts – as manager, who fired the club to consecutive promotions in 1990 and 1991 and back into the Second Division (which became Division One the following season when the Premier League was founded).
John told the BBC that the Buckley era was some of the best football he’s seen at Blundell Park. He said: “The promotions under Alan Buckley were great. Grimsby just played fantastic passing football, which was unbelievable and I don’t think people really appreciated it until later.
“If you go back and watch some of the videos of the goals Grimsby scored under him, they were just stupendous footballing goals. Passing and movement was his big thing and the goals were amazing. I’ll always remember John Cockerill scoring the two goals against Exeter in 1991 to get promotion.”
Throughout that time, John would’ve been reading out team sheets with some of the biggest names in the club’s history, with the likes of Keith Alexander, Mark Lever, Dave Gilbert, Clive Mendonca and Paul Groves all involved over the years as the Mariners transformed into a solid second-tier team, staying there for all but one of the next 12 seasons with the only blip a relegation in 1997 that was memorably followed by a Wembley play-off promotion in 1998 – just weeks after winning the Auto Windscreens Shield (EFL Trophy) in the capital.
But with the funny old game that is football, every high must be followed eventually by a low. The club found itself in the fourth tier again after back to back relegations in 2003 and 2004, before dropping out of the Football League in 2010 for the first time in nearly 100 years. Coverage of this heartbreaking moment earned a bittersweet accolade for John and the team at BBC Radio Humberside as they were awarded the Sony Radio Academy Award – one of the highest honours in broadcasting.
Three failed play-off campaigns later, Town’s time finally came on May 15, 2016, when they found themselves at Wembley for a chance to re-enter the Football League after six years’ absence. With the Mariners 2-1 up in the 94th minute, the game against Forest Green Rovers was inevitably going to have a cagey end.
“Nolan on the left-hand side, does he go? He’s going inside here to Hoban who hits it, falls to Arnold, Arnold that’s it, that’s it he’s sealed it! Grimsby Town are back in the Football League – just a minute to go and Nathan Arnold makes it 3-1. Look at the scenes behind the goal, look at the relief, the agony is finally over. Grimsby Town 3, Forest Green Rovers 1.”
That one piece of commentary is among John’s highlights throughout his career. He told James Hoggarth on Sports Talk: “Yeah, it’s one of my favourite bits of commentary.
“It was the third goal, and it was in stoppage time so you knew that was it, that Forest Green couldn’t come back. It’s very rare you get a goal like that you know is the deciding factor and you knew Town were going up.
“A couple of my favourite commentaries have also been the relegations in terms of doing the commentary. Obviously, the occasions weren’t great but I was pleased with how I dealt with both relegations out of the Football League – but obviously, they don’t have the feel-good factor of that one!”
Since announcing that this season would be his last in the media box at Blundell Park ahead of the 1-0 win over MK Dons on Tuesday, there has been an outpouring of support for the “Voice of the Mariners”. Gary Croft, who John would’ve commentated on during his playing days with the club, compared him to the late, great John Motson.
Leave a Reply