THURSDAY'S meeting with Kidderminster Harriers is Grimsby Town's first ever 'Mariners Memory Game' – aimed at raising awareness of dementia. In the first of a series of features, Dave Moore tells the Telegraph's Lee Jones about his top Town moment...
"THERE was a fantastic picture in the Grimsby Telegraph of our Kev being carried off the pitch as the title celebrations began – that's my favourite Mariners Memory."
Since joining his boyhood club in 1976, Dave Moore has been a Town player, assistant manager, manager and now physio at Blundell Park.
But despite his 37-year association with the Mariners – who he also supported as a boy – the man who turns 54 tomorrow doesn't hesitate in recalling his all-time top Town memory.
It was the final day of the 1979/80 season and a superb 4-0 victory over Sheffield United to clinch the Division Three title.
Ahead of Thursday's first 'Mariners Memory Game', against Kidderminster, Moore, pictured left, explains why that tops the list for him.
"It was the last game of the season to win the championship with 19,000 people there," he told the Telegraph.
"There were five local Grimsby kids who had known each other since they were 12 or 13 playing – with one in four people from the town at the game and everybody else in Grimsby talking about it.
"Kev Drinkell scored a hat-trick on the day, and I'd been playing against him since I was 11 years old – him at Whitgift school and me at Wintringham.
"For both of us to be playing in front of 19,000 people at Blundell Park to get promotion to what is now the Championship was pretty special – you can't beat that really, can you?"
Moore was joined in the Town team – which had been promoted from Division Four 12 months earlier – by his brother Kevin along with Drinkell, Tony Ford and Terry Donovan.
He added: "It's a classic old footballers' joke – 'have you ever been carried off? Yes, but only shoulder-high!'
"We just couldn't get off the pitch. As soon as the final whistle went, it was like 'bloomin eck!' We were surrounded by people and then carried off shoulder-high before spraying the champagne in what used to be the directors' box with the fans on the pitch.
"Then we were out in Grimsby that night – five local kids out with the fans in the pubs and clubs of Grimsby. Needless to say, we didn't buy a drink all night!
"It made it so unbelievable because I'd been one of those fans a few years earlier.
"My hero was Matt Tees – the Town legend. I'd stood on the Pontoon the night his team beat Exeter to go up, and then walked home down the middle of Grimsby Road singing and chanting.
"That team, McMenemy's team, was 1971/72, and then to start at Town in 1976 and be doing the same thing was unbelievable."
Moore has an added link with the Mariners Memory initiative after his brother Kevin – who made more than 400 appearances for Town – passed away in April after a long battle with Pick's Disease, a rare form of dementia.
"It's a fantastic idea," he remarked. "I've got a special interest in this concept because of the link with dementia and our Kev – and am right behind it.
They are still doing lots of investigations about the repeated head traumas from heading the ball, and whether there is a link.
"I think that's only one factor – not THE factor, but things like this will only help people understand it more."
