Brighton snuff out Grimsby’s dream on a day brimming with FA Cup charm

A t times during this relentlessly entertaining FA Cup quarter-final it was hard to avoid the feeling that the ambient levels of wholesomeness inside the Amex Stadium might just be reaching a potentially dangerous high, the counters starting to fizz and burp.

This was an occasion so wholesome even the half-time entertainment was a deeply moving presentation from the life-saving stadium medical team, followed by a mascot race, a kids’ race and then a succession of Mother’s Day announcements so heartfelt you half-expected the match officials to come running out for the second half holding a cake and flowers.

By the end a 5-0 victory for Brighton looked like a chasing. It pretty much was a chasing. But a clinical, friendly, respectful chasing, and one that failed to cast much of a pall over the afternoon for the Grimsby fans in the stadium.

Five thousand had made the first half of an 11-hour round trip from the North Sea coast, even if this kind of boilerplate FA cup cliche assumes all Grimsby fans do actually live in Grimsby and aren’t simply glory hunters hopped-up on last season’s National League promotion glory.

From the start the black-and-white end was bouncing. The signature inflatable fish were joined by beach balls, human dolls, a flamingo, a Zimmer frame and at least one classic retro tinfoil FA Cup. We can only hope someone in that end was dressed in a combination of three-piece suit, giant rosette and club colours top hat, to be referred to in a Pathe news voice as “Mr Grimsby”.

Before kick-off the Grimsby fans waved their fish en masse to the “So Good” bits of Sweet Caroline and this felt like a cultural moment, a happening, an installation called something like Kingdom of Fish at the End of Empire: A Study.