Mighty Mariners win big as Man Utd sink to new low

Mbuemo (75), Maguire (89) Manchester United getting battered in Grimsby is a headline that writes itself.

- PETE HALL

Grimsby Town

Vernam (20), Warren (30) (won 12-11 on pens)

Manchester United

But nothing plucked from the North Sea has ever been treated to this kind of humiliation.

Four hundred million pounds. 711 Premier League appearances between them. And that was just the starting XI. This was not your bog-standard cup giant-killing, when a plucky minnow overcomes an elite topflight side who have rested their 11 best players.

Grimsby Town, three divisions below, played the might of Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs in the world, off the park for long periods of a football match. They did not weather an almighty westerly storm. Their goalkeeper did not have to have the game of his life. They deserved their place in the history books.