Grimsby Town boss Ian Holloway on Flash Gordon, Crawley Town manager John Yems and journalists

Grimsby Town manager Ian Holloway said he has never been prouder after his side beat Crawley Town 2-1 at the People's Pension Stadium.
Grimsby Town boss Ian Holloway gives his post-match interviewGrimsby Town boss Ian Holloway gives his post-match interview
Grimsby Town boss Ian Holloway gives his post-match interview

Holloway's men were coming off a 5-0 defeat to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday and despite going 1-0 down early on to a Max Watters goal, the Mariners fought back well to win 2-1.

SEE ALSO Crawley Town 1, Grimsby Town 2 - FULL-TIME: Back-to-back home defeats for Reds as Mariners win | 'I am glad the fans weren't allowed in tonight' - Crawley Town boss John Yems on Grimsby Town defeat

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The visitors only had an hour and a half's training session between Saturday and Tuesday's game. And Holloway compared their feat to a famous film character.

He said: "My wife and I watch a lot of films. Flash Gordon comes to mind. He only had 14 hours to save the world.. We had an hour and a half training session. I don’t think I have ever been prouder than that.

"The blokes put it in the top bin after about a minute and could have turned to hell on earth but confidence is amazing and if you had a bottle of it and could sell it you would probably make more money than that Covid vaccine. You would be more of a millionaire than that.

"I am very pleased with them."

And Holloway praised Crawley boss Yems and said managers in general have never had it so tough at the moment.

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"People don't realise how hard it is building a spirit with a new group in Covid," he said.

"Their wonderful manager John, me and him get on like a house on fire because he is a proper football person and last time I cam here he was just a caretaker manager.

"I went and told the owners if you don’t give him the job you must be mental because I respect him. He tries to play football the right way.

"We had a huge conversation before the game about how difficult it is. He brought someone off the opther day who had played 60 minutes and someone criticised him for doing it.

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"It’s so easy when you have these things [dictaphones/voice recorders] and you shove them under our noses at these kind of times. Some of your questions are off the wall. If you are sitting at home and you haven’t bought into this downloading thing, you have a twisted perception of what happened.

"You journos have a huge responsibility to not blow it too big and understand that us managers at this time have never been put under so much pressure by not having a vaccine."