By Paul Holmes
July 3 2002

Grimsby chairman Peter Furneaux is confident that manager Paul Groves will sign a new contract with the club after 8 hour talks. Groves took over on a short-term basis in Decemeber of last year following the sacking of Lennie Lawrance.

Amazingly Groves managed to turn the clubs fortunes around saving the club from relegation and bringing attacking football back to Blundell Park.

Since then chairman Furneaux has been keen to keep the player/manager in charge of the team. A deadling of today has been set for the decision of Groves who is believed to be worried about the resources available to him, the players returned to pre-season training today with only 14 professionals under contract.

Despite this Furneaux told the clubs official site that he is confident Groves will sign, the chairman also dished out praise for the former Blackpool man. "We'd like to think Paul has been satisfied with everything and that anything he had a problem with has been thoroughly discussed.

"We've talked about his reservations about the job. We were talking almost without a break from 10 am to 5.30 pm yesterday.

"Paul is fully aware of the problems relating to Grimsby Town and he's been pleased, as we all have, by the response of the fans this summer.

"We've sold more season tickets than last year despite the problems because of ITV Digital. It's been a bonus to us all, and good to know, that local people are prepared to back us."

"We know Paul will give it his all. He's in at 9 am every morning and he was still there when I left at nearly 6pm yesterday. He's going to work at the job, there's no doubt about that."