Exeter City 3-2 Grimsby Town: Mariners relegated out of English Football League

Jay Matete was sent off three minutes after putting Grimsby in front at Exeter

Grimsby Town have been relegated back to the National League after five seasons in the English Football League.

The Mariners fell to a 3-2 defeat at Exeter City to leave them seven points adrift of safety with two games left.

Lenell John-Lewis and Jay Matete had put them 2-1 up. But Matete was then sent off, and Ryan Bowman struck an 89th-minute winner for the Grecians.

It has been a season of toil on and off the pitch, with a protracted takeover still to go through.

Relegation has always looked likely in a campaign in which the highest position they reached was 15th in October.

Holloway walks away and the wrong kind of fight

Grimsby's season got off to bad start when an outbreak of Covid-19 meant they did not play a competitive game for three weeks between 19 September and 10 October.

When they did return to the pitch, seven points in three games saw them reach their season-high position of 15th but they quickly tumbled back down the table.

Boss Ian Holloway resigned on 23 December, less than a week after saying he was "not going anywhere unless I'm told to".

He was replaced by former manager Paul Hurst, who had led the club to promotion out of the National League in 2016.

However, Hurst was unable to stop the slide and it took him until his seventh game to pick up his first win.

They did manage an eight-game unbeaten run from 9 March to 5 April but drew seven of those eight as their survival bid stuttered.

They then fell to a 1-0 defeat at Bradford on 10 April in a game that saw Mariners forward Stefan Payne sent off for headbutting team-mate Filipe Morais. Hurst subsequently said neither would play for the club again.

A shock 2-1 win over promotion-chasing Bolton in the next match gave them a glimmer of hope, only for a thumping 3-0 defeat at Blundell Park by Morecambe three days later to all but extinguish it.