John Fenty

John Shelton Fenty (born 10 December 1961) is an English politician, businessman and former football chairman.

He was the Conservative councillor for the Humberston and New Waltham ward of North East Lincolnshire Council until 2021.

At age 18 in 1980, Fenty took over a failed haulage business that his father had started.

Though he made his wealth through his development from scratch, a food processing company called Five Star Fish Ltd, a company that achieved market dominance in the food service sector and won many accolades for excellence.

By the time the business was sold, it employed over 280 people and was highly respected in the business.

In the late 1990s, he was co-opted onto the board of Grimsby Town after building up £4,295 of shares in the club and another £40,000 of shares through the Five Star Fish Employee Benefit Trust.

He subsequently sold all of these shares, except for £500 of his personal shares, to Michael Rouse following the collapse of ITV Digital at the end of the 2001–02 season.

But, by the end of the 2002–03 season Fenty had had a change of heart and took his shareholding to £62,289 of the club equating to 26.3% of the company, buying out long term major shareholder Dudley Ramsden's interest in the club in the process.

He is the former chairman of Grimsby Town, a position he held from 2004 until 2011, but then again in de facto terms from 2011 until 2020.

He remained the clubs majority shareholder until being bought out in May 2021 and thus departing the club.

It sold in April 2004 for £20 million to the Real Good Food Company.

Following the sale of Five Star Fish in April 2004, Fenty became chairman of Grimsby Town on 29 July 2004 with Peter Furneaux switching roles with Fenty and becoming Vice Chairman.

Under Fenty the club seemed to be building solid foundations for the future despite a huge unpaid tax bill, in the region of £700,000, to HM Revenue and Customs relating to the seasons following the ITV digital collapse.

Unfortunately the club lost in the 2006 Football League Two play-off final at the Millennium Stadium and manager Russell Slade left the club to join Yeovil Town when his contract expired at the end of May 2006.

He finally stood down as chairman at the start of 2007 and left the company in August 2007, after 27 years at the helm.

Fenty complained to Ofcom following a 28 April 2007 broadcast of the BBC Radio Humberside Sports programme contained a reporter calling Fenty a "plonker".

The complaint was not upheld though as the station had issued two apologies in the following 7sevendays.

Ofcom considered that the complaint had, in effect, been resolved by the BBC, and therefore found in the context of the subsequent broadcasts no unfairness resulted to Fenty.

In May 2008, Fenty was elected as a Conservative Party councillor for the Humberston and New Waltham ward of North East Lincolnshire Council.

A succession of failed managerial appointments followed and Grimsby Town were eventually relegated out of the Football League for the first time in one hundred years and into the Conference National for the first time in the club's history at the end of the 2009–10 season.

Fenty is a divisive figure amongst Grimsby Town supporters.

Some argue his loans and willingness to invest in further shares have kept the club from going out of business on numerous occasions whilst others argue that his poor judgement and decision making is the major contributing factor to the huge financial losses and that the decision to appoint the novice Neil Woods as manager in November 2009 ahead of Slade and the subsequent run of 20 winless league games at the start of Woods' tenure ultimately consigned Grimsby Town to relegation.

In January 2011, Fenty became the chairman and finance director of Topcon Construction Limited, having previously been a client of Topcon when it built a new cold store facility for his fish processing business at Five Star Fish.

On 23 February 2011, Grimsby Town relieved Woods of his duties.

On 7 March 2011, after using an unnamed agent to make a direct approach, Fenty interviewed Boston United joint managers Rob Scott and Paul Hurst despite the pair being under contract and not having the permission of Boston to speak to the pair.

On 21 March 2011 Scott and Hurst resigned as Boston managers and were appointed Grimsby Town joint managers 48 hours later.

A lengthy dispute for compensation between the two clubs followed.

On 19 September 2011, Fenty resigned as chairman of Grimsby Town with immediate effect.

He was successfully re-elected in 2012 and 2016.

The case was heard on 16 March 2012 with the court recorder finding in favour of Boston United.

In his finding he said that Fenty had "acted recklessly" in his dealings with the said agent by relying on his word with regards to Scott and Hurst's breach of contract.

Since April 2013, Fenty is the business mentor and commercial adviser to IT support company E-Tech Solutions based in Grimsby.

On 29 December 2019, Fenty appointed Ian Holloway as first team manager, with Holloway reportedly investing £100,000 in order to become a member of the board at the same time.

By February, Fenty decided to take a step back to give Holloway more freedom and control over the running of the club both on and off the field.

In December 2020, he resigned as deputy leader of North East Lincolnshire Council following links with convicted fraudster Alex May being reported in local media.

In February 2021, Fenty announced he would stand down as a NELC councillor in the May 2021 elections.

He remained the club's chief spokesperson and continued as de facto chairman until Philip Day was officially appointed to the role in May 2020.

Fenty remains the largest-holding executive director, owning 42.86% of the club's shares.

Grimsby Town Football Club plc is considered to be controlled by Fenty "by reason of his shareholdings and financial commitment".

On 12 December 2020.