Cod Almighty | Diary

Slapped by the fish

27 August 2026

I was on holiday in Crete last week. We took a glass bottom boat trip to an island just off the north coast where Mrs West Yorkshire Diary and our son could go snorkelling. I didn’t join them in the sea because of an old football injury. I also can’t swim very well, which is a source of shame for a Piscean, and I’m also a scaredy-cat, but it was definitely the injury that stopped me from taking a dip when the captain asked why I was the only one remaining on board.

I was actually very happy to remain on the boat. I don’t go on many — not like my grandad, or his dad, or his dad before that — but I feel happy on them. Going overboard isn’t in my blood (even if it was deliberate and into a calm and fascinating pocket of the Mediterranean to see the crabs and the fishes, and the German WWII plane that was splayed across the sea floor five metres below).

When we returned to shore I booked a taxi to take us back to our hotel. The driver had slicked-back dark hair, rugged features, and although he wasn’t smoking I could see the stale cigarette odour trying to escape from his shirt.

Presuming all male taxi drivers in Crete followed football, I asked him what team he supported. He answered PAOK, which surprised me a little as no other Greek people we met showed any interest in the Greek domestic league. He knew we were English and I thought he’d name a Premier League team. He mentioned a young Greek player who had signed for Arsenal, and so I enquired whether that meant he’d follow Arsenal’s fortunes.

‘Ah, no. My Premier League team is Manchester United, because of the history, yes? They’re not so good now, but I didn’t choose them now. I chose them a long time ago.’

That was it. That was all I was after. That’s why I started the conversation.

He spoke some more, but I wasn’t listening. I was just waiting for him to finish saying his bit, then I was going all in.

‘Well, I support Grimsby Town,’ I said, and let it hang there like his stale cigarette odour. I glanced over my left shoulder and gave my wife and son a look that said: ‘I’ve got him. Are you watching this masterclass in manufacturing a conversation I wanted to have?’

Disappointingly, he didn’t quite manage to connect the dots, so I had to help him along. ‘We beat Man United in the League Cup this time last year, on penalties.’ I could see his face register the result. He remembered.

‘Ah! They play in division two?’ he asked.

‘Well, League Two. The fourth division. Three divisions below United.’

‘And they’re still playing?’

What did he mean by that? Does he think clubs slip in and out of existence when they compete in the lower reaches of the English game? It was a curious reply, and not one I was expecting. I’m not sure what I was expecting, in truth. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Did I want him to cry and then smash the car into a tree for making him remember something he didn’t want to? Did I want him to say: ‘Ah yes, Grimsby, the best team in the world!’ and start talking about Clark Oduor?

In the end, he praised English tourists as most he’d experienced tended to support the team from where they were either born or grew up, which isn’t a culture that is so prevalent in Greece, apparently. My eight-year-old son, in the back seat, enjoyed the chat. I explained to him, as we walked back up to our room once we’d been dropped off, why that victory last year is so significant.

‘It means I can dine out on it even now, a whole year later, thousands of miles away from home. And I’ll still be talking about it in ten, twenty, maybe even fifty years from now, for as long as I’m still alive,’ I said.

Whenever I meet a Man Utd fan, I have that up my sleeve. All Town fans do. No one can take it away from us. That’s the value of that electric night at Blundell Park. And it’s something no Man United fan can have, or ever hope to have. A memory and a feeling no amount of Glazer money will ever be able to buy.