Cod Almighty | Article
by Simon Wilson
24 November 2003
Those fleeting brushes with someone vaguely famous we've all had them. 80s uber-cow Nina Myskow once waltzed past me at Larnaca airport. Waiting for a bus in the middle of Leeds the last thing I expected was Paul Whitehouse walking past. Terrorvision have pushed-in ahead of me at a Bradford pub. Fame, fame, fatal fame.
And then there are the times when you have had a close unexpected encounter with someone linked with Grimsby Town Football Club. No, not those times you bumped into Tony Gallimore down the Pier. Or you worked at Nisa and your boss was Dudley Ramsden. No, no, none of that. They're all predictable circumstances. We want tales of the unexpected. Chance meetings.
27 October 1999. I remember it well. I'd just moved back to the Leeds area from my six-month 'get back to your roots'/'run away and sort your life out' posting in Grimsby. The 27th was my birthday and I, along with my best buddy Gobes, had decided to have a few drinks, play a bit of pool, and take the day as it came. After a short lunchtime pool session in the Elbow Rooms - complete with a performance-enhancing four beers (maybe Galli was onto something) - we decided to go for a mooch in town. For some reason only known to ourselves, we took a very indirect route which took us along the railway arches passing across the front of a public car park.
Buoyed by the, ahem, totally liquid nature of our lunch, I wasn't paying much attention to any possibility of traffic leaving the car park. Until I heard a car's engine in my right ear. I turned to see a rather swank car unable to drive on because of my leisurely stroll across its route. And then I looked up to see the driver. I lifted my hand to apologise and moved out of the car's way. I quickly did a double-take as the car started to roll off, to see that it was indeed Kevin Donovan who I had just impeded. I was surprised. Given Kevin's form that season I'd have expected him to run into me.