Cod Almighty | Diary

It's not a competition Yorkshire, and if it was you wouldn't be allowed to judge yourself

16 December 2016

Yorkshire is the largest and most varied of all the English counties. Despite the heterogeneous mix of landscapes and cultures within its boundaries, Yorkshire people seem to have no problem whatsoever uniting behind their basic identity - indeed, that could be understatement of the year. "Never ask a man if he’s from Yorkshire" goes the saying "Because if he is, he will already have told you."

There are those who think – because they will tell you straight – that the superiority of Yorkshire is just an extension of God’s simple truth. Alternatively, all that bluster could be a defensive overreaction to having an accent that travels extremely badly, especially southwards. Or, it could be bitterness at being repeatedly ignored by London-based decision-makers - and who can’t relate to that.

"Who’s the greatest living Yorkshireman?" you’ll hear Yorkshire folk ask on the quite un-self-consciously named ‘Yorkshire Day’ (1 August.) The answer is, of course, Alan Bennett. How am I so sure? Because there aren’t any more. Well, are there? David Hockney? Nor does Yorkshire do top flight football very well – there’s only Hull, currently, and them not for long. Does any other county, when population size is taken into account, perform so badly? And can you imagine anyone having a 'Buckinghamshire Day'? Me neither. I’m sorry Yorkshire, it all sounds like so much special pleading.

I like Yorkshire a lot. The countryside and the people are probably (calm down), peerless, but helped immensely by the county being so, well, immense. Your faithful Retro Diary has lived in the West, North and East Ridings and they were all wonderful. But I rather like Pembrokeshire too. And Dorset. And nowhere - nowhere - beats Blundell Park. So calm yourselves, Yorkshire. It’s not a competition, and even if it was, you wouldn’t be allowed to judge yourself.

The concept of 'Lincolnshireness' is a much more complex and nebulous thing. Here in Lincolnshire we seem to understand that everybody loves their own home, but it’s a sign of maturity to realise that it doesn’t impress anyone else. We like it, and that’s special; to us.

For those with a deep emotional attachment to our flat bit of planet with its endless skies and empty, glittering, coastal wildernesses, the feelings of home soil are no less spellbinding. But the population of Lincolnshire is only a fraction of that of Yorkshire, so the voice of the county is substantially less strident right from the off.

But the one thing that really brings down Lincolnshire’s sense of unity is the fact that unlike Yorkshire, our county is bisected by the north-south divide. You may know from experience that that many of the great Lincolnshire societies and institutions can sometimes contain a certain, if subconscious sniffiness about this ‘top bit’ (despite it being where most of the people live), in which they may show distinctly reduced interest. Indeed, they can sometimes, albeit inadvertently, give the impression they don’t want this grotty northern industrial bit of Lincolnshire in their county at all. Stamford is about as far away from Skint as you can imagine, within this county at least.

So here in Grimsby, do we feel brotherhood with Horncastle, Skegness, Spalding, Sleaford, Lincoln even, more than we do with Hornsea and Hessle? I think we do. But despite us being that bit of the county that they’d like to airbrush out, tomorrow our town will promote Lincolnshire’s identity outside our borders in numbers beyond anything of which the rest of the county is capable, when Town send more than 4,000 fans over the line to Doncaster. This little dump in the top right hand corner of Lincolnshire – the rough-arsed, un-farmery bit; the bit with the smelly factories and docks, high-profile nutters and Skint – is sticking up for the place in a way that the Dam Busters lot, the empire-building farmers of the Fens, the Peterborough commuters - even Scunny, for whom this is an away game you could almost walk to - could never pull off. It is an amazing thing we’re doing tomorrow, and it’s going to be very special indeed.

If Town go two goals down in 15 minutes, it may seem rather less so. But that won’t really be the point. Just think - almost four times as many away fans as Pompey brought to us last week. So don’t worry Lincolnshire - we won’t take that irritating little fleur de lys in the middle of the county flag personally. And we’ll ignore it when Lincolnshire poacher types talk of Saxilby, Harlaxton, Kirton, and (with a dismissive waft of the hand) "Somewhere near Grimsby." We know you don’t really want us. But just sit back and let us do your cheerleading. Tomorrow, like it or not, we’re your presence in the land of our overbearing neighbour.

The chap who sits next to me in the Main Stand isn’t going. "It’s going to be a rerun of the seventies" he says, by which he means, I assume, missiles flying out of train windows, police heavy-handedness and pitched battles on the Donny platform. The starting point is not promising, with Millwall heading for Glanford Park, Sheffield Wednesday taking on Rotherham, and unimaginative glory-seeking knuckle-draggers from all points of the compass heading for Elland Road. It is a bit of an unfortunate mix, you have to say. But by my reckoning, with our 12.30 kick-off, they should all avoid each other in time, if not in space. But where there’s a will, as they say, there’s a way.

But hang on, this isn’t the seventies is it? It should be possible to just not act like morons. Why don’t we try it? No doubt South Yorkshire Police will be straining at the leash, despite that humbled force having to be on their best behavior these days where football is concerned. So we have to be above that situation as well.

And what of our opponents Doncaster? Not a bad team this year, but that new stadium hasn’t made them a bigger club than us overnight. Never in my life have I felt awed or intimidated by Donny Rovers, and I’m not going to start now. Plus, almost as irritating as that fleur de lys, is our DN postcode, which connects us uncomfortably with the foreign land of our opponents. It’s another of a million tiny reasons we need to re-stamp some of our recently-lapsed authority on this venerable old fixture.

For us, Dominic Vose and Sean McAllister are out and Rhys Browne is on compassionate leave, but Ben Davies is back in contention. For them, the influential James Coppinger is suspended having been sent off in the last minute last week for grabbing the Plymouth keeper by the throat in a melee.

So, if all this stereotyping has made you feel a bit queazy, let’s make clear that it’s mainly ironic. But what fun would football be without it. Citizen of the world Sunday to Friday; Saturday is a time out.

We like Yorkshire very much, but let’s give that county’s legendary self-confidence a little pruning. We can humble the rest of Lincolnshire too. Seriously - what’s it all for, if not this? 4,000. Come on.
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