Cod Almighty | Diary

Second place is first loser

6 November 2025

Many years ago when I attended sixth form (at what was then known as Lindsey Upper), an arm-wrestling match took place. Well, an arm-wrestling mismatch, to be precise. On the left was a lad who, even when sitting, was taller than his opponent stood on the right. Rather helpfully, in this early 21st century telling of David Vs Goliath, David really was called David. Small, sarcastic to the point where he had very few friends, and with a slight hunchback that left him stooping even lower, it’s fair to say he was probably nothing like his fabled namesake.

Sadly, the eponymy of this great tale doesn’t extend to his Philistine foe. Fearing I’ve possibly identified David by using his real name and real personality traits, let’s just call Goliath… I dunno, Michael? Yes, Michael. He once brought a small axe into the common room to (and I quote) ‘ward away’ some of the Year 12s who were getting on his case. Turns out this was less about ‘getting on’ and more about ‘getting off’ because some of the Year 12s had witnessed Michael being very intimate with a woman more than double his age in the Pier on a night out (at least I presumed it was a night out and not in broad daylight) and so he thought waving some tree felling equipment in the general direction of his witnesses would be enough to contain the situation. Naturally.

Anyway, sixth formers flicked their cigarette butts onto the ground and sprinted into the common room to witness this arm-wrestling contest. Word had somehow got out quickly enough and far enough to generate a healthy audience for what was a fairly spontaneous event between two broadly unpopular people that promised a predictable result. How long would David last? How many of his six apple turnovers that he’d bought from Tesco in his lunch break had he consumed to summon enough strength to hold out for at least a few seconds?

As David ‘David’ sat opposite Michael ‘Goliath’, conversations gradually fell to whispers as the enormity of the event took hold. Traffic paused outside. Birds ceased tweeting. A teacher’s eyes peered through an ajar door yet couldn’t bring themselves to be seen to be showing any interest in what was happening. But make no mistake, they were interested. Elbows set, palms gripped… they took the strain. Someone pushed themselves out from a desk; the chair’s legs vibrating against the vinyl floor, making a mildly rude noise that pierced the tense atmosphere a bit. They got told to shush, and quite rightly too.

For about two seconds, David held his own. It was sort of impressive. Then Michael decided to experiment with some of David’s sarcasm and feigned a degree of worry — letting his arm fall away from the perpendicular just a fraction. This was exactly the type of silliness that David was depending on, and so he took his window of opportunity to make his big push, which left Michael’s arm lying flat on the table. Victory! David had beaten Goliath (again) and he turned to take the applause of everyone who vaguely knew him and tolerated him.

Michael, of course, immediately demanded a re-match. His protests that he was just fooling about fell on deaf ears. David refused all calls for a re-match that day, that week, that year. Never again did those two have another arm-wrestling match and to this day David holds a 100 per cent win record against Goliath. He will take that achievement to his grave.

So no, your West Yorkshire diary doesn’t want us to get Manchester United in the third round of the FA Cup.

I also wonder if Wealdstone were wheeling away in delight at having to re-visit Grimsby so soon after dumping us out of the very same competition a year ago. Maybe they wanted to hold onto that glory a little longer and not let an ousting this season tarnish that memory. The ball-drawers didn’t care to stop and think about that on Monday night, did they?

There’s a bit of league business to take care of before we turn our attentions to the cup, though. Town scored five goals the other night, against some children, so it was difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from that. But hey, it was a victory and five goals, and players who have been on the periphery were given a chance to showcase their talents. There remain some question marks over our ability to defend, but in this brave new Artell world it’s all about expression — and I’m all for that, as long as we don’t lose 6-1 at home on New Year’s Day. That made the 5-5 draw that followed it hard to enjoy, even though ostensibly it looked like an outrageously entertaining match to have attended (something I wasn’t able to do).

The club has been busy in the community this week doing lots of lovely things like visiting Whitgift Academy’s new swimming pool and working with Healing Academy pupils. As always with these types of events, there are many people doing lots of good work behind the scenes to make them happen, reminding us that the club isn’t just about the players that go out and kick a ball— it’s also about the backroom staff who make things tick. Without them, the players wouldn’t be able to go out and perform the way they do.

And some people looked at Barrow as a model to follow — training miles away from the town in an effort to attract players who would play for them but never set foot in the town unless it was for a home match. No, what Grimsby Town are doing is the right thing, reminding us that the club belongs to the town, and so every part of it should remain in the town.

Right, well, I think we’ve earned the moral victory. Let’s see if it translates into an actual victory up in Barrow — who are a decent team, in fairness! Furness? Nah, that joke doesn’t really work written down. Oh well.

UTM!