"We gave you the bloody donkey to raffle off and start the team in the first place!"
This remains the best thing I've ever heard shouted at a rugby league match. It was shouted by a Leigh fan at Central Park the former home of Wigan which is now a Tesco.
Whether the claim is apocryphal matters not. It's too good a line not to repeat whenever Leigh play Wigan, as they do this Thursday night. Games between the towns, separated by the 658 bus, have been as rare as rocking horse droppings in recent years.
As Wigan dominated the sport in the late 1980s and early 1990s with star names like Martin Offiah, Ellery Hanley and Shaun Edwards, Leigh found themselves yo-yoing between divisions and almost went out of business more than once.
But now they are both in Super League for the first time since 2005 and the game on Thursday will be the first competitive fixture between the clubs at Leigh Sports Village, a facility part funded by the council tax payers of Wigan. It has been a difficult return to the top flight for Leigh who currently sit bottom of the table. But Wigan have also been up and down this year having not won in their last six games.
I'm lucky enough to have seen Leigh beat Wigan (once) but there is a generation of supporters who have only known defeats and misery at the hands of their illustrious neighbours.
Leythers (that's what they call us) have had to make do with wins in friendlies in recent years which are celebrated with the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for the Rio Carnival.
It would be wrong to try and argue that this inter-town rivalry is purely based on rugby league. It actually dates back to the civil war when Wigan were Royalists and Leigh were Parliamentarian.
Local folklore says that in 1926, Wigan miners broke a strike, returning to work while Leythers stayed out. The Leigh miners eventually got the deal for better pay and conditions. The Wigan miners had been forced to eat 'humble pie' so 'pie-eater' became a term of abuse even though most people put this down to the fact Wiganers eat a lot of pies. Which is true. You are rarely 20 steps away from pastry in Wigan town centre.
Wiganers now glory in this nickname – car stickers with the slogan 'No pies are left in this vehicle overnight' are commonplace in the town. It's not an insult anymore, it's an advertising slogan.
In 1974, the newly formed Metropolitan Borough of Wigan swallowed up the old Leigh Borough. Services were merged and people in Leigh felt they got the rough end of the deal. Public buildings were lost and civic pride took a bashing. The centuries-old grudge was only hardened.
Even now there are instances of rebellion in Leigh. Last year someone who was known only as 'The Leigh Panther' covered up the Wigan Council logo with Leigh coat of arms stickers on scores of street signs in the town. Most were removed by the Council but some still remain.
I spent 16 years working in Wigan – missionary work you might call it – and their fans always argued that Leigh didn't even register on their radar. A splatted insect on their windscreen.
Yet they will sing "You're just a bus stop in Wigan" and other equally charming refrains on Thursday night - providing they get through border control at Bickershaw Lane. But what other bus stops do you know that have two B&M Bargains, two Aldis, two Argos, two Asda and three McDonalds? And a Nando's?
Just don't ask me where our train station is...
