GG Alexiou

Dimitris Alexiou dived for sponges off Kalymnos for forty years, a trade that killed men he knew and rewarded a cool head above everything. He reads a position the way the boat taught him, by instinct rather than by chart, and he is formidable at finding the move nobody else considered. He also stops breathing. Faced with anything genuinely difficult he holds it, ten or fifteen seconds, exactly as he did on the way down, and lets it go audibly when he commits. His nephew pointed this out at a family table two years ago and he denied it outright, and has denied it on every occasion since. His wife heard about it before the club did and has said nothing to either party since.