Two Pilgrims

Sometimes I am impressed by pieces of useless information. Like this............

Whilst doing some research for my football blog 'Sing Up The River End!', I had to look up some things about Plymouth Argyle. I discovered they have two famous people listed as supporters.

Michael Foot, the Labour politician who recently passed away, was a lifelong fan of the Pilgrims. The scrap of UI relating to this was the fact that as a present to him for his 90th birthday, the club registered Foot as a player with the Football League and issued him with the number 90 shirt. This made him officially the oldest registered professional player in the history of football. Nice story that.

Slightly more bizarre but equally impressive involves American World Heavyweight Champion boxer Evander Holyfield. In March 2008, on the British TV show Soccer AM, Holyfield was asked to pick one team from a hat (containing all 92 Premiership and Football League clubs) to determine which team he would support for the remainder of his life (as he didn't already follow a team). He picked out 'Plymouth Argyle', thereby making him a fan of the club!

Gillette Soccer Saturday

Gillette Soccer Saturday is a marvelous football programme that covers all the action 'as it happens'. It is a frantic show, with a team of studio based ex players, and reporters at most grounds, bringing instant news of events around the country. It makes for a fine afternoons viewing.


There are many funnies. This is one from yesterday, as presenter Jeff Stelling goes over to Chris Kamara at Fratton Park for news of a sending off................

Grandstand - Fight, Fight, Fight

Football Dives

What happened to the beautiful game?

Harry Carpenter

Harry Carpenter passed away earlier this week. He was known as 'the voice of boxing', having covered the sport for the BBC for over 30 years. However, it should not be forgotten that he was also heavily involved in Wimbledon, golf and the university boat race, as well as presenting Grandstand and Sportsnight.

I will remember Harry Carpenter for two reasons. He was around in the days when the BBC seriously covered British sport. And he was around in the days when boxing was watched by a large TV audience. We tuned in especially. For a sport that was, essentially, alien to the daily living habits of the nation. Not to listen or see Harry I hasten to add - his delivery style relied on his abilty to be ordinary, in the backgound, and yet authorititive at the same time. So when he did get excited - you knew the action was worth watching. Harry Carpenter was a great broadcaster - and a damn nice man.

Graham Paddon - RIP

Born : 24 August 1950 Manchester

Died : 19 November 2007 Norfolk

Norwich City, West Ham United, Coventry City.

The hardest left foot shot I ever saw.

Quiz Ball

I wonder how many people remember Quiz Ball. It was screened on BBC TV between 1966 and 1972, in the early evening, around 6.30 to 7.00 if my memory is correct. The original presenter (referee) was David Vine. Stuart Hall took over later. I thought Alan Weeks was also involved, though research does not bear this out. I have vivid recollections of watching this programme, and getting upset when the 'wrong team' won !! The format was pretty simple. Football clubs were represented by three players/officials plus a guest supporter. Each week was a new match with the winners going forward to the next round. There were four ways to score a goal : 1) answer four easy questions correctly 2) answer three medium questions 3) two difficult , or 4) one really hard one. The opposition could stop you by answering your question. If they were correct they gained possession of the ball. But if they were wrong............goal to the team whose question it was. No tackle could be made on a route 1 (hard) question. The electronic scoreboard (shown in picture behind David Vine) lit up to show which route was being taken, and every goal was greeted with immense jubilation.

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For the record, the Finals were as follows : 1966-1967 Arsenal 7 Dunfermline Athletic 3 1967-1968 Nottingham Forest 1 West Bromwich Albion 2 1969-1970 Celtic 3 Hearts 1 1970 (Champions Series) Celtic 7 Everton 5 1970-1971 Derby County 4 Crystal Palace 2 1971-1972 Dunfermline Athletic 3 Leicester City 1

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Guest supporters included Jimmy Young (Arsenal 1966 & 1967), Ted Moult (Nottingham Forest 1966 & 1967 when Ted scored 8 goals in 3 games including all five in the First Round victory over Celtic - little wonder he went on to get that lucrative double glazing ad contract!!), Tommy Trinder (Fulham 1967), John Arlott (Southampton 1966), Percy Thrower (West Bromwich Albion 1966), Brian Close (Leeds 1966), Sam Kydd (Chelsea 1966), Leonard Sachs (Sheff Weds in 1966 then, suspiciously, Leeds in 1970 - who did he really support?), Gordon Jackson (Dunfermline Ath 1966), Pete Murray (Fulham 1966), Brian Moore (Tottenham 1967), Sam Leitch (Leicester City 1967), Magnus Magnusson (Kilmarnock 1967), Harry Carpenter (Fulham 1967), Mike Smith (Coventry City 1967), Kenneth Cope (Everton 1967 - ghosting in at the far post no doubt), Alfie Bass (Crystal Palace 1967), James Bolam (Sunderland 1969), John Laurie (doomed to failure with Dundee in 1969 as they lost 3-1 to Arsenal), Lance Percival (Chelsea 1970), Ed Stewart (Everton 1970), Kenny Lynch (Manchester City 1970), Peter Cook (Tottenham 1970), Richard Wattis (Crystal Palace 1970), Nicholas Parsons (Leicester City 1971), Hugh Lloyd (Chelsea 1971), Roy Kinnear (Colchester 1971), Jimmy Logan (Dunfermline Ath 1971) and Jon Pertwee (Dunfermline Ath in the 1971 Final).

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Alex Ferguson played for Falkirk in 1970, scoring in the 1-0 win over Huddersfield. He found the net again in the semi final but lost 2-1 to Everton (Brian Labone 2)!! In 1969 Arsenal were represented by Bertie Mee, Bob Wilson and Terry Neill, Ian Ure appeared in earlier seasons. Tottenham in 1971 played Alan Mullery, Martin Chivers and Joe Kinnear. What fantastic memories.

John Arlott

This man might seem a strange choice in a tribute to people who have made me laugh. But he did provide me with one of the funniest stories for my very limited party piece repertoire. More of that in a moment. First, a little more background on a great man and legend of broadcasting.

John Arlott was a Hampshire man, blessed with a rich and glorious burr. His voice was perfect for radio and in particular, cricket. For 34 years, from 1946 to 1980 he was the BBC's 'voice of cricket', as a member of the Test Match Special team. Anyone who loved the game, loved John Arlott and his commentaries. He was also a brilliant writer, a poet, and a lover of wine. In his later life he lived in Alderney in the Channel Islands. John Arlott died on 14 December 1991. I shed a small tear that day.

So, what was that funny moment? In truth, Arlott produced quite a few over the years. More of them another time along with other cricket funnies. The one I want to blog today came not from a radio commentary, but from TV. In the late seventies, the BBC televised John Player Sunday League fixtures. They took up the whole schedule from 2pm through to the finish of the match. There were no other sports events on Sundays in those days. Just cricket. Forty overs a side, Arlott commentating on the first twenty of each innings, the great Jim Laker taking the other twenty. Anyway, one Sunday, and I have no idea when exactly, Arlott, in his customary manner, told viewers that a particular player, Andy Murtagh (who I think played for Hampshire), was Irish. A few moments later he told us again. Next time he touched the ball, he told us again. Such repetition was not in keeping with Arlott's usual polished performances. But the old devil was leading up to a great joke. Moments later a player called Rice was called into the attack. The ball was played into the covers to Murtagh. John Arlott said, simply.........Rice bowls, paddy fields !!!!

That made me laugh and has stuck with me for the best part of thirty years. As I have said, I was very saddened by John Arlott's death in 1991. He had brought another tear to my eye a few years earlier, on September 2nd 1980, the day he commentated on cricket for the final time. I had plenty of holiday owing from work and took a day off especially, in order to witness it on TV. It was the last Test of that summer, England versus Australia. Upon finishing his stint at the microphone, his hand over was without fuss and typically modest. At the end of the next over play was halted. The crowd rose to their feet and, along with the players on the field, they applauded this great man. It was one of the most emotional moments in cricketing and broadcasting history.

Charlie Williams - Me Old Flower

In the early 70's, Charlie Williams was a household name and one of Britain's funniest and most loved comedians. He was unusual at the time for a number of reasons, partly because comedy was his second career, he had previously been a professional footballer, but mainly because he was black. And in the early 70's black people had no presence on UK TV. He also had the broadest of Yorkshire accents, which meant he was novel and definitively original. I truly believe few people had ever considered that this mixture of skin colour and voice could possibly go together. He delivered his jokes in a gentle, almost charming way, with a slight hesitant delay and cheeky grin. His material drew hugely on his own humble beginnings, deeply rooted in working class England and this was a large reason for his amazing popularity. He also joked about his own colour, something that had never been tackled before, his famous line to hecklers being 'If tha don't shut up, I'll come and move in next door to thee'. This was typical Charlie Williams - saying what he knew the white man was thinking and fearing. Some believe this merely added to the prejudice and negativity directed at black people at that time of racial tension. Others saw him as a pioneer - he was Britain's first black comedian. In 2000 this was finally recognised when he gained a lifetime achievement Black Comedy Award, having 'broken down barriers'.

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Charles Adolphus Williams was born on the 23 December 1927. He was mixed race, his father was a Barbadian who had moved to Yorkshire, become a greengrocer and married a local girl. Charlie was brought up in the village of Royston on the Barnsley Canal. He was a teenager during the war and at 14 worked at Upton Colliery where he turned out for the works football team. His talent was such that at 19 he signed as a professional for Doncaster Rovers. It took the centre half a number of seasons to break into the first team but he eventually did so in 1955 and by the time he retired in 1959 he had played 171 games for the Rovers. Just as he was Britain's first black comic he was also just about Britain's first black footballer, certainly a rarity in an exclusively white dominated sport. He is remembered as a hard defender, solid rather than spectacular. When asked if he was ever any good at football he replied 'No. But I was good at stopping those that were ' ! He scored just one goal in his career, ironically against Barnsley.

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His entry into showbiz was as a singer with The Jeffrey Trio, where Charlie sang the songs of his hero Nat King Cole. His patter between songs was so funny that he eventually dropped the music for comedy and plyed his trade on the tough Northern working men's club circuit. Without a huge amount of talent, he would not have survived. His big break came in 1971 when he was given a regular TV spot on Granada's The Comedians, a programme for stand up comedians. The material in the series was largely racist or sexist and would not be acceptable on our screens today. But it brought Charlie into our homes each week and his infectious laugh and warm manner made him an instant hit. His jokes observed British working class life perfectly, easy for Charlie given his own up-bringing. 'So I said to the boss ' I've worked here for twenty years and this is the first time I've asked for a raise'. The boss said ' I know - that's why you've worked here for twenty years'. His catchphrase was ( in his lovely Yorkshire accent ) 'me old flower'.

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Charlie had a few good years in the limelight during which time he also had his own Granada series It's Charlie Williams and published an autobiography 'Ee-I've Had Some Laughs'. He also hosted the game show The Golden Shot for a short while. But by the second half of the 70's, Charlie's material was getting less acceptable for prime time TV and he largely returned to working the clubs. He retired in 1995 and was awarded the MBE in 1999 for his charity work. Charlie Williams died on the 2 September 2006 after a long illness.

Charlie was undoubtedly a very funny man. He was mild and affable. And we loved how he laughed at his own jokes. The audience listened as if drawn to a magnet.

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''This little lad was telling his teacher about their new house. 'It's smashin' teacher' he says. 'Ive got a room of my own, my brothers got a room of his own, and my two sisters have rooms of their own. But poor old mum - she's still in with Dad.'"

And finally a one liner that was typical of his act :

"My mother-in-law is a terrible cook. In fact she's got the only dustbin in her street with ulcers!"

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Charlie..............you were a good 'un. In fact, Charlie me old flower, thee were a right good 'un !