Blair looked a bit out of sorts. After all, a big responsibility had been placed on the nimble-footed, midfield dynamo’s shoulders - he’d just confined the legend, the old caber-tosser himself - Alan ‘Dour-Git’ Hansen to the subs bench.
SPECIAL STOP-THE-BALL COMPETITION
Using you skill and judgement, try and imagine where the ball might be in this action picture modelled by Blairo and Lawro.
Blairo tried hard to impose himself with a couple of early touches. Right from the off, he was given the opportunity to ‘put the record straight’ regarding the scurrilous allegation that he’d seen geordie baggy-trousered legend, ’Wor Jackie Milburn' doing his mesmeric goal poaching for the ‘Toon when Tone was barely out of his tartan nappies….
It was all so natural. It almost looked as if they hadn’t rehearsed the act at all, that much. Blairo said in answer to an ‘off the cuff’ enquiry from the boy Manish about how he was somehow ‘misquoted’. Quick as a Michael Owen run bearing down on Johnny Argentina’s goal, the boy Manish said "Yes, I think we just might be able to find a tape of that interview you gave on local radio all those years ago"….
Cue frantic search. Was the boy Manish offside? Was he lurking at the far post? Was he as reckless as Paul Merson in a betting shop? – What if the boot-room boys can’t find the radio clip?
Blairo tells Crooksy, Dour Git and Jug Ears how he scored the winning goal in the 1962 World Cup Final.
The search lasted all of half a second. The tape rolled, the camera zeroed onto Blairo’s throbbing, glistening forehead. He was sweating and –oh my God, he was wearing the notorious grey away kit. Would Motty and the boys be able to pick him out with a long cross-field ball? Fortunately Blairo could be seen for miles, thanks to the massive dark slicks of sweat oozing out from his armpit zones…. What would Fergie have said? Not much probably, I don’t think the former wife of Prince Andrew knows anything about footy kits.
Anyway, the tape droned on. The lady interviewer asked young Blairo who his footy heroes were when he was a kid…. Now this was a critical question. Every kid who has ever been to a footy match will ‘know’ footy players. I went to my first footy game in 1963. Liverpool v Spurs. I can name the full Liverpool footy team that appeared on that day, over 40 years ago – Lawrence, Moran, A’court, Milne, Yeats, Stevenson, Callaghan, Hunt, St John, Melia, Thomson…… I can also name most of the Spurs team – Brown, Jones, Henry, White, Greavse, Blanchflower, Smith, Mackay………
It was 2 nil to Spurs at half time, Liverpool banged in 5 in the second half and ran out winners 5-2. You just do not forget stuff like that – especially when you are a kid. It’s hard-wired into your brain…..
So just who were Blair’s heroes? He admitted to going to watch Newcastle in the ‘60’s on a regular basis. But when asked, he couldn’t name one, not one Newcastle player from that era. Instead, he stumbled and flapped and flanneled. He said he ‘admired’ the players that came after Jackie Milburn – a player of the ‘50’s right up to Malcolm MacDonald – a player of the ‘70’s – and that was it!
As far as I’m concerned that proves it – Blair knows jack about footy. He didn’t have a clue who his ‘idols’ were.
What a bloody fraud – I would have stuck with the ‘I saw Jackie Milburn playing’ lie – and not bother sitting there on the orange sofa listening to all the footy greats of the ‘60’s he couldn’t name…….
Stop Press – Tony Blair to appear on BBC ‘Holiday’ programme to ‘set the record straight’ about the scurrilous story that young rebel and Fidel Castro admirer, Tony Blair stowed away on a plane to Cuba – but ended up in Mexico instead, saga.
BBC busily editing tape to conclusively show that Tony specifically said that he did not stowaway, anywhere…
2 comments:
Oh come on Alfie,, even using my skill and judgement, I know the ball wasn't in that shot. The daft bugger had dropped it.
By way of variety.
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