Mr Unbelievable

CHAPTER EIGHT JEFF AND THE CRAZY GANG

The camaraderie among the Soccer Saturday lads is second to none, and the banter is as fierce as in any football club dressing-room I have been in. The panel has Charlie Nicholas on one side, Paul Merson on the other, and in the middle Phil Thompson, a nose between two thorns.

Our very own Bonnie Prince Charlie loves a wind-up and any mistakes are quickly jumped on, there is no hiding place, apart from behind Thommo’s hooter. Charlie has lived a few lives and, when he hit the bright lights of London as the best Scottish footballer of his era, he did things that would make your hair curl! He would be the first to admit that the lure of the West End took a bit out of his game. I’ll say no more but if he’d taken up rugby instead of football he would have been a hooker!

David Moyes, the Everton manager, was once talking on Goals on Sunday and said that the nearest thing he had seen to Wayne Rooney was when Charlie was starting off at Celtic as a kid, and we’re now back talking football. He could also do things with the ball which others could only dream of, and was light years ahead of his time. That may be so, but in the eight years I have known Charlie I have yet to hear him talking about his playing days. He loves his flights down from his native Scotland to London, ready for his weekend stint at the Sky studios, and enjoys the crack with the lads on Friday nights in the hotel bar.

Paul Merson is a one-off. For someone to have had as many ups and downs as he has had is amazing. His helter-skelter life would pass as a ride at Alton Towers, but the guy has amazing bounce-back-ability. He has coped with gambling, drinking and drug use admirably. When I played for Luton against Arsenal on Boxing Day 1992, David Seaman took a goal-kick. My team-mate Trevor Peake was marking Merse and I was just in front of him. When I went up for the ball to head it away, I accidentally elbowed Merse on the nose. When I turned round to apologise Merse sneezed in my face. I am telling you now, that was the best I felt for a fortnight after. I played against him a few times and it was apparent that he was someone who just loved playing the game. He reminds me of another old team-mate of mine, Stan Bowles, who shared similar problems, but once they both stepped over the white line on to the football pitch, their troubles were left behind.

Phil Thompson is the biggest ex-player football fan I have ever met. His passion for Liverpool has no boundaries. People often ask me if it is just an act for the cameras. It is definitely not: the old saying is true in his case – if you cut him open he would bleed Red blood! Tee hee! He is the same as all the Soccer Saturday boys – he does not take himself too seriously and is fine about Jeff poking fun at his hooter.

Matt Le Tissier, or the god of Southampton, is laid-back but has a wonderful dry sense of humour. The most amazing thing I found out when talking to Tiss is that when I was at Leeds, Luton and Sheffield Utd in the early nineties, I was earning more money than him, even though he was enjoying so much success and banging in the goals for his beloved Saints. His managers knew that he would never want to leave Southampton, so the new contract negotiations were never stressful. Tiss made it easy for the club to take advantage of his loyalty – shame on them! It was lucky for them that Tiss never learnt he could fly home to his native Guernsey from places other than Southampton airport when he felt a bit homesick. The only way Tiss was going to leave SFC was to go to KFC, and his manager at one time, Glenn Hoddle, did actually have to go into KFC in Southampton and tell the staff behind the counter not to serve him the meal for two unless he was with someone and definitely not during half-time at St Mary’s! The late great Alan Ball, another manager of Tiss’s, used to tell what he said was a true story when doing the after-dinner circuit. He said that during a match he shouted to Tiss, ‘Warm up!’ And when Tiss asked, ‘Why?’ Bally replied, ‘Because I am bringing you off!’ Laid-back on the pitch, maybe, but a genius and a cracking fellow.

Alan McInally is my partner for three days each year, when we take our chance to mingle with some fabulous characters from the horse-racing world at the Cheltenham Festival, and we have a hoot. ‘The Muncheon’, as he is known to the lads, because of his time playing at Bayern Munich after leaving Aston Villa, is top draw, and because of his larger than life persona gets plenty of stick from the boys. A lot of the younger people who watch Soccer Saturday often ask me what Alan was like as a player, so I thought I should ring Graham Taylor, who managed him at Villa. I asked Graham about his strengths and weaknesses.

‘He had the strength of a dray horse.’

Not bad, I thought.

‘The speed of a racehorse.’

Wow! But hang on, there’s more.

‘The movement of a polo horse, and the spring in his feet of a showjumping horse.’

‘And what about his weaknesses, Graham?’ I asked.

‘The brains of a rocking horse,’ came back his reply. McInally is great company and there is never a dull moment when he is around.

Now for the man who holds it all together, Mr Jeff Stelling. What can I say? He is something else. And a great fan of his home-town team Hartlepool, just in case this fact has managed to slip by any regular viewers to the show. He cannot contain his excitement or passion as a Monkey Hanger. He is the memory man, though I have to say, when that well-publicised incident occurred with that fellow walking into the police station at Seaton Canoe – sorry, Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool – and said he was clueless, had no idea of who he was or where he had been for the last five years, I had to ring Jeff just to make sure he was OK.

Jeff and I have done all sorts together – adverts, afterdinners, voice-overs, you name it. People have really bought into our relationship on Soccer Saturday and it has been brilliant for us. He is a friend for life.

We had the trip of all trips when we went to the World Cup in Japan in 2002. It is fair to say that Jeff might well not be working for Sky now if he had been the first England fan arrested and deported from Japan, as he very nearly was! He wanted a bit of culture while we were there in Japan, so we left the city life in Tokyo after England had drawn with Sweden in Saitama. Jeff wanted to see some of the real Japan, so we headed off to the temples of Kyoto. After visiting two temples Jeff agreed with me and our other travelling companion and the producer of Soccer Saturday, Ian Condron, that once you had seen one temple you had seen them all. That evening after sampling some of the local cuisine, beer and wine in a recommended local restaurant, Jeff and I headed off for the obligatory one more beer, and Condo headed off for bed. We found a bar with quite a few people in it, many of whom were playing a version of ‘spin the bottle’. Whoever the bottle points at after being spun has to down their beer in one. This was tailor made for me, as I didn’t mind the forfeit to be paid, but Jeff was finding the punishment really tough. He suggested we find somewhere else for our ‘one more beer’ before he became legless, so after enjoying an hour or so of fun we left our non-English-speaking friends behind. Unfortunately, Kyoto only had one late bar in the whole of town – the one we had just been in. So, after walking round and round, and trying to converse with the locals, we found ourselves back at the bar where our friends were still the spinning bottle.

Outside Jeff um’d and ah’d about going back in, thinking he’d perhaps already had enough. Whilst he was standing (or swaying) there, making his decision, he staggered backwards off the kerb into a parked motorbike. It was a Harley Davidson type bike with big handlebars. Jeff let out a scream, and for a second the world stood still. We both watched aghast as the huge, shiny machine toppled, as if in slow motion, towards the car parked next to it. Jeff lunged forward to grab it but stood no chance as (a) the bike was far too weighty, and (b) Jeff was far too boozy! There was not a thing we could do as the handlebars made contact with the rear windscreen of the car. Bang! What a noise, and what a mess, as the glass shattered everywhere. Disbelief was etched on our faces as we just stood there staring at each other. It is surprising how quickly you can sober up instantly in a panic situation such as the one we were facing. The bike and the car possibly belonged to one of the gang we had been drinking with earlier in the bar, so we did what all good citizens would do – we scarpered!

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