Considering how often football crops up in everyday conversation, it is a topic not often heard in works of fiction.
Keen to hear any allusion to the game, in my youth the Scotland Yard detective series ‘The Sweeney‘ carried the occasional comment relating to a club or match – but by far the most frequent references were heard in the brilliant working-class sitcoms ‘Porridge‘ and ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads‘, both written by the team of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (who in the 80s would work football connotations into their superb comedy-drama series ‘Auf Wiedersehn Pet‘).
In their prison-based masterpiece ‘Porridge‘, not only do football-related lines run through the script, but it cannot be coincidence that three of the main protagonists, main character and head felon ‘Fletcher’ and prison officers Mackay and Barrowclough have surnames in common with footballers of the day – Paul Fletcher (Burnley), ex-Spurs captain and then current Derby manager Dave Mackay and Stewart Barrowclough (Newcastle United).
James Bolam (Terry) and Rodney Bewes (Bob), The Likely Lads.
Indeed, it is worth noting at this point that in ‘Fawlty Towers’, another of the golden triangle of British sitcoms of the era, the plots revolve around the inverted snobbery of Torquay hotel owner Basil Fawlty.
Played brilliantly by John Cleese, who along with wife Connie Booth was responsible for the marvellous dialogue, sporting references begin and end with cricket – as if reflecting the British class system of the time and making a distinction between the programmes.
Along with ‘Porridge‘ and ‘Fawlty Towers‘, the holy trinity is completed by the equally magnificent ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads‘. Predating the others by roughly three years, it is a sequel to ‘The Likely Lads‘ (1964-66), the first programme Clement and La Frenais scripted for television.
Reprising main characters Bob Ferris and Terry Collier for the seventies, (superbly played by Rodney Bewes and James Bolam), a few years before Bob and Terry have been working class, northern men, whose interests in beer, women and football are perfectly in tune with the preoccupations of young males.
Their friendship is fractured when Terry joins the army – the story resuming five years later when he leaves the Forces and returns home.
While Terry has been swilling NAFFI beer and carrying out fatigues in cramped barrack rooms, Bob, soon to marry long-time girlfriend Thelma Chambers (a great turn from Brigit Forsyth), has developed lower middle class aspirations. Bob and Thelma have enjoyed foreign holidays and bought a three bed-roomed, semi-detached marital home on the newly built Elm Lodge housing estate.
They have even joined the Rockcliff Leisure Club – leaving Terry to disdainfully exclaim ‘tennis‘ in chiding his friend on what he sees as another concession to Bob’s upwardly mobile ambitions.
But a key element in the glue holding their rekindled friendship together is a shared love of football – and when ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads‘ appeared in January 1973, the first six episodes (in a series of twelve), had already abounded with football banter, but in episode seven ‘NO HIDING PLACE‘, it forms the centrepiece of the story.
With England playing a midweek away fixture against Bulgaria in Sofia – the match having an early afternoon kick-off – Bob and Terry set themselves the task of going all day without hearing the score in order to watch late night television highlights without prior knowledge of the outcome.
Their nemesis in this quest is an old and disliked acquaintance named Brian Flint (Brian Glover), who even in a time light years from mobile phone apps, the internet, 24 hour news (and sport) channels, blanket football coverage, tells them early in the day:
‘You’ll never last out until tonight – there’s the radio, evening paper, television news.’
Thus a bet is struck with him as the lads are confident they can – setting in motion a series of events played out over a number of superbly crafted scenes.
Never needing any second invitation to watch thirty minutes of television that has rarely been equalled, ‘No Hiding Place‘ has even greater significance this week with England playing in Bulgaria on Monday.
But now of an age where the malcontent within me often harks back to a time (the 70s in other words), when music was better, football was better and by a million miles, given the programmes Clement and La Frenais were writing, television was better – I differ from Bob and Terry by virtue of having little interest in a match I could simply walk into a bar and watch, not overly concerned by the score, let alone avoiding the result for fear of spoiling the highlights.
Indeed, as the game plays out, a voice in my head is sure to say the ninety minutes would have been better spent watching Messrs Ferris and Collier instead.
Still enraptured by ‘No Hiding Place‘ – the pub scene where Terry gives Bob a series of pat responses when asked to describe different nationalities is comedy writing of the very highest order – yet at no time is the humour forced or obvious.
Two decades later the two male characters in the ‘Men Behaving Badly‘ sitcom were absurdly labelled as ‘the Likely Lads of the Nineties‘ – the point missed entirely that Bob and Terry were not crass, boorish types, but ordinary people who said funny things to each other.
As a single episode of ‘Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads‘ is never enough to satisfy my need, two more were happily revisited.
Watched next was one entitled ‘I’ll Never Forget Whatshername‘ that involves Collier attempting to reconnect with old girlfriends from his pre-army days – the mention of one name bringing a line from Terry of:
‘She moved away to Shrewsbury’.
‘Where’s Shrewsbury?‘ enquires Bob, prompting Terry to reply: ‘About sixth from the bottom of Division Three.’ Which forty six years on is roughly where you will find my hometown team.
And there was I thinking the connection between ‘No Hiding Place‘ and Bulgaria v England on Monday was topical……….
This article was first published on 12/10/2019.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.
