1949: 93,000 watch an amateur game at Wembley

It looks like my Grandfather went to a really important football match. He was a big fan of Bromley FC; this has come up in conversation with my Mum, because she’s been following the Bromley team as they make great strides in League Two in the 2025-2026 season.

Mum says that her Dad, my Grandpa Les, went to most of Bromley’s games and she remembers him coming back after they won a trophy. She was about 13. Now, Bromley won the Amateur Cup in 1911 and 1938, but those games were played at West Norwood and Millwall respectively.

But the 1949 final - the one Mum remembers - was massive. Why? Because, it was the first Amateur Cup Final to be played at Wembley Stadium. A Romford fan has made a three minute film about it - See below. Bromley played and defeated, Romford, 1-0 on 23 April 1949. The Romford Recorder says that 93,000 watched the game. Among them was my Grandpa Les. Mum remembers seeing him on the bus at one point during the celebrations. Maybe he was such a big fan they let him on. 

The programme. They go for about £20 now

The victorious team in Bromley

With so many fans paying to watch amateurs at Wembley, I suppose it shows that the appetite for football was huge after all the barren war years. 

And my Grandad was there. 

Watch the Romford FC film about the 1949 final >>>

The Bromley team in 1949

My Grandparents and Mum in about 1945

Mugabe: why he was never going to go willingly

The taxi driver gave us his opinions once we told him where we were from. 'I can't believe Mrs Thatcher would go voluntarily. No post-independence African leader would do that.' It was early December 1990 and our prime minister had just been ousted by her party. Our arrival into Harare seemed to send out cabbie into a tailspin. 

Harare market, harmony in a park, young musicians and hotel staff on Xmas day 1990

I'm not sure about about other post-independence leaders and maybe our driver was too nervous to talk specifically about the situation in his own country - in case he'd get pounced upon for uttering 'Mugabe' in a disparaging way. But what happened last night makes our driver's words seem prophetic. Yesterday, twenty-seven years after we were there, and with his party and country finally turning against him, Robert Mugabe still tried to hang on. Just as predicted on that ride from Harare airport. 

People say that it's been 37 years of turmoil. For us in 1990 it didn't seem too bad. After 2000 the whole world suddenly saw Zimbabwe explode in violence. But before then, tyrannical rule must have been simmering below the surface.

Just a hitch 

We gave a lift to a woman who was hitch-hiking, only for us to be pulled over by the police. They told us our tyres were bald. They had a point - the car hire place was a rent-a-wreck establishment - and that they'd let us off the fine if we gave two policemen a lift. They got in either side of this poor woman. In the driver's mirror I saw nothing but pure, 100% terror on her face. 

But at least when we were there in 1990 the country was functional, you could visit as a tourist and the people were unbelievably friendly (when not squashed in against two fierce-looking policemen). 

Let's hope, despite the fact that the 'coup' is a Zanu-PF internal fight, Zimbabwe can at least be more outward-facing and the people of that country, including the hitch-hiker and our astute taxi driver, have a better time of it. 

Listen to Taxi Driver by Zimbabwe's Jonah Moyo 

Better on a camel: Sue and Steve’s BOAC adventures

A colleague at work – Sue - was one of 100 female baby 'orphans' (a word used in the past) flown from Hong Kong to the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s, cradled apparently by airline staff. It was courtesy of the magnificent-sounding International Social Services UK Hong Kong Adoption Project. 

Sue is the poster-girl for the project

Sue regularly meets up with others who had come over here at the same time, to start new lives with their adopted families. And the project, encouraged by the United Nations World Refugee Year 1959-1960, was backed up, not only by cuddling air crew, but by the airline that Sue and her friends travelled on: BOAC. 

It seems that Sue and I have more in common than mere banter around the water cooler. We both flew across the world on BOAC - British Overseas Airways Corporation - and the precursor to British Airways. 

The Palmers in Singapore sometime in the 1970s. 

An up-and-down-experience

These days Sue might be called a ‘child in care’. She was flown from Hong Kong to be adopted. And I was in ‘posh care’. When my sister and I were kids we went to boarding school. From 1971 to 1975 our parents lived in Singapore and we visited in the holidays. So, like Sue as a baby, I was suddenly, aged eight, flown across the world to a new life. But in the opposite direction to Sue. And before that first flight no one had told me what turbulence was and there I was, with my sister, bouncing around with me shouting: “We’re going to crash.” I still hate turbulence today.

Brings back the memories 

BOAC was cruelly renamed by some ‘Better on a Camel’ and I've told Sue about my BOAC 'Junior Jet Club' log book, which the captains signed, my BOAC badge, which is attached the log book and my BOAC tin sweet box. These souvenirs in my loft are physical signs that my sister and I used to do the journey to and from the Far East. But in those years that we ‘commuted’ to Singapore, my sister and I often travelled solo. At Bahrain airport, where we normally transitted,we used to leave each other letters behind the cardboard advert of a woman, in a bikini, advertising Kodak. 

Sue and Steve 2017

It's strange to think that Sue and I flew off in different directions to young lives that have surely shaped us. And perhaps, from now on, when we meet at the water cooler, we'll give each other a knowing look; knowing, in that Sue and I had some pretty life-changing experiences, courtesy of BOAC. 

Better on a camel?

Is jazz shite?

Listen to a mini podcast version of this blog (Dur 2 Min) 

I've got a friend who loathes and detests jazz. He doesn't mean any harm. It's just that he likes a tune with a beginning, middle and end. Whereas I spent much of my childhood with jazz on in the background. Not only did my dad have records by the likes of Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis and the Dave Brubeck Quartet; but one of my parents' friends even used to play the trumpet. Nice. 

The Fast Show, gently mocking jazz

Their generation, who were in their twenties in the 1950s, lived with jazz as their thing. And it's quite attractive. They were cool cats that went to jazz festivals and really bummed out their uncool, square parents. And there's no doubt that jazz, from that time and from those artists I mention, has bequeathed much of the music that my friend and I listen to. It's just that we prefer to listen to our music. And I've tried. I've tried so hard to listen to jazz. 

The good news is that there are some artists out there that can hold a tune without going off on a huge distractive jazzy ride. Try The Bonzo Dog Band, music from TV show Boardwalk Empire and Abdullah Ibrahim. For all the influences of British and American jazz, this South African artist is actually listenable. It's just that I find credible artists like Ornette Coleman a real struggle. 

But back to my friend. I'm more of an open-minded kind of cat and do try. I do. But it can be a challenge can't it? Despite it's legacy, is jazz shite?

Listen to a mini podcast version of this blog (Dur 2 Min) 

In praise of... Chas and Dave

"Oi mate. Are you a punk?"

Well hardly...This remark was made in a school cricket match where a fellow player noticed that I'd drawn a safety pin onto my teenage arm. It wasn't exactly Johnny Rotten. Don't get me wrong. Some punk records were amazing. I say to you Nervous Wreck by the Radio Stars. What a song. But then again, my sister's boyfriend's brother recorded every Led Zeppelin record for me to prepare for the trip to Knebworth in August 1979.  Was it a crime to like both rock and punk?

And Knebworth was a massive event. Record historians might refuse to admit this but Knebworth, with the presence of Led Zeppelin and perhaps 250,000 fans over two Saturdays, was a massive V sign to punk. And as Chas and Dave came on as a support act, I was quite happy to buy into the theory that these cockney rejects were an outdated embarrassment, not popular with any music fans. But there was a problem with that.

They were absolutely brilliant.

Just the piano and the guitar - and songs about having a knees-up. Chas and Dave were better than Led Zeppelin. I know. Mad, isn't it? OK. By the time Led Zeppelin came on, my 16-year-old body gave up and I slept through 'Dazed and Confused'. That day also started a lifelong love of one of the other support acts, Todd Rundgren. But my best memory of Knebworth is the Chas and Dave set. They talk about it here. And I don't care if it's not fashionable now in 2016. It wasn't in 1979.

Right. Enough of this incessant talking. They were the dog's bollocks. 

Crimes against rhymes in music

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t enjoy a misheard lyric. From ‘Into the loo, leaving it all behind me’ (Carpenters) to ‘How’s your boiled egg; how’s your boiled egg?’ (Odyssey). 

Travis: What happened when you were 17?

But I want to discuss something altogether more potentially sinister. With misheard lyrics, it’s the fault of the person listening. With words that are used purely-because-they-rhyme, the high-pressure nozzle of contempt must be thrust squarely in the direction of the lyricist. 

Take this, from the Police and 'Wrapped around your finger'. I'm so glad I'm finally writing this down, because for years the sheer audacity of what you're about to see has sent me trembling with a shock that can only be born of disbelief. Disbelief that someone actually thought they could get away with it. It got to number seven in the charts.

"I have only come here seeking knowledge
Things they would not teach me of in college."

A colleague tells me that it's not just popular music where this sort of crime-against-everything has occurred. It's happened on the West End stage. A lyric for Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat includes the lines:

"All these things you saw in your pajamas
Are a long range forecast for your farmers."

The song? Phaoraoh's Dreams. The effect? I closed my eyes. 

But there are also those artistes who take it on themselves to write a line and then 'sort of' make it rhyme with the next. I'm a great fan of Travis but really:

"Why does it always rain on me? 
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?"

What did he lie about? Why was that date important? Or is it that the syntax just scanned in a seemingly trendy way? 

But, to my mind, by far the biggest, baddest, and, quite frankly the worse lyric of all time is by Wet Wet Wet. (The song was originally by the Troggs, but WWW repeating it is just as bad). I mean, they actually rearranged the words of a sentence just to make it scan and rhyme. No one speaks like this unless they're in a play at the Globe theatre, and even then Shakespeare would be aghast, forsooth. Love isn't all around...

"There's no beginning, there'll be no end
'Cause on my love you can depend."

In praise of Rugeley, Staffordshire

In 1981 Mrs Steve was at a dinner / dance. They were all the rage as Soft Cell’s Tainted Love topped the charts. Mrs Steve and her sister grew up in Rugeley, Staffordshire. More of the dinner / dance in a moment...

Raised by Wolves - Channel 4

First though: Rugeley isn't well known. The town probably doesn't see the producers of property programmes turn up and do up people's houses. There was always Dr Palmer (no relation), the Rugeley poisoner. Or, as Wikipedia describes him: ‘William Palmer (murderer)’. Anyway, he was hanged and it sort of put Rugeley on the map; in 1856. It's been pretty sleepy ever since. 

So, we were watching the comedy 'Raised by Wolves' recently; set it Wolverhampton, the single Mum goes out on a less-than-glamourous date and, on her return, says rather ironically: 'He took me to Tesco in Rugeley - and back'. I know the shop well.

These days Rugeley hosts a massive Amazon depot; across the road from a soon-to-be-abandoned power station. A sort of old days / new days snapshot of modern Britain. Mrs Steve freely admits that, in the 1980s, until her sister's husband turned up and started to take them to clubs and gigs in Birmingham and Stoke, her social life was pretty mundane; it was either house parties, the social club at the power station or a conference suite at a nearby hotel. Edgy stuff.

Back to the dinner / dance, thirty-five years ago. This hotel’s function room had to have a shiny parkay floor.  It was mandatory. Or should have been. It was the eighties, after all. At a sixth form party in the function room, in front of her peers, Mrs Steve's sister went to the loo and returned to the table, only to turn on a heel and go arse over tit on the heavily-polished floor. Everyone laughed. The entire sixth form. 

Then Mrs Steve went to the loo and, on her return, did exactly the same thing. Arse. Over. Tit. Everyone laughed. Again. It’s the sort of déjà vu development that sisters don’t ever want repeated. They were forever remembered as the sprawling sozzled sisters. But they weren’t drunk. They were just unable to negotiate that slippery floor in heels.  

It's the sort of scene that could have ended up on Raised by Wolves. 

My gran meets Steve Buscemi. It's the roaring 20s

I brought my girl an apple; she let me hold her hand.
I brought my girl an orange; we kissed beneath the band.
I brought my girl bananas; she let me squeeze her tight.
I'm going to bring a watermelon to my girl tonight.

My grandmother in c 1926, aged about 20

Lyrics to a Bonzo Dog song from 1966. But it was originally recorded in 1924 by the risque Billy Jones and Ernest Hare. It's the sort of thing that might have been found on my grandmother's gramophone record player. What the Bonzos did in the 60s was to scour the flea markets, find old 78 rpm records, and re-record them. And then, about 15 years later, in the early 80s, I started listening to them. And still do. So, the recordings live on. 

Steve Buscemi as Nucky Johnson in Boardwalk Empire 

And here we are talking about something that happened in the 1920s and those records give us a direct link back in time. But there's more. I mentioned to a colleague that I'd just started watching the box set of Boardwalk Empire (which starts in 1920) and we concluded that the roaring twenties were a great time for music; with the idea of lots of people being able to listen to recorded music in their own homes for the first time. And that included my maternal grandmother.

A '78' player, like my grandmother's (similar to the one on the left) was made between about 1898 and the late 1950s & played at a speed around 78 revolutions per minute

I remember Nana's wind-up 78 gramophone record player in her flat in Chislehurst. When she died, in 1991, it was still in pristine condition. That's because I reckon it was only me and my sister that ever played with it. Sadly, in 1991 it was sold on to a collector. I say 'sadly' because actually, in reality, what would we do with it? It was about three foot tall. So a bit impractical to have hanging around. But it was beautiful. 

Music and scenes from Boardwalk Empire 

So perhaps there's a direct link between me, my grandmother and Nucky Johnson, the character depicted in Boardwalk Empire by Steve Buscemi. And that link is those 78 records that define the era. 

Suggested listening

Boardwalk Empire soundtracks vols I, II & III

The Bonzo Dog Band - Cornology (Best of) 

Songs the Bonzos taught us 

Woody Allen - Wild man blues 

The Scambusters versus the world

Scott: 'Tony? It's Scott Chisholm calling from Talk Radio...'
Tony: Sighs
Scott: '.....again'.
Tony: 'Scott; I've got nothing more to say to you, mate'. Hangs up 
Scott: 'Tony. Tony. Tony!'
Producers in the operations room: 'Hooray!'

Talk Radio reunion, 5 Feb 2016.
Scott, Craig, Harry, Nat, Me, Foxy, Mike and Tom 

Just a normal, everyday call in 1999 on Scott's show on Talk Radio, which included the Scambusters hour. The reason for telling you this is that last week, those producers and that presenter had a wonderful reunion. 

The show was from 9am until midday every weekday; my involvement was on the consumer show, Scambusters. And the thing is: There's no note of the show online. There's no digital history of it. If we were on air today we'd have a social media presence, a website and maybe a Scam app. But there's no mention of what we did in 1999 if you do a search. So I'm writing this to redress the balance. 

It was a consumer show with attitude. We put nasty retailers on air and humiliated them live to the nation: Dodgy phone companies; cowboy builders; people offering non-existent contracts to aspiring models. Often their humiliation would be accompanied by Craig's Scamwall. These were a set of sound affects that would be played as the scamees tried to squirm their way out of their misdeeds. The ice in the glass, a line from the song 'I remember you' or the howling Scamdog, ready to be unleashed at Scott's command. 

Watchdog it wasn't. We did things our own way. For the modelling scam mentioned above, we asked the guy from reception, who had a heavy London accent and was in his 60s, to read out the leaflet: 'Hi. My name's Samantha. I'm an attractive, beautiful, 23-year-old model. And you can be too'. How could the scammers respond to that?

People who rang into the Scamphone would be put on air to state their case against the scam retailers. There were some amazing people, often at their wits' ends. And more often than not, we solved the problem for them. 

A handy explanation some of the team, drawn by a listener, 1999.

So we saved several people from being ripped off. It was so much fun and we were also providing a valuable public service. 

It was anarchic. At times, Scott would say, on air: 'This is a shambles'. But it was well-thought-out shambolic broadcasting. At the reunion, Scott told me that he still, to this day, has taxi drivers telling him how much they loved his show on Talk back in the day.   

At the reunion everyone turned up. It was special because everyone came to remember the sort of time you shouldn't really have if you're getting paid for it. But it was also great broadcasting. And what a team. What a reunion. 

The team
Presenter: Scott
Producers: Tom, Dick and Harry 
Studio production: Foxy
Scamwall: Craig
Trainee Scambuster (set for big things): Nat
Friend of the show: Motoring Mike Rutherford 
Other friends:Callers on the Scamphone, Ola & many others

The battle of the bulge

Blackburn and Bury have both been in FA Cup action this weekend and theirs are magnificent. Manchester City’s and Liverpool’s are horrid. 

Man City, standard net, San Siro 70s and lower league net

The net. The onion bag. This is important stuff. The ball has to nestle in the goal. There used to be nets at the San Siro in Rome where the net just hung down. When Italy scored yet another goal against England in a qualifier I had to begrudgingly admit that it looked sublime. 

But Manchester City and Liverpool may as well have iron hanging down from the goals. When someone scores, it really does take away from the moment. Blackburn and Bury have done a clever thing. It’s the newer, bigger net that has become Premier League / Championship standard over the last few years, but there’s some added girth/ slack so that ball nestles in nicely. 

All sides in the Premier League and championship have those standard nets, but most are still pretty tight for my liking. Manchester City and Liverpool’s are painted in their colours, so you don’t see any buoyancy. You just get a nasty dull thud. 

Back in the 1970s, Wembley, Chelsea, QPR and West Ham all had tight nets. Most other grounds had the net hanging down from two stanchions; many lower league teams still adopt this beautiful thing. Lots of nestling possibilities. 

I’m sure that Chelsea once had a goal ruled out because the referee thought the ball had hit the post. In fact, it had actually rebounded back from a terrifically-tight net. (This is the opposite of a ghost-goal)

Millwall had a lovely set of nets last season. Loose as anything, with a bit of blue in. Pleasing to the eye. They’ve now reverted to the standard, bigger net with moderate give. 6/10.

There are more important things in life, obviously. But the whole point of football, our number one sport in the UK, is to run down the pitch and get the ball in the goal. If it looks great, doesn’t that make us all feel a little bit better? Thank you Blackburn and Bury. I hope they're bulging with pride. 

The campsite toilet & the incandescent man. Kenya 1991.

This is a short version of this blog. 

A man got very angry with me, by the side of a pool, exactly 25 years ago. Mrs Steve and I were in Kenya in January 1991 and I’ll tell you about our livid friend in a moment. But before we could relax poolside, we had to put up with privations, going to see African animals. I worked in a travel agency and although we got cheap flights, the spending money was our own cash. So we booked a budget safari.

Kenyan safari on the cheap. January 1991 

And we got to the campsite on the first day. Well, I say ‘campsite’ but that’s perhaps an exaggeration, especially given the state of the toilet. Well; I say ‘toilet’ but it was a massive hole in the ground. Well, I say ‘ground’. And that’s what it was. 

I remember seeing a Japanese tourist, obviously at her wit’s end, running into an open field, dropping her jeans and parking a large one then and there in front of me, twenty yards away. People have asked how I could have possibly have watched, but, Your Honour, it all happened so quickly.

The problem for Mrs Steve is that she too wanted to ‘go’. At night; when you fear that hungry lions may be roaming around. We left the tent, clutching a rudimentary torch, and then Mrs Steve had to make like our Japanese friend and basically let go a few yards away from the canvas. It was practically touching cloth.

And I couldn’t resist shouting, just as things were coming to a nice conclusion: ‘Lion!’ The result was that Mrs Steve panicked and trod in it. She was wearing flip-flops and poo squelched up her leg. I told her that she had to stick the limb out of the flap of the tent all night. I said it might even give the lion something to gnaw on.

To recover, we sought luxury. In the resort town of Malindi, we headed straight for a hotel and its pool; and a couple of British families were there. I did that thing where you duck under water and just before your body disappears, you overhead-bicycle-kick a ball to show off your skill.

The pool in Malindi. Don't look back in anger

This British holiday-maker was standing by the side of the pool and the ball I’d kicked smacked him right in the face. 

As I surfaced, he was shouting: ‘You fucking bastard! I can’t fucking believe it! What the fuck do you thing you were doing, you fucking wanker?’ I said: ‘I’m so sorry.’ He said: ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

And a kid from the other family asked me: ‘Is that your Dad?’

The other Steve Palmers

I used to occasionally get emailed and asked to do things like mend Chris Moyles's radio studio. That's because an engineer shared the same name as me when we both worked at the BBC. I used to reply: "Well, I've got a toolbox under the stairs and I can take a look..."

There are several other Steve Palmers out there. Including the stress expert. But more of that particular namesake in a moment. 

On the left: Steve Palmer. And on their right, Steve Palmer

First though: a few of the Steve Palmers in my life. I was chased down the road at university by animal rights activists because a Steve Palmer was conducting experiments on little fluffy creatures. I tried to say it was a case of mistaken identity but anger can make people unreasonable. 

My dentist nearly performed root canal treatment on me when there was absolutely no need. Another Steve Palmer, though, was in agony. And the day I was writing this I had a mystery call asking for Councillor Steve Palmer from somewhere in the Scunthorpe area.

The picture above shows Steve Palmer and Steve Palmer, together at an event held by the charity where I’m a trustee. Steve tells me that we have a namesake making life safe for people in Stockport.

And when I was at BBC London, the sports journalists thought it was hilarious to get me to read out the Queen's Park Rangers team news on a Friday, because the club had a striker with my name. 

But it’s the stress expert that I most remember. Part of the BBC job was to ring up guests and tempt them onto radio shows, to speak in response to an item in the news. This is how the conversation went with Dr Steve Palmer’s personal assistant:

Me: “Hello. I’m calling from the BBC. We’d like to ask Dr Steve Palmer onto our show to talk about an item in the news on stress.”

PA: “That sounds interesting. He is in today and I’ll try and put you through. Can I say who’s calling please?”

Me: “I’m so glad you asked me that...”

Leopard skin, sneakers and great pop songs

So there I was sweating in the Camden Palace moshpit, dancing to someone whose name is Mahlathini Nezintombi Zomgqashiyo. Oh, and he groaned. So far, so obscure. But it’s one of the top five gigs I’ve ever been to. It was 1989. And this morning I realised that I feel so grateful that I got to see this band. 

Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens

Obscure? I’m here to tell you that Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens were totally funky and danceable, with wonderful, joyful pop songs.

Try this one for size: Melodi Yala 

They were one of the first bands introduced to me by Charlie Gillett (see previous blog). If Paul Simon encouraged the world to listen to South African music - and I still love Graceland - then a much bigger influence for me were Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens and other bands.

If you don't know where to start, try the three Indestructible beat of Soweto albums. Here's a link to information about volume one. Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens featured heavily on these albums. 

It was the late 80s and all this was being played against a backdrop of Apartheid coming to and end. Some preferred the bullet. These musicians preferred the penny-whistle. Oh, and the guitar. Because these were really accessible pop songs. And here's my Spotify 'best of' playlist.

But I maintain that Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens were nothing without each other. Here was a strange man groaning away wearing a chief's regalia on stage – a leopard skin over his chest, fur armlets and leggings, a skirt of animal tails and beads around his head; with three women who danced around in huge red circular Zulu hats, skirts of leather and beadwork, leotards and sneakers. 

And when Mahlathini died in 1999, that synergy died too. I'm sure the Queens are amazing on their own and they still tour. 

It's just that I got to see the Real McCoy. I'll never forget being at that gig, staggered that so many other people loved them, and were singing along: "This music is produced from the same pot, the same pot. Everybody knows". 

The style of music is called Mbaqanga. But if you're not bothered about that, then at least do give them a go. And I hope you, like me, start tapping your toes and feeling good the moment their songs start. 

Subbuteo - Milan in my bedroom

My eldest loves to Xbox; my youngest his iPad.

I had it worse. Forty years ago, I became completely obsessed with Subbuteo.

1970s Subbuteo, with the unrealistic nets, balls and players

Some great goals flew in; some amazing saves were made; and the woodwork (well, plastic) was pinged by the ball on many occasions. 

But did I take this all too far? Well the conditions had to be just right. The ball was as tall as the players, so I remember buying a smaller ball to make it more realistic. Because obviously, people standing on plastic moulds with their arms dangling down by their sides; well, that was really realistic, wasn't it? 

That wasn't the manufacturers' fault. But what was inexcusable was adding an extra line a few centimetres from the penalty box. You could only shoot from within this line. That wasn't realistic at all. 

However, the first Subbuteo sets came onto the market in 1947, so my expectation of 'reality' has to be placed in the context of a post-war rationale. No flashy long-range shots allowed. Austerity football. And the line stuck. You can see why: a kick from a player had power. I could have shot from my sister's room and it would have gone all the way in. 

And talking about my sister, I was beside myself when she kneeled on my goalpost. And then ecstatic when I realised that she'd clipped of the bottom of the post and now the goals were flush with the ground; just like real goalposts. So I sawed off the bottom bits of the other goal. I also had to have the nets drape down, not taut like the manufacturers made them. What did they know? I had the San Siro stadium, Milan, in my bedroom. The ball nestled in the net beautifully when it flew in. 

It was all about realism. Occasionally I'd do like my sis and inadvertently kneel on a player. No problem. I had glue. But, once dried, the players would invariably sink into the glue and end up being much shorter than the other players. Again; no problem. One such sinkee was in claret and blue strip. So, he was the diminutive Billy Bonds for West Ham and the tiny Brian Little for Aston Villa.

And I have to admit to sometimes dragging the ball, rather than flicking it. I enjoyed cheating, with no one judging me. 

Because the thing is, I can hardly remember playing Subbuteo with anyone else. No; this was a solitary activity. I played entire tournaments, rigged games so that my preferred team would win and put real snow on the pitch when it snowed outside (it was a good excuse to use the orange ball). Always with commentary. From me. I was totally on my own. 

I remember my dad having a quiet word with me in about 1978, suggesting that I'd probably become a bit too old for this. And I listened to him. But I'll never regret my obsession - or the broken plastic. Now - where's the electronic device? 

My failed stand-up comedy career

What Tinky Winky taught me about audiences with a smoking gun

© Steve Palmer 2015

Flyer from 1994 - Includes Dave Thompson and yours truly

The Bearcat Club in Twickenham was the second worse place you could perform as an aspiring stand-up twenty years ago. The club’s website says that these days it’s one of London’s best-loved comedy venues. Not to me it isn’t. It’s been gut-wrenching even looking the site up. I never want to go there again. I’ve no idea if it’s still the second-worst one to play or whether Up the Creek in Greenwich still has that dubious honour.

The Bearcat. Back in the 90s, they had professional hecklers, who sat in the front row. These people said things to the comedians that the audience behind them couldn’t hear. But the performers could. The hecklers got the volume just right.

It was terrifying.

So. The open spot. Try-out. Open mic. The bit in the show where newly-starting-up comedians got their five minutes. Like an apprentice gladiator being thrown to the lions, it was rarely a level playing field. If you pay £30 to go and see Michael Mcintyre, you’re going to want to enjoy it, including to justify the expense. And I hope you do. However, as the try-out in a line-up of several comedians, you’re fair game.

The night I did the Bearcat, Dominic Holland, who I’d spoken to a couple of times at gigs and who was very encouraging and helpful, went on stage and stormed it. If you stormed the Bearcat you were a professional comedian who was not only funny, but who also knew how to control an audience. Holland had them eating out of the palms of his hands; and cheering from the rafters.

Then it was my turn.

No. I don’t really want to talk about it. Except I will. A bit. I wasn’t funny. The audience humiliated me in a way that I couldn’t have ever imagined. I’d much rather see my trousers fall off in Piccadilly Circus. I was, of course, relieved to get off. They’d had their pound of flesh. I’m almost in tears writing about it.

So: why? Why did I do this awful thing? A hobby as a stand-up comedian on the try-out circuit? Well; it all started when loads of people fell off a stage during a student play.

Stand up and be counted

Bradford University. 1983. A musical, which was a tribute to Scott of the Antarctic, with the bizarre but perhaps imaginative title of ‘Scott bears all in polar regions.’ For some reason, the producer thought I was funny and got me to do five minutes of stand-up. OK, I was billed as ‘The worst comedian in the world’ but I could hardly sue under the Trade Descriptions Act. 

Rehearsals went OK. We were due to perform in the Communal Building; what everyone called the Commie.

Ah, the Commie. Fond memories of appropriating barrels that were destined for the Beer Festival; then rolling them down a grassy verge that Bradford students will know well – it starts at the library and Shearbridge Green / Bradford Halls, and swoops down towards the Commie. The barrel-rolling, and other larks, were played-out with my friend Ian.

Ian couldn't resist, every time he was in the vicinity of a phone, picking it up and shouting: "Get me the White House. Brezhnev's still dead." The reference to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, recently deceased, would get me laughing every time.

Ian and I got to introduce John Cooper Clarke, the poet. Not this time at the Commie. This time in the Great Hall, no less. The story goes that we were on stage in front of 2,000 people and were enjoying getting ‘air time’. All we had to do was to say a few words to introduce the great punk wordsmith. We stretched the concept of ‘a few words’ as far as we could, hogging the limelight. We just talked and talked to the audience. Because we could. It was great. 

Apparently Clarke then said: “It looks like I’m already x!*!x well on.” And then started making his way onto the Great Horton Road. He was dragged back. We were dragged off. Short of getting one of those curly sticks and yanking us from the stage, we were dispatched to the sidelines.

The social secretary was a guy called Neil Smith. He was always suspicious of me and Ian. With good reason. In 2013 I discovered him online and he was very generous, and funny; and he was so forgiving about our misadventures from the 1980s. Because Ian and I were right wind-up merchants. I had to break the news to Neil that Ian had died in 2006.

Old friend

Ian was killed on his motorbike and I saw him on too few occasions between the end of university and the day he died. Ian would have been my consultant for this chapter. He didn’t mind being embarrassed; he stood for university president on the ‘criminally insane’ ticket. And nearly won. He wound up the political student types. I said in an article I wrote for the BBC Bradford / West Yorkshire website: “Ian’s love of life and ‘no strings attached’ approach to friendship liberated me.”

At the funeral, the crematorium building was packed with people and they needed to use both rooms. I obviously went to the ‘overflow’ room, not being close family or having any pretence to being a regular friend to Ian any more. Then: “First up to remember Ian is his friend from Bradford, Steve.” 

I had to run at breakneck speed around to the main crematorium area where the service was being held, as the truth dawned that I was to be the first to speak. Ian was having the last laugh on me. So I arrived, breathless, taking gulps of air as I was about to start talking.

And there was Karen, his wife; and his three young boys. And his extended family. And loads of friends. And I’d come prepared to talk about how Ian and I used to muck about and treat life frivolously. A bit risky, I suppose, being first up to speak. But then I thought: “Sod it. It’s what he would have wanted.” This might have been deeply embarrassing but I went for it and talked about how we ran amok on campus. 

Stupid things like going into the Union shop and pretending to get the wrong end of the stick. We asked for onions. Silly things like organising a speed-eat-all-you-can halls of residence dinner. Ian did it in four minutes, 20 seconds. 

Childish things like jumping over the postbox on the Great Horton Road that was still, when I was last there, slightly at an angle like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Then I looked up and wondered if they were about to all chase me out of the crematorium. 

But folks at the funeral were appreciative, because they all knew what Ian was like. Of course, there were many more, important speeches, but I was glad I was able to celebrate Ian’s zany approach to life. 

Ian. Thank you. As your best man, Simon, said on the day we said goodbye to you: “Shine on you crazy diamond.”

Staged disaster

Anyway; back to the Commie. I was playing the part of the failed comic in the Antarctic romp. And I was a minute into my routine (OK, perhaps it’s best to describe it as a ‘bunch of terrible jokes’) when I heard an almighty smashing sound behind me.

The Commie could be used for discos, gigs and shows. And a raised performing area was assembled for the latter two. Actually, this ‘stage’ was really just a bunch of glorified and rickety trestle tables that constituted a performance area. On this occasion, as I stood there, behind me some hastily-erected polar scenery was swaying. Then the stage buckled and the entire cast – there were loads of extras – fell about four feet onto the floor. One guy broke his leg.

The audience burst out laughing, not knowing how gruesome it all was back there, because the falling scenery shielded them from sight of the full carnage. But this was my moment. Sensing just the right amount of pregnant pause, I grabbed the microphone in its stand and said: “Well, you can laugh.” 

Appalling. What a wasted opportunity to get a bona fide laugh. But I couldn’t think of anything else in the heat of the moment. It got a moderate chuckle. Yeah. Thanks. 

Somehow, though, my appearance as a stand-up was encouraged. That summer we took some theatre productions to the Edinburgh Festival, and ‘Gandhi: The Panto’ was going particularly badly. We were filmed for Joan Bakewell’s ‘Pick of the Fringe’ on BBC2 and so my first ever TV appearance as an artiste was as an extra, dressed in a dhoti, walking bearfoot in the streets of Edinburgh. 

But the same guy who cast me in the role of comedian in the Antarctic escapade suggested that I repeat the exercise in Edinburgh to ‘save the show’. Talk about high expectations. So, I did a routine and I can’t remember if it was OK or not. Actually, I was probably crap.

Not as crap perhaps as when, back in the Commie, we performed ‘Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street’. As the policeman, I had to shoot Sweeney, played by a guy called Alex. The gun wouldn’t go off – there was a firearm malfunction - and instead I had to stab poor Alex with the broken gun, much to the delight of the audience, who fell apart. So did I…

And then I forgot all about stand-up. And I left university…and grew up a bit.

Mid Nineties

But the urge returned. I had been in a career job for a few years and I was just about to get married, so perhaps I was having a 30-something ‘life crisis’. Working in the travel industry had its benefits, but day-to-day on the desks could be dull. And I started thinking of trying to do stand-up again. 

A friend, who hadn’t just messed about with theatre in Bradford like I did, but who went on to be a theatrical big-wig, was down in London. She encouraged me to do something about the comedy bug. It was 1992.

A few months came and went and I did nothing about it. Until my stag do. We were in a pub in Crouch End. I knew that they had comedy in the basement every Saturday night but this was the last thing on my mind as I sat there with devil horns on, with writing across my forehead in lipstick and with party streamers dangling down. And I was wearing a plastic fireman’s helmet. 

Suddenly, at about 10.55 pm, as the comedy evening downstairs was coming to an end, I decided it would be a good idea to go down there. In disbelief, my stag friends followed me, and arrived in time to see me grab the microphone from the compere, who was winding up the evening’s entertainment. I pushed him to one side. And I told a joke from hell. Remember; I was near the end of my stag do and the joke sort of mumbled out. A drunken spilling forth of an inaudible punchline. 

But it had an effect on me.

Typing this, I’m sitting in a bar not far from the venue where this happened, reminiscing about my first ever gig. It was a crazy, wild and impetus thing to do and the worrying thing is, it wasn’t the least embarrassing or awkward at all. At that point I had no fear of being on stage. 

Then I started doing stand-up properly. Oh dear...

Tinky Winky’s school of comedy

Mrs Steve had seen an article in the Observer about a stand-up class at Jackson’s Lane Community Centre in Highgate. She wishes she hadn’t. I enrolled. We were lucky to have, as our tutors, the likes of Andy Parsons (a regular these days on Mock the Week), John Hegley the poet, and Dave Thompson. The Dave Thompson who also doubled-up as Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies. 

The ‘students’ all tried out our material in front of each other. Wow; the egos in that room. We were taught microphone technique – it’s very important. You don’t want to fumble before an expectant (or non-expectant) audience. We all encouraged each other. It was like therapy. But, ultimately we were on our own, as our own agents, to book our own gigs and to try to make audiences laugh.

The thing is that the first time I did a gig for real I was funny. It was actually at the same venue as the comedy course – Jackson’s Lane. There were about 15 people in the audience but they all laughed. I was terrified. But, according to family, that petrified look apparently makes me come across as funny. So I thought my golden new career was about to take off. All I had to do before a gig was to work myself into a frenzy of fear; and then shit myself. 

But once I started getting into the zone and trying to take on an audience, it was like I became a machine and so I lost that look of terror. And, on top of that, my usual outward-going personality seemed to abandon me on stage as well. After that first gig, I sort of lost my mojo and never recovered it. So my success didn’t last long! Psychologists would have a field day. Anyway, after that, I can’t say I ever really enjoyed myself as a comedian. Apart from one gig. But read on…

I’ve calculated that between the early summer of 1993 and January 1995 I did about 200 gigs. This was on top of the day job. One hundred and fifty shows went OK. Pretty non-descript. I even humiliated a heckler once. Result. Of the remaining fifty, forty were pretty disastrous. That leaves ten. 

About five were abysmal and about four were so bad that I find it totally awkward and humiliating writing this. This included the Bearcat Club.

Do the maths and you’ll see there’s one gig left. More of that in a moment. Because that was good. That was very good.

First though, some lowlights from those bad gigs: I was ignored by a bunch of students in Harrow, who snogged each other through my act. Mrs Steve was there and when I came off stage, she was so upset she had to be consoled by a very nice Rhona Cameron. I asked my sister to a gig once and I was appalling. I won’t get that time back again. 

My try-out slot at the Comedy Store was everything it shouldn’t be. Lee Evans came into the changing room and was very encouraging, but it didn’t help me. I was shocking and the compere rubbed salt in the wound, afterwards coming up to me and telling me that he thought I was terrible. I’ve harboured a fantasy that somehow he was trying to beat me down and that it was his way of waving off the talented up-and-coming opposition. But now I think it was because I was just crap and because he was just a nasty person. Name withheld.  

If the audience were revolting and you did badly, at least you could say: “Tough crowd.” But once I drove to somewhere in Surrey and they were lovely. And I was terrible. The audience were so kind that they were actually embarrassed for me. I found that experience much worse than being booed off. I also drove to Brighton and the gig was going OK with the biggest crowd I’d ever played in front of. But one section only of the crowd really turned on me and I’d had enough. So I shouted at them and stormed off, despite that section being in a minority. I knew in my heart, though, that the whole venture was coming to an end.

But there were some amazing evenings. A guy singing “Only You” whilst wearing welding goggles; an American comedian shouting, in reference to the London Underground safety messages: “Mind the gap. YOU mind the gap.” However, I never saw the farting comedian, Napoleon Blown Apart, and that’s a major regret.

And one hot summer night Mrs Steve joined me for moral support at this pub in central London. The pub, like many others at the time, used its upstairs room as a comedy venue. But this one was different. It billed itself as London's only smoke-free comedy spot. This wasn't a lie; every other venue was really smoky. Your clothes always stunk after a gig. Now, at the time, lots of people liked smoking, and so no one came to this particular gig. The audience no-showed. I don't think the organiser even bothered to turn up. But another performer did.

This other comedian sat outside the pub with me and Mrs Steve, waiting and waiting. We had a pleasant enough chat but he was affecting lots of different accents (comedians are often 'in character'). Then I realised that his hair was skew-whiff, and that in fact he was wearing a toupée. In the end, this up-and-coming comic ripped the rug off and threw it on the wooden table for comedy effect. In his normal, London voice he proclaimed: "I've had enough of this." He said goodbye and walked down the road, proudly bare-headed. 

That performer was Matt Lucas and he’s gone on to bigger things. Well, that wasn’t difficult; there was no one there. But you know what I mean. 

What was in my act? I really just told crap jokes and didn’t feel that I ever had a chance to work on a persona, as there was always another gig coming up shortly – so I wrote more crap jokes, that weren’t funny. These days of course, I live with a son with a learning disability and I’ve got a blog and book about it to draw on for material. But I wouldn’t want to do it now. Now perhaps I’ve got the material but not the desire. Twenty years ago I had the opposite. Damn. 

I’ll tell you about that great gig in a moment, I promise. The chapter’s almost over. The punchline’s coming. But first, to a fantastic evening when I got gonged off after about 40 seconds. Yes. It was great. The Gong Club was at least what it said on the tin. When the crowd had had enough of a comedian, they went “woooooooo” until a crescendo moment forced the Gongmeister to rattle that gong. I had my own beautiful gong moment – it really was quite liberating – and then foxed the audience afterwards by telling them that I loved them and by doing an encore. How did the promoter let that happen?

But what the promoter did was to put the gong victims up in the first half and then have an established comedian do a set in the second. That night, Harry Hill was on, and he was so kind and generous to all the comedians. He turned up in his comedy bubble car and we all had a really good chat in the waiting / changing / shit-yourself room. A fond memory and something most people don’t get to do.

Highbury high jinks

So. To that night. I was set to do the Hen and Chickens in Highbury and Islington and my desire to continue this comedy hobby was seriously waning. So I felt more relaxed about the whole thing. And remember Tinky Winky? That’s Dave, who had that other career as a Teletubby, and who was also one of my comedy teachers. I once spent a great afternoon in his flat, with another new comedian; we organised for Dave to give us a private titter tutorial.

Dave was great company and he also gave us his view of what stand-up really is. Yes, you have to be funny but, crucially, you have to be able to control a crowd, like Dominic Holland did at the Bearcat. And Dave went further. He talked about the ‘loaded gun’. The idea is that a crowd want blood. And they’ll let the gun off if they smell that blood. So, Dave reckoned, even the most established comics can struggle if they are on at the wrong time in the running order.

It was, at the time, a cut-throat world and sometimes a bit harsh, and dare I say it, nasty for the sake of being nasty. It was you against the world. Dave Thompson advises that some people who run comedy venues are: "Proxy comedians”.  ’ve spoken to him recently and he tells me: “If you succeed, they suck up to you and bathe in your status. If you fail, they play power trips with you. They like to see comedians humiliated at their venue. They feel it raises their status to see someone, who tries to be creative, lose status publicly. The audience picks up on this vibe, and the gun in the room is manifested.”

I was once approached after a gig by a couple who said they thought I was funny, but that because everyone around them was out to get me, they felt they couldn’t laugh. They said that there was a ‘comedy fascism’. They came up to me specially to say this and it’s perhaps one of the kindest things any stranger has ever done for me. Imagine that happening.

And, that night at the Hen and Chickens, in October 1994, it was carnage. Relatively established comedians were close to getting bottles chucked in their direction, and the loaded gun was more like a gatling gun let off its moorings, with every comedian getting rudely booed off. About four of them in the first half, which didn’t last long. The audience were merciless.

And then it was my turn. First up after the break.

I tried a couple of jokes and got nowhere. But sometimes unexpected things happen in life. They didn’t boo me. They’d done their booing. I thought about what Dave had said and realised that the gun had gone off. It was now simply smoking. This was my chance. 

The day before, a man had broken into the lion enclosure at London zoo and was chewed to pieces. I said: “Sod it. This morning, on the tube, I wrote these jokes about the bloke breaking into the lion enclosure. Do you want to hear them?” I got giant appreciative cheers. They actually wanted to hear my crap jokes. And so I got a piece of paper out of my pocket and read these awful puns out. Jokes like: “Before they ate him, they had a pair of teeth”. Actually, that’s the only one I now remember. Aperitif. Get it? Well that audience did, and they laughed; so there.

I’m typing this on the same tube line where I wrote those jokes, about twenty years after the event. Fond memories. Because, at that gig in 1994, they practically carried me out on their shoulders. One guy asked when I was next playing. I tried to explain that if I’d had gone on earlier, I’d have been treated like the enemy within and he would have hated me. It was probably the moment when I realised that I definitely didn’t want to do this anymore, because Dave was right. 

Audience-control is important. And I don’t find that particularly exciting. But I enjoyed that one night.

The evening got better. After I was on, this act called Jimbo performed. Now, I’ve checked online and there appears to be at least two other comedians with the same name. But this is a story about the Jimbo I saw that night in 1994. Meticulously researched, this essay.

Jimbo never spoke. He always went to the microphone and went as if to speak, but always got distracted and that was his act. His mouth opened; nothing. Another attempt; again, nothing. He was often distracted by one of his props, which he examined in close detail. I’d seen him do this several times before, but on this particular evening it was hilarious. 

The audience, by now tamed to being mouse-like recipients of any comedy, loved it. If he’d have been on any earlier, they’d have swallowed him up.

Jimbo did the whole ‘I’ll speak in a moment’ routine; but then he took it one stage further. He flung open the back door fire exit, leaving his props on the floor, and then boarded a 73 bus. The audience were still laughing as he took off on the bus, and as he was clearly visible sitting on the upper deck.

Cassette carnage

About a year ago I took all the audio recordings I had of me doing stand-up and listened to them (in anguish). Then I then pulled the tape out of the cassettes, and placed all the bits in a bin outside Baker Street station. I kept one small recording, captured just after I’d started off as a comedian. The tapes had to go.

And all I’d say is that I feel sorry for comedians these days. You get to be heckled, not just whilst performing, but also after the show. Going onto the Bearcat’s website, I saw this on their ‘latest tweets’ feed: hi I really enjoyed your set last night at the @Viaductpub @bearcatquiz but I think you could've done jokes 5 & 12 better...

Funny ha-ha. And funny peculiar. And funny awkward. Bloody awkward. But what a night in the Hen and Chickens in October 1994.