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Despite my life’s mission to avoid sports, I keep having encounters with some of the best sportsmen in the world. Before you get jealous, you will read that these encounters are awkward at best… and embarrassing at worst.
It all began when I was six years old…
Encounter 1 -George Best
I was at a charity cricket match. (It was the same event where Gary Lineker blanked me a few years later). It was the type of event that had celebrities there, but being six years old, I had no idea who anyone was.
All I knew was that cricket was boring. So, I wandered off to find other sources of entertainment. There was a face painter set up in the corner of the gazebo. She had turned some boys into tigers and painted dolphins on some of the girl’s cheeks. I didn’t want a dolphin on my cheek, I wanted a pink butterfly with glitter that filled my whole face.
“Right, I have no pink or glitter, but I’ll see what I can do…” said the eighteen year old face painter. She pulled my fringe back with one hand, and started painting my face bright blue.
“Right. done. Have a look,” she said. I leaned into the mirror. “What do you reckon?” she asked.
I was bright blue with red dots.
“Well, I’m not f-ing butterfly, am I?” I wanted to say, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know the F word then. I nodded gormlessly, slid off the stool, and went to find my parents.
“What’s happened to you?” Dad asked, panicked by his daughter, who now looked like she had caught a rare virus in the last fifteen minutes.
“I’m a butterfly,” I snapped, defensively.
Before Dad could say anything, he was called over by his friend, Ronnie.
Ronnie had the same accent as Ant and Dec. He spoke so fast, his moustache would swing from side to side. He also, always, without fail, had a camera on him.
“Eric, man, come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Dad, gripping my shoulders, walked me to Ronnie. The man Ronnie wanted Dad to meet was a pink-faced, dark grey-haired man called George Best.
“Let’s get a picture!” Ronnie said, and handed his camera to the nearest person. I stood next to George.
“What are you?”George asked.
“I’m a butterfly,” I said through a defeated sigh. And then the picture was taken.
So, now I have a photo of me with one of the greatest footballers of all time. Unfortunately, I look like a Smurf with chicken pox
Encounter 2 – Lawrence Dallaglio
Fast forward twenty years, I was working in advertising as an assistant producer. I was at a wrap party lunch in Soho, and ended up sitting next to Lawrence Dallaglio. I may be exaggerating a little, but in real life, he’s resembles the Green Giant on the sweetcorn tin, except he’s not green, just a giant.
Lawrence turned to me and roared, “Do you play any sport?”
And I said, “No petal, do you?”
(Ok, I didn’t ask the former England rugby captain if he played sports…or called him a petal, but if I had a time machine and more guts, I definitely would).
Instead, I simply replied, “no.”
And he roared back, “Ok.”
And we never spoke again.
Encounter 3 – Justin Rose
When the Rose family turned up on my Oxford walking tour, they could have been any old family. The mum/wife was very glamorous, with golden hair and big sunglasses. The husband looked like a friendly neighbour – the type of man who would rigorously hoover his car mats on a Sunday morning, and enthusiastically wave to you from his garden.
By the time The Roses came on my tour, I had been a guide for almost a year and had made a few tweaks to the script.
I added a Bill Clinton impression. At the Oxford Bridge of Sighs, I would ask the group if anyone wanted to take me to Venice to see the real bridge. (Still haven’t gone to Venice though, have I?) There is a part in the script where we mention the traditional All-Soul’s Mallard Duck song, and I thought it would be cool to learn the lyrics to it, and sing it to the tourists.
And so I sung this to The Roses….
“The Griffine, Bustard, Turkey & Capon
Lett other hungry Mortalls gape on
And on theire bones with Stomacks fall hard,
But lett All Souls’ Men have ye Mallard.
Sometimes I would get an applause at the end of the song, other times, like this tour, I was met with a baffling silence.
We were on our way to New College, the final stop of the tour, when the friendly neighbour man came and spoke to me.
“How many tours do you do a day?” he asked.
“Two. I have one this afternoon,” I replied.
“So you just have your lunch, and go again?”
“Yup. It’s a lot of walking, but it’s good to be outside and get your steps in,” I bragged.
“…It sure is,” said the friendly neighbour man.
(Just to note….I only walked one mile for that job).
Just as I finished my two-hour tour, the New College porter came rushing over, requesting a photo with the friendly man with the sticky up hair. He wanted to put the photo on the celebrity visitor board. This was very confusing to me. Why would you want to put some random man on the celebrity board?
After everyone had gone, I asked the porter who the man was.
“Justin Rose?” he said, looking at me like I was Flat Earther. “The golfer?” He added, to help me out.
“Oh….a…good…golfer?” I asked.
The Porter rolled his eyes. “25 professional wins. He ranked number one in the world for 13 weeks in 2018. An MBE. Olympic gold medallist. Yes, Justin Rose is a good golfer.”
…
Right.
So, not just a friendly man with sticky up hair.
If you’re ever in Oxford, go to New College, you’ll see that celebrity visitor board, where there are photos of Daniel Radcliffe, Hugh Grant and one of the best sportsmen in the world… Justin Rose.
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