Football and Comedy: Alas Smith and Jones (1986) - Tribute to Mel Smith

Sad news reaches us today of the death of Mel Smith, a fine comedy writer, actor and performer who graced British TV screens along with partner Griff Rhys-Jones during the 1980's.

Their long-running BBC show, Alas Smith and Jones, featured many a brilliantly observed sketch that often highlighted the joys and absurdities of everyday life. In tribute to Mel Smith, here's a quick sketch in which he plays the part of a TV announcer reading out the Saturday afternoon football results on Grandstand - itself lost to the changing trends of British programming.

Note the growing euphoria on the part of the announcer as he finally allows himself not just to accept the futility of reading endless football results, but enjoying the opportunity to convey his frustration to a watching public. If only real life was like this every once in a while.

Football and Comedy: Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (1973)

Football and comedy. Mention the two words together in a conversation with a football fan and you'll often get the same response: 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads.'

The reason is simple. As British sitcoms go, very few encapsulate the dedication to football and the mental anguish of the common supporter like the episode entitled 'No Hiding Place.' For those of you unfamiliar with  this TV classic, here's the back story.

Terry Collier (played by James Bolam) and Bob Ferris (Rodney Bewes) are old pals that grew up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Having enjoyed and endured a relationship of virtual brotherhood for many years, their time together reached a temporary hiatus when Collier joined the army and travelled abroad as a result of his military service.

Five years on, Collier returns home to Newcastle and is reunited with his old pal Ferris, but their home town has changed beyond comprehension. Many of the old buildings have been pulled down, former friends have moved on and the swinging Sixties have made way for the sensible Seventies. Terry is struggling to understand what has happened to the world he left behind, and when we pick up the story in this episode, even a trip to a hairdressing salon proves to be an eye-opening experience...



00:00
Surely one of the greatest TV theme tunes of all time, accompanied by a title sequence that illustrates the history of Bob and Terry's friendship. Their younger years featured in The Likely Lads which ran for three series on BBC television between 1964 and 1966. Some of the pictures shown in the titles derive from this series.

00:30
A never-more-70s hairdressing boutique welcomes the arrival of Bob and Terry, the latter alarmed that (a) it's not a barber's shop anymore, (b) women work there, and (c) getting your hair washed appears to be the new norm. As for manicures...

03:08
The first mention of football as Gary, one of the hairdressers, asks Bob who he thinks will win the Bulgaria v England match taking place that day. It's a lunchtime kick-off, but highlights of the game aren't due to be shown until that same evening. Ah yes, those dark, distant days when even an international match wasn't guaranteed to be shown live on TV...

Terry and Bob are planning to avoid the score all day in the hope of adding some excitement to their televisual banquet later that night, but will they make it?

04:54
In through the door walks Flint, an acquaintance of Bob and Terry and a man they can well do without seeing. Flint almost lets slip the latest news from Bulgaria, but our desperate duo exit quickly from the salon before hearing something unfortunate.

Incidentally, Flint is played by Brian Glover, a well-known actor back in the day and someone with his own football connections having played PE teacher Mr Sugden in the film Kes.

05:36
Oh dear - the secret's out... "2-0!" shouts Flint as Bob and Terry flee the scene. They arrive at their favourite pub, The Black Horse and come to terms with what they've just heard. Here we get a great piece of dialogue about the way football scores are discussed. "People don't go around saying 'nil-two' do they?" says, Bob, and you have to admit, he's got a point...

Luckily for the fellas, it's all a ruse; the match hasn't even kicked off yet, and Flint was merely pulling their leg. What a rotten thing to do...

06:37
Time for some casual international stereotyping now as Terry discusses the dubious qualities of Britain's foreign neighbours. Be it Koreans, Russians, Egyptians, Italians, French, Germans, Spaniards, Danes or Americans, they've all got negative qualities that Collier can't stand.

Such matters are cast aside, however, when Flint walks in and bets the lads that they won't be able to avoid the score until 10.20pm. Their first test comes when Flint turns on his portable radio...

10:55
Bob and Terry take refuge at the home of Audrey, Terry's sister. Further insinuations ensue about the ability of the Bulgarians to provide a decent playing surface for football along with various references to Enoch Powell and Pan's People that date the episode beautifully.

And then the phone rings... Audrey goes to answer it, but the boys are too shrewd and don't bother waiting to find out who's on the other end of the line. Just as well - it sounds like Flint...

15:15
The local church is the next place of sanctuary for Bob and Terry, but there's still six hours to pass and desperate times call for desperate measures. Personal confessions, games of I Spy and the Eurovision Song Contest are all discussed, but yet again Flint arrives to cause panic where once was calm.

The sequence ends with another topical football reference as Flint delivers 'The Gospel According To Sir Alf'.

22:13
Further problems arise as Bob drives the pair home in his car past a TV rental shop and then a one-legged news vendor bearing a placard. But what will it say? 'England Victory'? 'England Flop'? Time for some excellent ingenuity on the part of our persecuted motorists...

23:29
Finally Bob and Terry arrive back at Bob's new house to watch the match. With less than ten minutes to go, their frustrating ordeal appears to be at an end. With bottles of beer at the ready, their relief at having avoided the score - and Flint - is palpable... but Flint finds a way to collect his winnings in the end.

27:26
It's the moment they've both been waiting for and the TV's switched on. Football awaits... but who's this? It's Corbett Woodall, one time BBC newsreader who throughout the Seventies reprised his role in a number of programmes including Steptoe and Son and The Goodies.

Unfortunately on this occasion, he's the bearer of bad news. Instead of European football, they're about to see the European Figure Skating Championships. Suddenly, that 'England F...' headline makes sense - much to the disdain of The Likely Lads.

Football and Comedy: The Goodies (1982)

Football and comedy: two worlds that only usually collide whenever someone employs Joe Kinnear, yet hidden away in the depths of our psyche are images and memories we've harvested from decades spent watching the television.

Though we may have forgotten by now, the world of football has featured in many of our favourite comedy TV programmes. Sometimes a mere passing reference (no pun intended) is all we've needed while at other times nothing less than a full blown tribute to the beautiful game was provided for our viewing pleasure.

And that's why The Football Attic feels it necessary to begin this new series where we highlight these funny football memories from the past, no matter how slight or unfunny they may be. To start off, we bring you a bumper post highlighting an entire episode of The Goodies which is jam-packed full of football references from start to finish.

You can watch the video below, and if you'd like your experience enhanced further still, we've provided a few things to look out for in the listing further down this page. (Oh, and a warning: Some of the language used during this episode is a little... how shall we say... 'of its era'?)



00:00
The opening titles beckon the start of series 9, episode 3 of The Goodies. This series was the only one to be shown on ITV (London Weekend Television specifically) and our featured episode was originally broadcast on 16 January 1982.

During its 12-year run on British TV, The Goodies had several different variations on their theme tune, and if I'm honest this is probably my favourite. Not that you needed to know that or anything.

00:49
Our first sight of football and, if we're not mistaken, it's some grainy stock footage of the 1976 FA Cup Final between Southampton and Manchester United.

01:20
A nice use of some replica Admiral Southampton away kits on the actors there. Of course there's no disguising the fact that this spliced into the original stock footage, but hey ho...

02:17
Our first sight of The Goodies' flat, and there's Tim Brooke-Taylor showing support for his favourite club in real life, Derby County. Then we catch sight of the opening titles to The Big Match, such as they were at the time, but connoisseurs will note that the music doesn't match up to the graphics. The reason for that, we suppose, is that this footage is taken from a 1986 VHS release featuring this episode and one other from series 9. Presumably Jeff Wayne wouldn't allow his excellent theme tune to be used at the time, but at least we can confirm the issue was put right on subsequent DVD releases of this episode.

02:29
Yes, it's the warmest of welcomes to Fred Dinenage, occasional understudy for Dickie Davies on World of Sport and here a more than capable stand-in for Brian Moore. To his credit, Dinenage plays it absolutely straight, telling it like it is - or at least how it was back in the early 1980's. References to Manchester United's entire supporters club being arrested and Chelsea 'hitting six, punching twelve and strangling four' were funny yet satirically reflected the poor state of football in Britain at the time, as the episode goes on to explain...

03:35
Fans of The Goodies will know that their favourite show has a rich tradition of sending up TV commercials that stretches way back to the early 1970's. This time the target was a commercial for Barbican alcohol-free beer, one of several fronted by former Southampton manager Lawrie McMenemy (and here's another). Graeme Garden does an excellent impersonation of Gateshead-born McMenemy, finishing off with a wonderful punchline and comedy pass-out that was so good it made its way into the show's opening titles.

04:59

Who better to report on the growing violent tendencies among football's elite supporters than mild-mannered Kenneth Wolstenholme. Here he is talking to 'Twerp of the Month' Bill Oddie who brilliantly adopts the phraseology of the modern footballer to great effect ("I dunno, I just seem to be getting them right at the moment, Ken...")

06:27
A lovely bit of interplay between Tim Brooke-Taylor and himself on the TV screen where his alter ego appears as a Chief of Police, intent on ridding football of its hooliganism...

07:37
...and to that end Tim removes his football supporter's gear to reveal his Chief of Police uniform. Frustratingly for Brooke-Taylor, his outer garb is taking a long time to remove, so Tim ad libs his way through the sequence with the occasional "Hang on" and "Wait for it" to keep the audience amused.

08:13
A nice reference to the football kit designs of the early 80's. "Look at those shirts" says Tim. "In the old days they didn't have silk shirts. No, they had rough hessian shirts - with collars. Yes, I said collars, but they don't have collars nowadays, oh no. They have plunging necklines..." I'm not sure collars actually had died out by that stage, but the observations made in the dialogue are nonetheless delightfully written.

09:12

Once again we see some location footage taken at a football ground somewhere... but exactly where is it? The answer: Selhurst Park, home of Crystal Palace. There are the terraces upon which Bill stands in his thug persona, and onto the pitch run our traditionally dressed players. Tim Brooke-Taylor provides the commentary, perfectly mimicking the newsreel films of the wartime era.

11:52
Part Two of the show begins with Graeme Garden in traditional 'mad scientist' mode using Subbuteo to test the effects of watching football on some unsuspecting mice in the stands. A great setup you've got there, Graham - not sure about that playing technique though...

16:38

Having converted to the supposedly safe pastime of watching ballet, we're treated to new opening titles for The Big Match complete with David Ordini's theme tune, 'La Soiree', and updated logo. Graeme Garden this time impersonates Brian Moore ('- or Less')

17:10
Over at Covent Garden, the match is about to begin between Aston Villa (featuring Wayne Sleep) and Cricklewood, the latter featuring Garden, Oddie and three men bearing a striking resemblance to Kevin Keegan, Pele and Johann Cruyff.

19:06

A Big Match-style caption provides us with the half-time score, then it's Graeme Garden x 3 thanks to some split-screen jiggery-pokery. Having already given us his Moore-than-capable depiction of the Big Match presenter, we then see him impersonating pundits Brian Clough and Tommy Docherty with some aplomb.

20:41
A small detail it might be, but why is the old guy in the ballet crowd wearing an Ipswich Town rosette?

20:48
Listen out for some fruity narration from Garden: "Are we going to see Sleep's famous banana as he tries to bend it round the wall?"

21:24
A lovely little sequence here as Garden plays the dying swan, and a dying swan with a floppy arm and an itch, at that...

22:32
The game ends as a draw, so penalties are required. But what's this? The players themselves are being thrown into the net starting with Pele, but not before some more fruity narration from Garden who tells us that the Brazilian legend "usually goes to the left."

Unfortunately for Cricklewood, Pele's body crosses the line but his head doesn't, so it's no goal. (A case for goal-line technology if ever we saw one...?)

Wayne Sleep in goal deals capably with Cruyff but he's unable to stop Bill Oddie who fully crosses the line and claims a moral victory for Cricklewood.

Funny game, ballet...