HAVE finally found a television channel suited my needs.
Stop sniggering in the back. It has documentaries, including the World at War, and the odd, unflawed gem such as Shine On Harvey Moon, which is written with such an understated wit – both of intelligence and humour – that one simply gasps. Or it may just be that I’ve lost my inhaler.
It also has the Antiques Roadshow. I am now of that age when I feel the benefit of a proper pair of slippers, can linger languidly outside BHS eyeing up the fine line of a cardigan and consider it the height of decadence to take tea in front of Michael Aspel and friends.
It is not as if the Roadshow offers me any hope of finding an objet d’art in the garret. My most ancient possessions are an ingrown toenail (of the fifties art deco style) and a long-standing resentment towards trams after I was knocked down by one at St George’s Cross. I have taken both to reputable dealers and been assured they have no more than sentimental value.
But I would love to have proper memorabilia of the football glory days of the 50s, 60s and 70s featured on some future Antiques Roadshow. And I am not talking about those trainspotters with their pristine copies of cup final programmes or their lily-white ticket stubs from Real Madrid v Bayerleverkusen at Hampden.
No, this is what I mean. Antiques Roadshow, summer of 2115, at Somerset Park, Ayr, now a fully functioning, interactive, hands-on tribute to Scottish fitba of the past.
Cut to Michael Aspel (well, he is hardly going to die of exhaustion, is he?) watching the Scottish punters walking about with bits of turnstiles, substitutes benches and the odd bone that has been exhumed after Time Team has done a dig on the scene of a Greiggy tackle.
“Here,” says Michael, “ is our resident expert in football ephemera Torcuil De Lanliq. He certainly has had an interesting day.”
Cut to Torcuil, dressed as if he has been prised from the top of a shortbread tin.
“Object A, as we shall call this first offering, is simply wonderful. Do you know what it is madam? No? It is what the fan of the 50s till about the 70s would call their dentures, falsers or, more likely, wallies. You tell me these were found at a dig at the old Hampden site, and this makes eminent sense.
“Wallies were regularly expectorated from the mouth, or gub as it was more commonly called, in moments of excitement or extreme lubricity. The colourings on this set are traditional.
“The light red hue comes from regular contact with fortified wine and the deep, sewage brown tone owes much to the partnership of wallies and a stick of Capstan Full Strength.
“It is an unusual find, though. Although the dentures regularly flew from the mouth, they were normally quickly found, wiped on the outside of the ‘jaicket’ and placed firmly back into said mouth.
“Object B is a classic piece. This tartan scarf has been wrongly dated to the Jacobite uprisings. In fact, DNA sampling shows it to be an item of clothing worn between anytime from 1950-2020 when the Tartan Army finally disbanded after failing to qualify for the World Cup, despite the finals being expanded to cater for 128 qualifiers.
“Its provenance as a supporter’s scarf is shown by the fact that analysis of stains showed the presence of 453 different spirits, many of them specific to individual nations, and three strains of separate viruses that, if released unchecked, could have threatened the very existence of mankind.
“Object C is a piece de resistance. This, madam, is a bottle of Fowlers Wee Heavy. Empty, obviously. The battlefields, sorry playing fields, of Scottish sport would have been invested with these in the same way currants inhabit a bun. It is very rare, though, to find one intact.
“The main reason for this, of course, is that they were emptied quickly by releasing the contents down a throat that seemed to have no gag reflex and the empty was then hurled towards the poor chaps at the front of the terracing in some ritual, the precise reasoning of which has quite been lost in history. This bottle is priceless, madam.
“Object D is a delicate example of 1970s objet d’art. This pink slip, precisely folded, carried the very hopes of a Millennium Man.
“It is a copy of his predictions as to a series of football matches. See these numbers of trebles, foursomes and fivesomes? These speak to his belief that he would be able to forecast more than one result correctly.
“A lovely little piece. Value? Madam, this slip was worthless the moment the bookie handed it back to the punter.”
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