Meeting Your Heroes Isn't Always A Good Thing

Two of the weeks unconnected events made me think back to my own encounter with one of the legends of '66. The quotes about Alan Ball being a good/great bloke coupled with Jamie Redknapp's quote in this month's FourFourTwo that he can't understand professional footballers who don't give supporters the time of day for something as innocent as an autograph.

When I was 10 I walked 8 miles to raise money for the building of a swimming pool at my junior school, as is the nature of these things the pool was completed the year after I left the school! Anyway the opening day was a big event and Bournemouth's leading goalscorer Ted McDougall was the local celebrity chosen for the ribbon cutting ceremony, there weren't many alternatives to be honest it was either Ted, Max Bygraves or Anita Harris I suppose back in 1970.

Ted was the most unassuming person of the pitch you could care to meet, which is quite a contradiction to his reputation in footballing circles, he remains (as far as I know) the only person Billy Bonds ever wanted to punch within five minutes of their first meeting. Anyway, as I'd made the front page of the local evening paper I was presented to Ted Mac and I asked for his autograph, unfortunately the only thing I could put my hands on was a piece of cardboard from the end of a Golden Wonder crisp box. "We can do better than that," he said, looking at the piece of cardboard, "here," and he took a sheet of paper out of his pocket, produced a pen from inside his jacket and signed it.

The next year Ted was a big enough star to feel the need to open his own sports shop, it was on the main road in Boscombe which in those does was quite a good shopping area. His guest of honour was one of my all time favourite players, a West Ham and England legend, no not Bobby Moore. My brother and I had these big posters of him that were on really good quality card, they had cost a couple of months pockets money, each was about two feet square. When we got to the shop there was a long queue and a sign on the window saying "one autograph per customer." As we got closer to the front of the queue Nigel felt a little unwell, probably nerves caused by the thought of meeting one of the most famous footballers ever to wear an England shirt and told Dad he couldn't go in. I said I'd take his photograph in and get it signed with mine.

When I got to the front of the queue I put the two posters down on the front of the table, he took his pen and signed one and without looking up at me said, "Next."
"Can you sign this one as well please," I asked.
"Sorry, only one per person," he replied.
"But it's for my brother."
"Sorry."

I was upset, not so much because I had to give up my autograph because Nigel wasn't feeling very well, because one of my all-time sporting heroes (I was only 11) was so horrible. It wasn't long afterwards that another of my sporting illusions was shattered when I saw Frank McLintock having a cigarette during the Arsenal double celebrations - a footballer smoking, shouldn't he be dead?