Quiz Time

Nae prizes, obviously.

Q - When did Gerry Adams refer to Ian Paisley as “a fascinating, gracious man“?

Was it :-

(a) Never
(b) Never
(c) Never
(d) In yesterday’s Guardian

Nutters - Part 1

My friend Ian invites me to inaugurate a new series about nutty football supporters, and suggests that we start with John Westwood.

It’s a great idea, but I have widened the scope to cover ‘nutters’ generally - many of them will be football fans, but football-supporting will not be a necessary requirement to qualify as a nutter in this series.

Send in your suggestions and recommendations.

So we will start with John Westwood.

Or, to give him his full name, John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood.

(If you search on google or yahoo for ‘John Westwood’ then you’ll have to wade through John Obadiah Westwood (22 December 1805 – 2 January 1893) an English entomologist and archaeologist also noted for his artistic talents; William John Westwood (28 December 1925 (in Saul, Gloucestershire) – 15 September 1999) the 36th Anglican Bishop of Peterborough from 1984 to 1996; the writer John Westood, author of Marketing Plan, A Practitioner’s Guide; another John Westwood, author of a book on World Railways; a darts player called John Westwood and a host of other, largely dull and boring, John Westwoods.)

But our nutter is John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood. And his name has probably given you a clue as to the precise nature of his nutdom.

As you might suspect, his current name is not entirely the name he was born with, he having added the PFC part of it by deed poll in 1994.

John is a highly distinctive presence at Portsmouth matches. Stovepipe hat. Blue wig. Hand-bell (see below). Bugle (ditto). In common with many football nutters, John has a very loud voice, and his deafening exhortations directed at the Pompey players are often accompanied by him ringing the hand-bell (the ‘Pompey chimes’).

In fact, always accompanied by him ringing the bell.

In fact, he rings the bell continuously throughout matches.

Not everyone is entertained by this.

In fact, most other spectators find it intensely irritating.

Especially on those occasions when he simultaneously blows the bugle.

But John is a very big guy (and a nutter) so no-one complains to his face.

 

As you can see, John sports the odd tattoo. If you looked closely you would discern a theme (primarily revolving around the sentiment “Pompey Till I Die”).

Wikipedia tells me that amongst a section of fans John has become known as ‘Nobby Portsmouth’, a name that was coined in a Middlesbrough fanzine for the Middlesbrough-Portsmouth game in October 2005. An online community, the Nobby Portsmouth Appreciation Society, has been established on Facebook dedicated to celebrating the clownlike antics of John.

Clearly, many of us derive enjoyment from supporting football teams. Clearly many of us devote quite a bit of our lives to that pursuit. Clearly John has taken it too far.

But you cannot help admiring someone whose mind is so single-tracked. So, all hail our first nutter - John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood

Now here’s a piece of trivia as a footnote - John’s father, Frank Westwood, founded and ran a well-known bookshop in Petersfield, near Portsmouth from 1958 until his death in 2006. The forecourt shelves were open 24 hours a day with an honesty box for customers to pay - a delight for local insomniac bibliophiles. However interested I am, or you are, in the bookshop connection generally, it pales into insignificance next to the next couple of sentences -

Frank at one time employed a female assistant in the shop. In 1982 she called in sick one Saturday, and he gave her the day off. Frank was surprised later that afternoon to see her impressive chest on display at Twickenham at the England v Australia Rugby International, where she became the country’s best known streaker.

She was Erica Roe.

Unsurprisingly, her career as an antiquarian bookseller was cut short …

(Kids, if you don’t know who Erica Roe is, then ask your dad)

Rangers 2-0 Werder Bremen

Rangers won very easily last night against the poorest European opposition to visit Ibrox in recent memory.

If Werder Bremen are the second best team in Germany then their football must be in a parlous state.

Lee McCulloch should have wrapped the tie up with a 3rd goal at the death. Why do I have a horrible feeling that that might yet come back to bite Rangers?

Obviously the German goalkeeper was a complete amateur who sold both the goals - but one feels fairly sure that Rangers will score in the away leg - it appears to be well worth hitting shots at that goalie from anywhere inside 60 yards. In these circumstances Rangers could conduct an in-depth defence and all-out attack simultaneously, simply by hoofing the ball in the direction of Herr Hopeless at every opportunity.

Davis was once again outstanding, his general style and appearance reminding me very much of Stuart McCall, particularly in the way he followed in to take his goal after Der Klown couldn’t hold a shot that your granny would have secured.