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Gary Lineker

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    Gary Lineker

    Right, for no particular reason other than the opportunity for me to familiarise myself with the new board, here's a story about Old Big Ears which an "acquaintance" posted on another messageboard a few years ago.

    Er, enjoy:

    Remember, it's the British Open golf at Muirfield, and I first cross swords with Leicester's finest the night before the tournament starts. I gatecrash a BBC strategy meeting and ask what I consider to be a pertinent question. What's the point of using these non-golfing celebrities - and I wave at Lineker and also Jeremy Guscott who's there too - during what's meant to be serious and well-informed coverage of a major golfing event? Lineker seems affronted and says - get this - 'don't I have the right to spread my wings, to demonstrate my ability across a range of programming'. I say Gary, calm down mate, you're a soccer pundit not the artistic director of La Scala. He glowers at me, his Corporation chums rush to soothe his fevered brow and I wander off, chucking at his hilarious self-importance.

    Next day the tournament starts and, as I said at the time, Steve Stricker - who I know pretty well, he's a Wisconsin native and we have nearby seats at Packers games - asks if I'd like to be the score sign boy for his group. Each match has a bloke accompanying it with a sign indicating the player’s names and their score and it would allow me to walk around with them inside the ropes. It sounds like fun so at the appointed time I present myself at the scorer's cabin and I'm given my official R & A bib, my sign and I'm pointed to a table which contains the players names, the match numbers etc. to slide into the sign. Most of the players in the field have strips already made up with their names on but to accommodate late qualifiers who the R & A might not have bargained for there are piles of alphabetised letters to make up the name of anyone without a specific strip. I stuff a selection of these into my pockets, exactly why I wasn't sure at the time.

    The guys tee off and we wander down the first. It's already gone 4pm when they start so by the time they've completed seven holes there's almost no spectators left on the course and certainly none paying much attention to our group. But as we're leaving the eighth tee I spot Lineker half way down the fairway just outside the ropes deep in conversation with some bloke. The sign I'm carrying is double sided so I set to work on one side with my spare letters and get it to read...
    LINEKER
    U R A
    WANKER
    ...then I stroll past him about five yards away, coughing ostentatiously for additional attention. At first I think he hasn't seen it but then I hear him saying to his companion 'bloody hell, did you see that?' Next thing I know Lineker's running alongside our group pointing and gesticulating. I pull Bob Dylan's hat down further over my eyes, hoist the sign even higher and completely ignore him. Up near the green there's a redundant crowd marshal and Lineker runs up to him and tugs at his coat, pointing at me. By this time I've turned the sign round so the side facing Lineker and the marshal is legitimately displaying the players and their scores while the Lineker reference is facing into the players, who are concentrating too deeply to notice any of this, and the caddies who are grinning broadly.

    The marshal pays no heed to Lineker's protests and he huffs and puffs away. Our group finishes the eighth, plays the ninth and then as we're crossing the front of the clubhouse I spot Lineker and a small gaggle of officials gathered by the start of the tenth tee. We're held up in a bit of a queue here and Lineker and the officials come across to me. I've of course removed the offending message by now and thrown the incriminating letters away. The officials peer at my sign and one says to Lineker, 'What did it say?' Lineker says it cast a slur on his sexuality, which isn't really true is it? Perhaps he's too goody-goody to say ' wanker’ Have you held up an abusive message, says one of the officials. No, I say, and summon over Steve and his caddy as witnesses that Lineker is clearly deranged. They concur, the officials shrug their shoulders and they and Lineker slope away. As he passes me he scowls and I give him a wink. 'See, see' he shouts, bottom lip trembling, but no-one's taking any notice of him now.

    Now, on a serious point, I'm sure Lineker has played in Merseyside derbies (I know he wasn't there very long), north London derbies and Barcelona-Madrid games so surely he's received much more abuse than a bit of gentle ribaldry on an almost deserted golf course - and we all know he's been through things in his life that should have given him a bit of perspective when some dickhead harmlessly taking the piss out of him - so why has he become so touchy? The next day Stricker's game overlapped that of Tiger Woods so I eschewed more score boy duties but as I watched that group tee off there was Lineker marching down the side of the first glaring at my poor replacement with a fearsome glint in his eye. And, as a footnote, I got £60 for my score sign efforts and I made it up to hundred and sent it to a leukaemia charity so I'm not all mischief.

    #2
    Gary Lineker

    Haha, that's bloody fantastic.

    You know those new adverts he's done for that potato snack company? The one where he drives around in a bus dressed like Cliff?

    Vrouw Beak thought it was Prince William, and I had to explain that, no, actually this is sort of kind of a bit like almost but not completely as close as England got to a van Basten.

    Comment


      #3
      Gary Lineker

      Nice.

      Comment


        #4
        Gary Lineker

        I don't think it was 'nice' or 'fantastic', I think it was a pretty arsey and tiresome thing to do. The guy obviously took gleeful pleasure in demonstrating his mordant wit, though, so who am I to deny him his tedious kicks.

        Comment


          #5
          Gary Lineker

          Yeah, there's only one person who comes out of this looking like a prick, and it's not Lineker.

          Comment


            #6
            Gary Lineker

            Come on, lighten up. It was mildly amusing to tease the jug-eared cheat, as he's fondly remembered at Chelsea.

            Comment


              #7
              Gary Lineker

              Yes, I have got to admit, it is hardly the height of wit, is it?

              Comment

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