THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

Roy and I ran the Charity match before the FA Cup Final for a number of years, which we got sponsored by Guinness. In those days the teams were usually captained by Jimmy Tarbuck and David Frost.

We also arranged a number of international matches, notably the first match against a united Germany, followed by a star-studded dinner with the two 1966 teams and hosted by Clive Anderson.

A funny story, although not funny at the time, was when we organised for an international for the Cameroon team to play the England team at Wembley sponsored by Guinness.

It was arranged in association with the FA, but Guinness were picking up the tab for the Cameroon team and giving them £100k as a fee, as the team was very poor, but highly talented.

All went well until we all met for a briefing - just before leaving for Wembley. The Cameroon Manager said he wanted the money upfront before his team would go out on the pitch.

It was a Sunday and all the banks were closed. Luckily the resourceful manager of the hotel, where we were all staying, managed to get a local bank manager to open up a bank and cash Guinness a cheque for the £100k – which is well over £500k in today’s money

After which - we handed a briefcase full of the cash - to the manager and off we all went to Wembley in the team coach. When it got to half time – there was a bit of a ruckus going on in the dressing room – but it appeared to be a team matter so we didn’t get involved.

However – after the match we learnt why…. During half time – their manager had legged it with the briefcase and all the cash – never to be seen or heard of again! You couldn’t have made it up….