Flying by the seat of your pants

Bernard Cribbins

Hello smbu reader! Now I may be famous for the song Right Said Fred but I’m actually most famous for being on Jackanory. Thirty three years I did on that show according to Google – reading shite written by some wordy BBC producer who was more interested in growing a thin beard and talking about lentils while wearing a red body warmer than he did entertaining rain restricted kids. Now those days have gone, and I’ll be regaling you all with some Wycombe Wanderers stories. So crack open a box of wine or a crate of scotch, and gather round old Bernie’s feet.

I thought I’d start with the subject of pants. Under-crackers, drawers, boxers, unmentionables, poo-catchers, bollock warmers – whatever you call them, you wear them. All Wycombe fans wear pants, at least at the start of the day.

It was home to Kidderminster probably, before the days when Adams Park had become home for families to bring their extended families. Really, there are so many families at Adams Park now, statistics have proven that everyone is related at some point in the ground. Check it out – Google it, it’s true - some member of your family will be there. Anyway, there’s a Dad and his kids, and the older kid starts getting all confused and starts experimenting with his hands down his brothers joggers. This was down the front of the Hillbottom Road stand, where a hell of lot of weird stuff went on. If you remember the Hillbottom Road terrace, like the sixties, you weren’t there. People talk about the Woodlands, well the Woodlands was like Sooty to the Hillbottom Roads Sweep. Yeah we were silent, but we had Sue in the bag and loved squeaking about. Things got silly. So as I was saying, eventually the kids’ Dad turns round, sees the homoerotic experimentation and flicks the older kid clean in the face. Finger pulled back, clip, right in the cheek bone. That kid in turn spins it round and kicks his brother right where his hands had been, before delivering a clean punch to the kids perfectly rounded face. Like a dinner plate it was. They all gather round, the Dad reads the riot act, “No hands down joggers, watch the game, cheer the team.” It was January, it was cold. The moral of this story – no idea. No-one told you Cribbins was going to dress shit up for you – this is smbu not You and Me with Cosmo and Dibs. But one thing is for sure – those of us that saw it – it sticks in the mind and it sickens us and we learn from it.

Happier times with pants? Well I remember seeing Martin O’Neill shopping for pants with his wife in Marks and Spencers, and she held a pair of brown beauties up against him to check the fit. He looked embarrassed, but it was 1991, and most of the male human beings in that shop bought themselves a pair of brown ones that day as well. We waited for him to leave alright, but he saw us over his shoulder, and smiled a knowing smile as he stepped onto the down esculator. O’Neill could have splashed out on a green nappy and we’d have all followed suit in those days.

Bernardo

24.09.2008. 18:47

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