By fans, I mean the eight supporters that sit in the ‘Luther Blissett Stand’ each week. I wasn’t sure what the team was that week, and as they appeared at the main gate, my heart pounded a little bit. I could make out lots of red and white stripes on their kits.
Oh god,
Terrific, just what I need being a
Then I spotted my saving grace. The kit sponsor was FlyBe.com, not a gambling one, which meant instead of greeting awful Sunderland fans, I was collecting nice calm and well mannered
What a relief that was! Well they weren’t calm for one thing. They’d been out on the drink the night before in central
I had to take a few of them to the toilet later on during one of the various ad-breaks and the smell that some of them were making would have made anyone’s eyes water.
Anyway we got them into position and then I made one of my many tea-runs of the morning, taking hot refreshments back to the green room for the ‘celebrity guests’.
This week we had David Haye (when he eventually could be bothered to turn up), Craig David and The
I had to get drinks for all of them and both Craig David and The McLean’s were fantastic.
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but David Haye on the other hand was downright rude.
I asked him what I could get him to drunk and he tutted at me, didn’t look at me and just shrugged and said: “water, yeah?” No please, thank you or anything.
Then, one of his entourage (and there were about eight of them) shouted at me: “Oi, you fucking cunt, go and get me a cooked breakfast. Now!”
As a geordie boy, I’d heard the rumour that people down south were occasionally a bit rude, but this guy was taking the biscuit – literally!
I didn’t know what to do, should I have told him to fuck off?! I didn’t, instead I went up to the canteen and attempted to get the man the fry up he was obviously in such desperate need of – given that he was at least 16 stone and had already used the C-Word towards me. I didn’t want to anger him further.
However, by the time I’d got there it was gone 11am and they’d stopped serving cooked breakfasts in the canteen. Hmm, what to do?
I went back down and suffered another torrent of abuse and again, the C-Word was used, except this time instead of a fry up, he wanted me to go and fill him a carrier bag full of chocolate and crisps from the canteen.
I would’ve called this guy a diva, but he was way too butch to be a diva. I wanst going to mess with him.
Anyway, I did that and thankfully this time I wasn’t branding a useless f***ing C***. Oh the relief.
I then got to escort the Soccerette into the studio and place her beyond the ‘Fox in the Box’ doors, ready for Mr Rushden to reveal her after the ad-break concluded in 4,3,2,1…
“RIGHT, ITS 11 O’CLOCK AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? BUSINESS TIME! ITS TIME TO REVEAL OUR 21ST CENTURY FOX IN THE BOX…”
Out popped Dalia Hilmi wearing an arsenal shirt and some very skimpy shorts.
She was FIT and had a great accent, but unfortunately was one of the poorer Soccerette’s as she didn’t really get it and Tubes, Rocket and myself began to wonder if she’d actually ever watched the show before?
Anyway, after that I was then asked by one of the producers to get Max a tea. Not in the way I described it though. As I was stood taking to Tubes, Rocket and Bobbie (one of the shows ‘Brown Coat Men’) Simon grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from them.
What he said to me then went like this: “Right, you can’t stand here, you stand over there at all times unless someone gives you a job to do, and actually, Max needs a tea right now, so go yeah?!”
I expected to be given the rubbish jobs to do, but I’m not an idiot, did he really need to speak to me like that?!
I got Max his tea and as I was stood where Simon had told me I was to “stand at all times” Tubes, Bobbie, Rocket and Steve came over and explained to me that Simon was a clever guy at producing, but unfortunately he hadn’t quite mastered the BA Hons course in people skills. That made me feel a little better and a little calmer, and it was good of the guys to do this.
I got to have a crack at the hole of glory later on after the Saints fans had had their go and after about 22 attempts I managed to get a ball through the hole… but by that point they’d turned the smoke and cameras off.
Then before I knew it, the show had finished and everyone was heading off either to go to bed, to the pub or to the gym. The praise I got off everyone was terrific and although I hadn’t really done anything production related, I’d ran around for about four hours, so I was ready for a nap myself.
It was a terrific experience though seeing how the show was put together ‘Live’ and was really interesting to watch.
I did wonder as I headed home if my second week could possibly top my first full week in the world of SoccerAM?
And you know what… you’ll have to wait until the next blog to find out!
