After-Dinner Sports Tales - Chris Kamara

Here is my is my first of 2010 but my sixth installment so far on the subject of light hearted after-dinner sporting tales, as told by current or ex-professional sportsman.

In previous articles on the subject of 'After-Dinner Sports Tales,' I have chosen humorous anecdotes as told by the likes of Rodney Marsh Gareth Southgate and Chris Coleman from the world of football, Phil Tufnell from cricket, and rugby union's Wade Dooley.

Today I have chosen another former footballer, but one who despite having retired from the game in 1998, can still be seen on a Saturday afternoon......but on your TV screens, usually as a Sky Sports TV reporter/analyst - the one and only, the charismatic Chris Kamara.

Chris Kamara was born in Middlesbrough on Christmas Day in 1957. After serving with the British Royal Navy he joined Portsmouth in 1975, beginning a professional footballing career that saw him move between nine clubs, scoring 71 goals in 641 league appearances. He was also manager of Bradford City and Stoke City before retiring from the game.

Here is an amusing excerpt from a speech made by Chris at a sporting dinner.

"I enjoyed a long career as a football player, signing for Portsmouth (twice), Swindon (twice), Brentford, Stoke, Leeds, Luton, Middlesbrough, Sheffield Utd and Bradford. I then made the transition into management, the highlight being taking Bradford into the First Division via a Wembley play-off final.

I became somewhat of an unlucky mascot to several teams during my playing days. In early 1992, I played my last game for Leeds, which took them to the top of the table. Manager Howard Wilkinson wanted to make sure they stayed there - so he sold me to Luton the very next day! Sure enough, Leeds won the Championship, without me.

David Pleat, the Luton boss, signed me to change things. Luton had been in the top division for ten years - the old First Division, now the Premier League. I certainly did help to change things - Luton were relegated!

I then went to my hometown club Middlesbrough, signing for Lennie Lawrence. It was their first season in the Premier League, and even though Lennie had previously saved Charlton from going down for five years in the late 80's and early 90's, without me, I was a part of the Middlesbrough team he managed that were relegated in the inaugural Premier League season in 1992-93!

Then there was the greatest escapologist since Harry Houdini - Dave 'Harry' Bassett, manager of Sheffield United. He was the boss who could get out of anything. But in the 1993-94 season he signed me, the fateful unlucky mascot - you've probably guessed it by now - Sheffield United went down.

During this period struggling Coventry City were actually paying teams to sign me!"

After-Dinner Sports Tales - Gareth Southgate

This month is my fifth installment of light hearted after-dinner sporting tales, as told by current or ex-professional sportsman.
My after-dinner sports tale for this month is one told by Gareth Southgate, a well respected football player and now club manager, who has been a model professional since making his debut in 1988.

Born in Watford, Hertfordshire in 1970, Southgate began his career at Crystal Palace, playing in central midfield. He became captain and led the club to the 1994 Division One title.

He moved to Aston Villa in 1995 for a fee of £2.5 million, having made 152 appearances and scoring 15 goals over four seasons for the South London club.
In 2001 he joined Middlesborough as a player, before becoming the Teeside clubs manager in 2006.

"I went to watch a match with my wife and the family of a friend (who was playing).

People started turning around to ask me for autographs, which is always flattering but can start to interfere with your enjoyment of an event.

By now the game had kicked off and yet still I was being passed scraps of paper and programmes to sign.
I obliged, but must confess I was getting irritable as I tried to watch the game.
A flag was passed along then a ticket.

'Pen?' I asked down the line, somewhat abruptly, and a pen was duly passed down the line.
'What's his name?' I asked my friend's wife, and the query was passed down the line.
'To John, all the best, Gareth Southgate,' I wrote and passed the ticket back along the line.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the guy look at the ticket and start to edge along the row.
I'm just about to say to him: 'Look mate, no disrepect, but I'm trying to watch the game,' when he says apologetically: 'Excuse me, I'm very sorry but you're in my seat."


During the 2003–04 season Gareth became an author, penning Woody & Nord: A Football Friendship with close friend and former West Ham goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman. This book describes an enduring friendship forged in the Crystal Palace youth team that has survived Southgate and Woodman's wildly differing fortunes in the professional game. The book won the Sporting Book of the Year Award for 2004 from the National Sporting Club.

After-Dinner Sports Tales - Phil Tufnell

My after-dinner sports tale for this month is one told by the charismatic and controversial Phil Tufnell, the former England cricket bowler with a talent for spinning the ball on the field and getting into trouble off of it.

Nicknamed 'The Cat' for his ability to sleep anytime, anywhere, Tufnell made his debut for Middlesex in 1986. It was here that he developed a reputation for being a cricketer with big talent, but little dedication for the discipline of the game. He was occasionally in trouble for missing practice or minor matches and once missed a game when shopping for a fridge instead.

Despite brilliant bowling figures, once getting 11 wickets for 93 runs, he was an abysmal batter whose career average did not reach double figures. He played 42 Tests and 20 One Day Internationals for England between 1990 and 2001, and 316 first-class matches, mainly for Middlesex.

Tufnell’s larrikin tendencies meant he was later disciplined for numerous offences to do with birds, booze, drugs and generally offensive behavior.
In 1997 on an England tour to New Zealand he unwittingly became the focus for a publicity campaign for a winebar in Christchurch.

Here is an amusing excerpt from an after-dinner speech made by Phil on that infamous incident in New Zealand in 1997

"I woke one morning to find myself plastered all over the front of the local paper for apparently having smoked grass in the gents at an establishment called Bardelli's. By 10 o'clock that same morning a rash of posters appeared around town declaring, 'Tufnell reckons that Bardelli's is the best joint in town.'
It was complete nonsense, of course. I was invisible at the time."

Tuffers' retired from professional cricket 2003 in order to participate in the reality television show 'I'm a Celebrity.....Get Me Out of Here!' from which he emerged as King of the Jungle. He was a team captain on the sports quiz show 'They Think It's All Over', did analytical punditry on Sky Sports and Channel 4, and has made appearances on current affairs programmes, chat shows and quiz shows. He has co-authored a humorous book called 'Phil Tufnell's' A To Z of Cricket' and wrote his autobiography, 'What Now?'

He is extremely accommodating to people who wish to discuss matters with a sporting celebrity.

After-Dinner Sports Tales - Chris Coleman

This month is my third installment of humorous after-dinner sporting tales, as told by current or ex-professional sportsman.
In May I wrote about an after-dinner tale as told by ex-footballer Rodney Marsh, last month was the turn of the former England rugby international and British Lion Wade Dooley.

Today I am returning to football and a man who is currently plying his trade as a manager, following a successful stint as a player.
Welsh international footballer Chris Coleman was born in Swansea, started his playing career at Manchester City as a trainee before moving back to his hometown club in South Wales, where he went on to made 160 appearances. He left Swansea for Crystal Palace in 1991, where he spent 4 years with the South Londoner's, and during that time won the first of his 32 caps for Wales. He left Palace for Blackburn in 1995, before joining Fulham two years later.

However, Coleman's playing career was prematurely ended after he broke his leg in three places following a horrific car crash in Surrey in January 2001.
Following managerial stints at Fulham and Real Sociedad, Coleman has been charge of Championship side Coventry City since February 2008.

Here are two amusing excerpts from a speech made by Chris at a sporting dinner.

"While I was playing for Crystal Palace, we were 3-0 down at half-time and the manager Alan Smith flew into a rage during our team talk. Sitting next to me was my team-mate Richard Shaw, and next to him a table with tea and sandwiches on it.

During his moment of anger Alan Smith threw a cup of tea at the wall and up-turned the tray of sandwiches, one of which landed on Richard's head. He was so afraid, he sat there for ten minutes with the sandwich still on the top of his head until Alan Smith left the room!"

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"During the same team-talk our goalkeeper Woody (Andrew Woodman) was coming in for a bit of stick from Alan, who unstrapped his gold Rolex watch from his wrist and dangled it in front of Woody, saying, 'You'll never own one of these son, because after a performance like that, you'll never go any further in the game.'

With that he lobbed the watch at Woody to catch, who nervously dropped it on the floor!"

After-Dinner Sports Tales - Wade Dooley

As promised here is the second installment in my quest to bring you some of the most humorous after-dinner tales, as told by some of Britain's most famous sporting legends.

Last month I wrote about an after-dinner tale as told by ex-footballer and pundit Rodney Marsh.

Today I am turning to the sport of international rugby union and an after-dinner sports tale told by the former England international and British Lion Wade Dooley, the 6'8" tall second row forward, who won 55 caps, was a World Cup finalist in 1991 and won the Grand Slam with England in 1991 and 1992.

Here is one amusing excerpt from a speech made by Wade at a sporting dinner.

"After England's Grand Slam victory against France at Twickenham in 1991, amid the post-match changing room disarray and celebrations, the mighty Mick 'The Munch' Skinner decides to take an early bath so that he can get on the beer undisturbed.

The changing room door opens and the then Prime Minister John Major (a keen rugby follower) is escorted in by the President of the RFU to congratulate the victorious England team.

The first person they meet is a very naked Mick Skinner emerging from the bath/shower area, busily drying himself off with towel in his left hand while attending to his vanity, jiggling his lunchbox/meat and two veg with his right hand.

John Major is confronted by Mick who holds out his right hand and greets the PM with the welcome: 'Yo John! Top man, large, bosh, put it there, how's it hanging?' (Mick always talks in Geordie code like that).

To the horror of the RFU President and the amusement of the England players - and all credit to the Prime Minister who must have momentarily considered a quick exit - John Major took the hand that had seconds earlier been in contact with Mickey Skinner's lunchbox and retorted, 'Obviously not as well as you, Mr. Skinner'."

After-Dinner Sports Tales - Rodney Marsh

I have decided over the next few weeks to assemble a compilation of some of the most humorous after-dinner tales as told by some of Britain's most famous sporting legends.

These are real stories from their lives, both inside and outside the world of sport.

Nowadays, most professional sportsmen receive advice on how to present themselves in front of an audience, but in the dim and distant past this was not always the case.

First up is Rodney Marsh, a former England international footballer, who played for QPR, Fulham, Manchester City and Tampa Bay Rowdies in the USA.

Latterly Marsh would become a highly respected television pundit, bringing the same instinctive flair into the studio that had served him so well on the pitch.

Not surprisingly, however, Marsh also retained the characteristic ability to self destruct. Marsh would lose his job with Sky Sports after making an unfortunate, but basically harmless, joke concerning David Beckham's inability to understand the difference between the Toon Army and the tsunami which had just struck Asia, a joke virtually every football fan must surely have already heard.

Here is one amusing excerpt from a speech made by Rodney at a sporting dinner.

"I was capped nine times for England and I'm often asked why I only got nine. Well, here's the reason why:

England were playing Northern Ireland in the Home Nations Championships and they were tough opposition in those days, with the likes of George Best and Pat Jennings in their line-up.
Alf Ramsey was England manager at the time, a cockney like me, but he had taken elocution lessons before the World Cup finals in 1966, so he now spoke very posh.
Before the game Alf gave his team talk and stressed that if we were to win the game we would have 'to work very hard.'

He went on:
'As a team we must work harder, you in particular Rodney. You must work harder when you play for England. I've told you before when you play for England you can't play the way you usually do. In fact, this is your last chance. If you don't work harder tonight I will pull you off at half-time.'
'That's brilliant,' I said. 'At Man City we only get a cup of tea and an orange!'

Funnily enough, that was the last time I ever played for England!"