Football... You're Having A Laugh

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Monday 18th September 2017

Si Hawkins explores the oddly fluctuating links between soccer and comedians.

One of the best things you'll ever hear - if you can find it online somewhere - is Eric Morecambe accidentally commentating. Britain's best-loved comedian was a big Luton Town fan despite hailing from Morecambe, and one afternoon he was invited to do live radio reporting on his beloved Hatters.

Seconds after the station threw to him for an update, Luton went and scored. "IT'S THERE! IT'S THERE!" hollered the jubilant comic, before pulling himself together, giving the required info in a proper sports-reporter style, but then finishing off - I think I'm remembering this right - with "Heeeey, knockout!"

Those were the days. Morecambe actually joined the board of directors at Luton, and the two worlds were pretty harmonious back in the 1960s and 70s. A comedian even ran Fulham FC: Tommy Trinder (pictured) was chairman from 1959 to 1976 and made a huge impact on the modern game, smashing the dodgy old maximum wage system by paying top midfielder Johnny Haynes £100 a week, which opened the floodgates. Today's Premier League stars should be big Trinder fans (rather than Tinder fans).

The beautiful game's relationship with gag-tellers has been a right old rollercoaster since then though, and only in recent years have they got proper friendly again. On YouTube and in our Online section you'll find AskFans TV, an interview-based football show helmed by comedian Maff Brown. Would that have happened 10, 20 years ago? Well, no, because these web-based shows weren't really around then, but they've certainly helped change things.

Football became a lot less popular anyway in the 1970s and 80s, as clubs treated fans like dangerous livestock and they often behaved accordingly. Meanwhile celebrity supporters like Jimmy Tarbuck and Eddie Large were more likely to be swanning around with the players. Tarby joined in with Liverpool's training kickabouts and Large gave Manchester City's half-time team-talk once.

Then along came alternative comedy, kicking out those safe old entertainers and attracting a whole different audience, who weren't there for football gags. Which is ironic really, as a lot of comics who emerged back then were massive fans: at Crystal Palace alone you might see Mark Steel, Kevin Day, Jo Brand, Sean Hughes and Eddie Izzard. Although they probably wouldn't talk about it onstage, back then.

That stand-off began to relax in the early 1990s, as England's Italia 90 exploits got everyone interested, then the Taylor Report made stadiums accessible to a wider audience - toilets for women, that sort of thing. Football broadcasting evolved too - in 1991, Danny Baker launched a phone-in show, 606, which mixed anarchic humour with acerbic comment. And in 1994 along came Fantasy Football League, David Baddiel and Frank Skinner's hugely popular post-pub mix of chat, sketches and donkey-mocking.

Both shows were fantastically irreverent and influential, but both also proved impossible to replicate. Baker was replaced on 606 by Conservative MP David Mellor, bizarrely, while TV's numerous attempts at making Fantasy Football-style shows for major tournaments failed dismally. That staged banter seemed horribly tame, compared to real post-game pub chat.

Which is where podcasts stepped in: an uncensored new platform that allowed comedians to just be themselves. Alan Davies' Arsenal podcast The Tuesday Club, for example, became a must-listen for fans of other clubs too, as the Jonathan Creek star let rip. It eventually fizzled out because the Gunners became too boring, but led to 'proper' radio work for the hosts, while co-star Ian Stone got his own BT Sport show.

Broadcasters now see the benefits of having comedians on board. The aforementioned Kevin Day became a roving reporter on his namesake, Match Of The Day 2. Rob Beckett hosts Absolute Radio's Saturday football show, while Bob Mills is now a regular TalkSport pundit, and was a clued-up voice last season when his - and my - beloved Leyton Orient battled bankruptcy (successfully, cheers for asking). Now AskFans is flipping the script by bringing football people to an online show, as coach-turned-comic Maff Brown (pictured) challenges them with fans' questions, and live comic-vs-player fussball.

As for live comedy, that's tended to remain relatively football-free, despite comics tackling much less funny subjects over the years: illness, death, Brexit. The theory that football material turns audiences off needs a rethink, though, as blatantly soccer-heavy shows do seem to work.

A few years ago Aston Villa fan Tony Jameson launched a seriously niche-looking show about a video game: Football Manager Ruined My Life. It attracted a whole new audience to comedy's big showcase festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, then toured for years afterwards. Which didn't go unnoticed.

In 2016, the Fringe show Lloyd Griffith is a Keeper was openly footy-related; fast-forward a year and posters for the Grimsby fan's follow-up hour featured a sticker saying "The new co-host of Sky Sports' Soccer AM." So it didn't do Griffith any harm. And this year's Fringe saw Manchester United fan Alex Perry stage a full-on football stand-up show called Game of his Life, which attracted numerous foreign visitors. Would those Werder Bremen and Freiburg supporters really have shown up for a regular, non-footy show?

Football and funny-people are a team once again, then, which is how it should be: even Eric snuck Luton Town references into classic Morecambe & Wise sketches. They've dedicated a suite to him at the stadium now. Very wise.

You can watch AskFans TV via askfans.co.uk