Читать книгу Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly - Jeff Stelling - Страница 26

For those of you unfamiliar with the Hartlepool United squad – and shame on you for not knowing – James Brown is a hotshot striker and a hell of a good player at Victoria Park. Being a bit of a music fan myself – and a pretty appalling karaoke singer to boot - I figured it might be an idea to pay my respects to his goalscoring feats with a rendition of his namesake's hit single ‘I Feel Good’ every time he hit the back of the net. It was funny for us, but I'd imagine Mr Brown must be absolutely sick of hearing about me terrorizing the nation's dogs with my tuneless singing. It's got to the stage where everybody on the panel looks forward to James Brown scoring. The boys even join in sometimes, but we often have to apologize to the sound crew afterwards.

I did take the joke too far on one occasion when, at the 2007/08 PFA Awards, I was asked to host the ceremony. Among a crowd of football stars and dignitaries, I knew there was a big Hartlepool contingent in attendance so I began singing ‘I feeeeeeeeeel gooooood!’ by way of an introduction. My vocal gymnastics were followed by a crashing silence. Clearly, people were thinking, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ God knows what a watching Fabio Capello must have thought. I'm not sure whether he left in disgust or not, but in one small enclave in a faraway corner, a dozen Hartlepool players were going absolutely mental, so it was worth it.

Then along came the doll. You may have seen it - a two-foot-high James Brown replica that sings and dances to the tune of ‘I Feel Good’ and was given its debut on the show on the opening day of the 2008/09 season. I'd just been to open a children's centre in Hartlepool and a guy had waited outside for three hours to give it to me. As he handed it over he said, ‘Please have this for the show and use it when James Brown scores. It'll put a smile back on the face of football.’ Anyway, when I turned it on and it started singing ‘I feeeeeel good!’ I laughed my cap off.

I'd kept this doll completely to myself through the pre-season of 2008/09, but I was determined to use it on the show. Lo and behold on the first day of the campaign, Hartlepool's James Brown scored and the doll made its first appearance. Alan McInally looked completely bewildered as I put it on the desk. But then moments later, James Brown scored again! I remember saying, ‘How sick are you going to be of this by the end of the season?’

The only problem was that James Brown suddenly stopped scoring for Hartlepool. I put the doll in mothballs in a Sainsbury's carrier bag behind my bed. When he hit the back of the net again, the doll was at home and we had to rely on my vocal chords, which felt a bit second-best, it has to be said.