I HAD to deal with some truly bizarre events when I was press officer of the now-defunct Non-League side Fisher Athletic FC back in the 1980’s.
We were based at Surrey Docks Stadium - right next to the River Thames in Rotherhithe, South-East London.
Promotion was gained from the Southern League up to the Conference (now the National League) prompting keen aspirations of Football League status.
Probably the most peculiar story surrounded a Thursday night FA Trophy replay away to Altrincham during 1987/88.
This involved the Fisher chairman Terry McCarthy, who owned a direct mail company and always had plenty of money to spend.
At 5pm on the day of the game, Terry spontaneously decided he wanted to go to Altrincham.
So he took a taxi from his London Bridge office to Heathrow Airport, flew to Manchester and grabbed another cab over to Altrincham’s Moss Lane ground – arriving five minutes before half-time.
After the final whistle, Terry generously bought a drink for everyone in Altrincham’s clubhouse - paying £140 for the privilege.
When the bar shut at 11pm, he opted to continue his night out in Chester and two Altrincham club officials offered to drive him there.
However on the M56 motorway, their car abruptly spluttered to a halt at 1am and then burst into an inferno of flames.
The men managed to scramble to safety and it took six fire engines to extinguish the blaze. Four police cars were also in attendance.
Whilst the Altrincham secretary Dave Baldwin stood almost in tears surveying the remains of his smouldering vehicle, Terry causally asked: “Have you ever seen the television programme called London’s Burning?”
Terry subsequently flagged down a passing car and continued on to Chester, leaving those distraught Altrincham officials on the motorway hard shoulder.
Despite the extraordinary drama that night, Terry still diligently made it back to London to be at his office desk by 9am the following morning.
On another occasion, I decided to deviously rebel against the long-standing media trend of trotting out the day jobs of Non-League footballers every time the FA Cup First Round comes around.
All of a sudden, semi-pro players are universally referred to as butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. In my view, their occupations have absolutely nothing to do with a game of football.
Whenever I attend Non-League fixtures, I never think a car mechanic has just passed the ball to a PE teacher. I simply watch the match – as does everyone else present.
Anyway in 1984, Fisher Athletic reached the First Round of the FA Cup and pulled out a plum home tie against Bristol City.
Not surprisingly, my phone started ringing off the hook due to national journalists wanting to know about the livelihoods of our Fisher lads.
I didn’t think this information was relevant though. To me, they were all footballers anticipating the biggest match of their lives. Yet the phone calls kept on coming.
Consequently, I decided to devise a list of the most outrageous jobs I could think of and attribute these to members of the Fisher team. I consulted each player in turn and they unequivocally agreed it was a really funny idea.
Once the reporters arrived at our Surrey Docks Stadium on FA Cup day, I handed out meticulously prepared media information packs I had put together.
They included some appropriate stats conveying facts and figures about Fisher Athletic. But my written pen picture profiles of the squad were totally fictitious.
Fisher lost a tight affair 1-0 against Bristol City before a capacity 2,000 sell-out crowd.
The next day, I combed through the national Sunday newspaper match reports. And to my abundant amusement, some of the phony jobs were mentioned in print.
I recall how the “Professional Marmite Taster” centre-forward was unlucky not to equalise for Fisher whilst our goalkeeper - an “Ostrich Babysitter” by trade – made some outstanding saves.
Plus there were inadvertently hilarious mentions of the “Pole Dancer” at right-back, the “Astronaut” playing in midfield and the “Brain Surgeon” on the wing.
In this modern era of course, such a ruse by a club’s official press officer would receive viral condemnation on social media. Although back in the 1980’s, my unscrupulous actions passed by entirely unnoticed.
And it gave me the great satisfaction of making a personal stand against something I passionately disagree with.
*Credit for photos in this article belongs to @TonyIncenzo*
