I wonder if Tam Paton really did leave his fortune to animal charities as he said he would.

Anyway back to the Rollers. I was there at the time and probably in the right age group, however they were almost an exclusively female pleasure. This single came along at just the right time for them. Bolan & Bowie had receeded from the Teen limelight somewhat which left us with the Osmonds but they weren’t ‘ours’ were they ? So the Rollers part glam part Monkees found themselves propelled into the media glare. A fate which they didn’t seem best prepared for. This was all documented rather amusingly a few years ago on a channel 4 doco wherein Les McKeown is brought face to face with their former manager Tam Paton. The enduring memory is when McKeown exasperated by Patons flaky excuses about the lost millions just says ‘Where’s my f**king money, I want my f**king money!’ I must admit although I found them too lightweight for my own tastes they were an interesting distraction and I was quite happy to sit & watch ‘Shang-a-lang’ – a certifiable guilty pleasure.

What more can you say to that. :)

Supporting Chelsea, though, that’s a different matter.

I totally agree that football is completely void of fun now and would be the first to admit that the guy running my own club is in the vanguard of what is wrong. I tend to just pop down to Eastbourne Borough FC if I fancy a live game now. But then again, this has not so much to do with a laudable protest against corporate greed up at Stamford Bridge as with being too fucking pissed most days to chance a journey back to the Smoke.

I can’t remember when I last could be bothered watching an FA Cup Final. All the fun has gone out of football, now the bean-counters have strangled it.

West Ham v Fulham – it was a very different football era, with Derby winning the league and Burnley and Stoke not far away, United in the Second Division and Chelsea heading there, Arsenal mediocre and Liverpool just about to embark on their era of dominance.

Nice chat-up line there, Pat!

Ah yes, Johnnie Walker, who regularly faded out “Bye Bye Baby” on his Tuesday lunchtime chart rundown after about a minute and said “that’s quite enough of that.” His fate was sealed. He also gave a trenchant interview to the NME that year which essentially spelt: “bye bye contract, contract bye bye”…

Waldo’s football comments also of course remind me of 1975’s two minor FA Cup related hits – the Cottagers had to make do with #45 with their “Y Viva El Fulham” (if only) while 2-0 victors West Ham made it all the way to #31 with, inevitably, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.”

My principal memory of “Bye Bye Baby” was not pleasant. It entailed a match Chelsea played at Tottenham in which they were defeated (funny how things don’t change much!). This 1975 thumping pretty much condemned my beloved Blues to relegation to the old Division Two for the first time since 1962 and the Spurs fans were not sympathetic. They promptly picked up the chant of “Bye bye Chelsea, Chelsea goodbye!” and all hell broke loose with a pitch invasion, young men in scarves and flairs having what we called back then a “bundle”. Despite being undeniably present at this game, sweet little Waldo naturally played no part in this violence, no more than I did five years later when I witnessed Alan Minter losing his World Middleweight title to Marvin Hagler at Wembley. This sparked disgraceful scenes at ringside with Hagler being attacked and Harry Carpenter being bottled mid-sentence. Thus “Bye Bye Baby” was forever contaminated for me even had I liked it, which I certainly didn’t. Then Johnny Walker stepped in with his now famed comments on the group responsible and I’m afraid the tartaned ones became the “Gay Shitty Rollers” ever after.

Happy Days!

No one should read this then.

Doesn’t everyone know that the kid Malcolm McLaren found in Glasgow as a possible Pistols lead singer was Midge Ure?

Seriously, I like reading you both and I am glad we are all family again.

And may I make a suggestion? Links from the UK Number Ones list to the article in question would be very useful for me.