A few Porkies about big Alan
Brazil’s sidekick spills the beans
YOU’D think it would be a prerequisite for any candidate for a breakfast radio show but the fact he wasn’t an early riser proved a minor hurdle for Alan Brazil.
Well, apart from the one occasion when his love of the jumps at Cheltenham and his fondness for a few pints of the black stuff caused him to sleep in!
Yes, there were a few other occasions but truth be told it wasn’t a bad record over a near 20-year career as the star of the talkSPORT Breakfast.
Especially for someone with the reputation for burning the candle at both ends as the social butterfly that’s the ex-Scotland striker.
Brazil signalled the end of an era at the weekend when he announced he’s scaling back his hours and listeners will now only hear his trademark ‘Marnin!’ a couple of days a week.
But it’s not the first time they’ve been left waiting.
“Some people to this day switch on at six o’clock to find out whether Al has arrived,” laughed former co-host Mike “Porky” Parry who first recruited him. “It says it all that he had a position like that where the nation is expecting to hear you say ‘Marnin!’ every morning at five past six... and all of a sudden there’s a deafening silence because Al’s still parking his car! “But if he came in half an hour before the show started it would be a waste of time because he’s not a natural waiter. “He gets in five or 10 minutes before the show because all he wants to know is what is on the running order and get stuck in. “When talkSPORT was set up the investors brought me in to engineer the change to specialise in sport and the critical thing to do in any new venture like that is to get your breakfast show right. “If you don’t get that right you’re knackered for the rest of the day. I had worked with Alan in a few evening programmes and realised immediately he had great personality, charisma and a very light touch with the listener.
“He could be cheeky without being offensive and amusing without being ridiculous so I asked him to do the breakfast show.
“I remember his first response was ‘I’m not very good at getting up’ which of course over the years proved to be a highlight of his working life!
“But in all seriousness the amount of shows he missed is exaggerated. He missed about four but it’s something that just sticks with him.”
There was that infamous occasion when the Guinness was flowing after a trip to the Cheltenham Festival in 2004 and he slept in the following morning.
He ripped into the hotel porter for failing to carry out his call for a 3.30am wake-up – only to be told he didn’t get to bed until 10 to four!
He was axed as a result but reinstated after a three-week hiatus.
Parry said: “It was his unpredictability that is part of his attraction. Back in the day we were a very loosely disciplined organisation and a lot of that was due to the fact I was the boss but also his broadcasting partner on the breakfast show.
“I had to wear two hats all the time and couldn’t start laying down the law to Alan if I had to sit next to him for four hours because the chemistry has to flow between us.
“I had to take a very light touch on discipline and Al was a bit more free and easy in those days. But incidents like the Cheltenham one haven’t happened for a good 15 years.
“I have to say in all our years together I’ve never seen him drunk. Al has an enormous capacity for a few sherbets and I can never remember seeing him drunk.
“He’s a social drinker. He doesn’t drink because he needs drink. He loves the company of people in wine bars and restaurants but I pity anyone who tries to keep up with him.” Brazil might have made headlines for the odd gaffe and missing his work but veteran journalist Parry insists he deserves serious praise and described working with him as the “greatest privilege of my broadcasting life”. A UEFA Cup winner with both Ipswich and Spurs, as well as 13 caps for Scotland, Parry said: “Alan was a very good footballer but he was a better broadcaster.” Look out for Mike Parry’s new fortnightly podcast ‘Life on Planet Porky’, available on Audioboom, Spotify and all usual outlets.