The goalie in God’s squad
QUESTION What became of the Argentine footballer who gave up the sport to join a religious retreat and await the end of the world in 2000?
Carlos angel roa was born on august 15, 1969, in santa Fe, argentina. as a goalkeeper, he played for Primera league teams racing Club de avellaneda and Club atletico lanus before moving west to spain’s Mallorca in 1997.
Mallorca had been freshly promoted to la liga and roa helped them reach fifth spot in their first season and third in their second.
He became the goalkeeper for the argentine national side, culminating in his appearance at the 1998 World Cup.
england fans will remember the round of 16 with misery. after taking a 2-0 lead, through an alan shearer penalty and a Michael owen wonder goal, David Beckham got himself sent off for a petulant kick out at Diego simeone.
after this, the argentines levelled to 2-2, then england lost on penalties. roa was the argentine hero, saving penalties from Paul Ince and David Batty.
He returned to spain to prepare for the qualifying rounds of the Champions league for the 1999-2000 season. But he dropped a bombshell, quitting football at the peak of his powers.
roa and his wife, members of the seventh-Day adventist Church, fled to a retreat in argentina’s Cordoba province to prepare for the end of the world.
When this did not happen, he had no regrets: ‘In 1999, I decided to devote myself to religion. The reaction I met was one of incomprehension. as a follower of the seventh-Day adventist Church, I’d always taken my responsibilities as a Christian very seriously.
‘For example, I never ate meat, which is how I got the nickname (lettuce). I spent a year in a countryside retreat in santa Fe, new Mexico, doing a lot of reading and learning how to live a better, more meaningful life.’
He went back to playing for Mallorca. Unable to reproduce his previous form, he was relegated to the bench.
roa then moved to spanish second division’s albacete Balompie, helping them return to la liga. Midway through the following season, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and was forced to stop playing. He recovered, but retired from the game.
He has since had a number of goalkeeping coaching jobs and is now working for Club Deportivo guadalajara, a Mexican side. Charles Wray, Birmingham.
QUESTION Where does the expression taking the Mickey come from?
IF YoU take the Mickey, you make fun of someone. There have been various forms of this: take the Mick/Mickey/Michael.
The earliest reference is a 1935 book called Cockney Cavalcade: ‘He wouldn’t let Pancake [a character] take the Mike out of him.’
It is generally accepted the phrase is rhyming slang. The idea being it is derived from a (yet to be identified) character called Mickey Bliss.
Richard Dunn, Twickenham, Middx.
QUESTION Which are the most sought after lost TV episodes?
THe BBC produced countless hours of TV in the Fifties and sixties — and wiped most of it to save money and space.
The most sought-after missing shows are the early Doctor Who episodes starring William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton: 108 episodes are missing including Dalek Masterplan, the first appearance of The Daleks.
In 2006, the BBC released a digitally restored DVD of the 1968 story The Invasion, in which the Doctor (Troughton) fights The Cybermen. Two of the eight episodes were missing, so they were replaced with a black-andwhite animation synchronised to the vintage audio recordings.
another much sought-after show is the first series of the spy serial The avengers. This was different to the one most people remember as the dapper John steed (Patrick Macnee) played second fiddle to rugged Dr David Keel (Ian Hendry).
another lost programme was The Madhouse on Castle street, a 1963 TV play by Jamaican-born writer evan Jones. This was a standard boarding house drama about a man who has decided to ‘retire from the world’, to the concern of his family and friends.
It would almost certainly not have been missed but for the fact it featured the acting debut of a young U.s. folk singer named Bob Dylan, who also sang his new song, Blowin’ In The Wind, over the credits. The only copy was destroyed in 1968.
science-fiction serial a For andromeda made a star of Julie Christie, but only one episode is known to survive, returned to the BBC by a private collector in 2005.
other much missed programmes include early episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour (all of season one, most of seasons two, three and four), the 1956 and 1966 BBC productions of David Copperfield, Billy Bunter of greyfriars school (195261) and The World of Wooster (1965-68).
Penny Greene, Harrogate, N. Yorks. noT only ... But also was a groundbreaking sixties BBC comedy show starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
Brilliant sketches such as the Facts of life sketch (‘a bit of a chat’), The leaping nuns of the order of st Beryl and, a personal favourite, the Thunderbirds parody superthunderstingcar, showed Pete and Dud at the top of their game.
Yet the BBC decided to destroy most editions, including the colour episodes, despite Cook and Moore offering to pay for the cost of preservation. only eight complete shows survive
Mark Wright, Buxton, Derbys.
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