JOHNGIBSON Never Likely to be a better Magpies story than Matty
WONDER GOAL ONE TO WRITE HOME ABOUT FOR LA FRENAIS
facebook.com/NewcastleChronicle IT was as near as darn it a replay of one of the most famous Likely Lads episodes years down the line.
Ian La Frenais, its creator along with writing partner Dick Clement, had taped Newcastle’s match with Manchester United so he could watch it later that day.
Suitably reassured La Frenais, a lifelong Magpie fan, embarked on a long walk on the Santa Monica beach front as part of his fitness regime.
Upon returning home he casually switched on his phone messages to hear the voice of Tom Courtenay, a good friend and avid Hull City supporter.
Le Frenais recalled: “Tom began ‘Ian, I only have two words to say to you: Matty Longstaff.’ I froze. I did not want to know the score because I wanted to watch the match as though it was live. What did he mean?
“Then came a second message: ‘I have just seen an interview with the Longstaff brothers. It was a thing of beauty.’ I ask you, could there have been bigger clues Newcastle had done more than well?
“It was like a flippin’ re-run of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads all those years ago.”
We were having dinner in Newcastle taking advantage of the fact La Frenais was in the middle of a whistle-stop book-signing tour having, with Clement, brought out an autobiography called ‘More Than Likely.’
Ironically, we were breaking bread the night England played Bulgaria – and that was the very match famously portrayed in a Likely Lads episode called No Hiding Place.
In it Terry and Bob try to avoid finding out the score before watching the highlights of a game in Bulgaria.
Ian laughed as he recalled the script: “Bob says: ‘They are having terrible rain. People’s homes are at risk’ to which Terry replies: ‘It will suit us. Heavy pitch.’
“All day long they go to great lengths to avoid finding out the result until they catch a glimpse of a Chronicle billboard which reads: ‘England f...’ They look away.
“Does it mean Flop? Fail? Fightback? “No, they discover it means ‘flooded out’ when they get home, switch on the telly and see figure skating. The game had been called off.
“I was reminded of that when I tried to avoid knowing how we got on against Man U. Thanks Tom.”
Courtenay and La Frenais once shared a house in London, where La Frenais took phone calls from the likes of Natalie Wood and Candice Bergen for one of the stars of Doctor Zhivago.
Courtenay would later play the lead in Dick and Ian’s film Otley. La Frenais recalled with fondness going to watch Hull play at Carlisle with Courtenay and Rodney Bewes and them all enjoying fish and chips on the way back to Whitley Bay to stay with La Frenais’s mam. Oh, the lifestyle of the rich and famous!
We spent much of our evening this week fighting one another for the inside line – me about what Ian is currently up to in the glitzy land of Hollywood and he about what on earth is going on at his beloved Newcastle United.
He follows the Mags from afar both through live telly games and the Chronicle website and, like close-tohome fans, is perturbed at the current political climate.
Courtenay, of course, regularly weighs in with his tuppence worth, having known Steve Bruce when he worked at Hull.
He already his his next match visit pencilled in - Hull vs Derby a week today - while La Frenais is getting worked up by Newcastle’s visit to Chelsea this afternoon, a fixture which was once the highest on his bucket list when he walked the King’s Road.
Both are exiled from home through work - but football loyalty so often holds people wherever they may end up.