Not even Xmas with Sheriff of Nottingham beats this!
ROBERT PAGE is theWales manager who learned to lay down the law after sitting down for Christmas dinner with the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Nobody had heard of Page when he found himself tucking into roast turkey and passing the gravy boat to celebrated actor Alan Rickman 25 years ago.
But he has gone on to become the safest pair of hands in Wales since Neville Southall.
If the dragon only billowed a few puffs of smoke in the Euro 2020 opener against Switzerland, interim coach Page made it breathe fire against Turkey.
He has a lot to smile about, with Wales just a heartbeat away from the tournament’s knockout phase ahead of tomorrow’s date with Italy in Rome.
And Page is still laughing more at his close encounter with a silver-screen legend than the corny jokes they found inside the Christmas crackers.
Page was a promising central defender, breaking into Watford’s first-team squad, when the Hornets’ hectic festive schedule prevented him from nipping home to see his family in the Rhondda Valley.
But his landlords in the digs where he lived near Vicarage Road – David and Christine Rickman – had invited a celebrity guest for their festive meal.
Page had no idea he was about to break bread with the man who played terrorist Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films, a wayward managing director in Love Actually – and Robin Hood’s arch-enemy.
In the book Tales From The Vicarage: Captains, Page reveals how being confined to barracks at Christmas turned into a film-star audience.
He said: “David and Christine looked after me so well, they were my surrogate family.
“I had been upstairs in my room for a couple of hours – watching Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves on TV – when Christine called me down for some Christmas dinner before I went off to link up with the squad at the team hotel ahead of our Boxing Day game. I came down for a bit of roast turkey and there in the kitchen was David’s brother
– the late, great actor Alan Rickman – who had come round to join us for the meal.
“I was probably a bit starstruck because all I could say was, ‘Merry Christmas – I’ve just been watching you on the telly’.
“I’m sure I must be the only Watford captain who has sat down to Christmas dinner with the Sheriff of Nottingham.”
Under the great Graham Taylor’s tutelage, Page went from youth-team graduate to Premier League skipper – or, as he recalls, from Brazil to Barnet.
“That was an unreal experience, going from hot and sultry conditions in Brasilia (with Wales in an autumn friendly) to a grey, drizzly FA Cup tie on the slope at Underhill four days later,” he said.
“We lost 3-0 in
Brazil, and on the plane coming back I could sense a bloke in the row of seats behind me, just across the aisle, staring at me.
“He would just peer over the top of his newspaper, like a private detective in a really bad film, have a good look and then bury his head back in the pages whenever I turned round because I could feel his eyes burning the back of my head. “In the end, I resolved to find out what it was he found so fascinating, so I leaned across the aisle and asked, ‘Hello, can I help you?’
“This chap stared at me again, looked back at his paper and said, ‘It’s you!’
“He showed me a photo in the paper he was reading and there I was in the main photo, going up for a header with Rivaldo the night before. “Sometimes you have to pinch yourself or do a double-take. I’m just a lad from Tylorstown in the valleys and to play for your country is a great honour. But to manage them in a major tournament like this is unbelievable.”
Yes – but not as unbelievable as eating Christmas dinner with the Sheriff of Nottingham, just minutes after watching him fail to pull Maid Marian.