I kept the conversation going when nature called

Anton recalls a tricky moment when he was called upon to explain the origin of derby matches live on the radio

FLU jab, dental appointment, eyesight test – that’s the sum of my social life this week. This is how it is these days. I know that lots of people are getting out, returning to their pre-pandemic routines. I’m not one of them.

There are annual events in London now starting up again but spending 90 minutes wearing a mask on a train? Then there’s the Tube, and a windowless room with lots of strangers. Maybe in the spring …

Talking of the Tube, I Googled “Tube infections” to see if I could find out how dangerous it is to travel on it. But all I turned up was something about the eustachian tube, which sounds like an ancient Greek underground but is in fact something that connects the middle ear cavity with the throat, and is named after Bartolommeo Eustacia, a 16th-Century Italian anatomist.

I thought you would like to know that.

Googling, though, can be quite a rabbit hole, never more so than if you want to know something about Derby. Before you know where you are, you’re reading interesting facts about horse racing at Epsom or Churchill Downs, or fierce football rivalries that have nothing to do with the Rams.

That reminds me of the time that I did a wireless interview in the most unlikely of circumstances. An Eastern European radio station wanted to know why football matches between local rivals were known as “derby games”. The initial approach was by email, and it was arranged that they’d ring me at 2pm for a live chat. At just before 1.50pm, I decided that I’d got time to nip to the loo. I’d just mounted the throne when my mobile phone rang. I answered, and a voice with a heavy foreign accent said: “Right, Mr Anton. We are going live in five, four, three, two, one …”

What do you do? Say: “Can you just hang on a minute while I …” ?

There wasn’t time to argue, so I told them all about the days when mass street football was warfare without weapons, and the infamous 19th-century games in Derby between the parishes of All Saints’ and St Peter’s, when, in 1796, one John Snape was killed, “an unfortunate victim of this custom playing football at Shrovetide”. And that it is still played at Ashbourne at Shrovetide, albeit with less chance of being fatally injured.

There are other theories about why a “derby game” is so called, but the one associated with us is the one I like best.

Anyway, we got the job done, the interviewer seemed very pleased, and listeners in, I want to say Poland but now I’m not sure, were thus educated on the matter without having the slightest notion of how inconvenient it had been for me. I told Alf, later, and he said: “You really are a pro.” Well, one does one’s best in trying circumstances.

By the way, talking of derby games, if you visit St Mary’s, one of the Isles of Scilly, any Sunday between mid-November and the end of March, then you will probably find Garrison Gunners playing Woolpack Wanderers. In fact, it would be surprising if you didn’t, for they are the only members of the world’s smallest football league. They meet 17 times each season in the Isles of Scilly Football League and, in case that isn’t enough, there are also two cup competitions, both played over two legs, of course. Last year, a junior league was formed, also with only two teams – the Trenoweth Trailblazers and the Flying Falcons.

Thank goodness that I didn’t know any of this when I was addressing football fans in Upper Silesia, or wherever it was, from a bathroom in Mickleover.

Anyway, by the time you read this, I should have been vaccinated against the ’flu, and on my way to the dentist. Then it’s the optician. I’m hoping for an uneventful visit to all three. It’s all the excitement I can deal with these days.