Fears were growing last night for Ronnie Radford’s sanity as he ran riot during the live FA Cup draw broadcast to an astonished audience of millions.
Radford 68, scorer of the illustrious competition’s most famous goal – a thirty yard screamer to level the scores for unfancied Hereford against giants Newcastle in 1972 – was invited to participate alongside Graeme Le Saux picking out the numbered balls. The former Chelsea defender, and well-known ‘Guardian-reader’, could only look on astounded as the bald pensioner proceeded to cause substantial damage to the studio whilst injuring presenter Jim Rosenthal in the process.
The draw immediately followed Manchester City’s demolition of Notts County in their 4th round replay and, as the Tuby-jug of warm piss Adrian Chiles handed over the reins from Eastlands to a suite at Wembley, and an awaiting Rosenthal, all appeared fine. Radford admittedly looked a touch nervous but that was to be expected from a man unaccustomed to being on television.
After a warm introduction – ‘We’re delighted to be joined today by FA Cup legend Ronnie Radford, whose sensational goal nearly thirty years ago….can you believe that Ronnie?… against Newcastle United perfectly epitomised the romance of the cup.’ – the camera settled upon Radford who, at this point, was merely smiling uneasily.
It was not until he was handed the duty of emptying the balls from the velvet bag into the large glass bowl that things turned decidedly surreal.
Rosenthal gently instructed Radford to squeeze the bag, to ensure that it was indeed empty.
Instead the elderly ex-pro scrunched it up into a ball, dropped it onto his right foot and whacked an arrow-like shot that zoomed right across the room at speed.
Unfortunately the bag struck Rosenthal square in the face, landing on the strange, thin hook that is placed just above his mouth. There it dangled unceremoniously as a shocked Rosenthal froze in total shock.
Radford meanwhile shouted out ‘What a goal! What. A. Goal!!! The scorer is Radford. Ronnie Radford’ echoing the famous commentary hoarsely yelped by a young John Motson on that momentous day.
He then took off around the studio, arms aloft, mimicking the celebration that has been shown countless times since, although this time exposing a noticeable paunch as his shirt rode up.
A stray hand accidentally knocked over a lighting rig that crashed noisily to the floor and tripped the circuit breaker, leaving the whole place in darkness save for the floodlights outside.
Le Saux’s unsuccessful attempts to calm the situation and somehow bring proceedings back to normality by repeatedly hollowing out the number of a ball he had randomly plucked from the bowl alas was drowned out by the sudden invasion of children.
At this juncture it clearly became apparent that the whole thing was a staged stunt, set up by Radford, for God-knows what reason, because all of the children were wearing thick green parka coats, their fur-lined hoods bobbing up and down and they joyously mobbed their delirious ‘hero’.
ITV quickly pulled the plug and returned to Chiles up in Manchester, who looked immensely saddened to see such a public breakdown of a much-revered FA Cup figure. For several seconds he could not speak, his face as deflated as when he first heard that Frank Lampard was boffing Christine Bleakley.
Finally he announced that the draw would commence once Radford was escorted from Wembley.
A furious ITV executive Barry Lamb told us, ‘We won’t be employing any more FA Cup legends. They’re nothing but trouble. We’ve been burnt before when we brought in Keith Houchen. Fair enough, he never smashed the place up like Radford but he was a dull man. Very dull indeed.’
