Dad was not a man to bear grudges, but he had a thing about
David Vine. Throughout the 1970s, the sight of those trademark glasses or the
sound of that west country burr would be enough to provoke him into what became
a familiar rant, the gist of which had to do with his fitness to appear on the
nation’s TV screens. Now the late Mr Vine was a versatile and professional host
and commentator on a wide range of sports and light entertainment shows, but it
wasn’t his considered opinions of Forest’s on-field performances that irked Dad,
nor yet his descriptions of the antics of It’s
A Knockout or his banter with the contenders for the Miss World title. No,
Dad took against him – and I never heard him say a good word about him as long
as he lived – because, as Dad saw it, he had cheated Forest in his role as host
of the BBC’s sport and general knowledge game, Quiz Ball.
I was reminded of this when I accidentally came across an
episode of Quiz Ball while looking in
the BBC’s i-Player for a different programme. There, in all its black-and-white
glory, selected from the archives by Richard Osman as one of a number of notable
quiz shows from the 1950s onwards, was the very first edition, dated December
22 1966.
The game was presented as a football match, with the players
selecting one of four possible routes to goal and answering one supposedly very
difficult question (Route 1) or more, progressively easier ones, so that Route
4 required them to answer four relatively easy questions. Behind the players an
electronic pitch showed small lights linking the appropriate number of player
figures for each route and the route a player chose lit up. At the point at
which the last question in a given route was about to be asked, an opponent could
buzz in to tackle and be asked one very difficult question instead. If he got
it right he won his team possession and the chance to select a route to goal
for themselves; if he got it wrong, it was an own-goal.
I have a very faint memory of watching later series of Quiz Ball as a smalll boy, but I recall
the fact of watching it – and, of course, Dad’s apoplexy at the very sight of
David Vine - rather than much of the actual content. So the next half-hour was
three parts fact-finding mission and one part nostalgia trip as I settled down
to see what the nation’s football fans had watched almost half a century ago.
The show comes, improbably, from Hornsey Town Hall and begins
with an aerial shot of Wembley Stadium, accompanied by precisely the kind of
jaunty Tony Hatch theme tune you would expect. A voiceover announces the teams
as Arsenal and, rather formally, Nottingham Forest Football Club, then “our
referee and question-master” Vine introduces the teams, which comprise the
manager, two players and a celebrity supporter for each side. Nottingham-born
Bertie Mee, Ian Ure, Terry Neill and Jimmy Young represent Arsenal, while Johnny
Carey, Bobby McKinlay, John Barnwell and Ted Moult turn out for Forest.
I couldn’t tell you how often Derbyshire farmer and minor TV
personality Moult was seen on Trentside and he is enigmatically introduced as
“supporting Nottingham Forest on this occasion”, so perhaps celebrity
supporters were thinner on the ground in those days. Referee and players alike
are dressed in a suit and tie, while the Forest contingent (John Barnwell
excepted) take the chance to stake their claim in public for the Pipe-Smoker of
the Year award. The audience, too, are soberly attired in suits, ties and coats,
as if they have popped in for a quick cuppa but won’t trouble us for long.
In what could almost be a Monty Python parody, Vine spends so long going through the rules
that you almost expect him to conclude with, “That’s all we’ve got time for
this week”. Even then, he is unsure enough to suggest it might all sound rather
complicated before reassuring us that the rules will be explained as the game
progresses. Perhaps fearing that by now some viewers have begun the long
pre-remote-control trek from the sofa to the television to see what might be on
the nation’s two other channels, Vine reassures us that this is not a “big egghead
quiz” and will be “a lot of fun”.
The egghead remark is justified by some astonishingly easy
questions - it would be a rare First Division footballer who didn’t know that
Everton play at Goodison Park or that it is the away team that changes if there
is a clash of colours. Ian Ure turns out to have half-decent general knowledge,
Terry Neill and Bobby McKinlay struggle somewhat with the concept of the
shorter routes being more difficult, while Jimmy Young and Johnny Carey barely
say a word. When he does speak, Carey nominates the players to answer questions
like a considerate father taking care to ensure his offspring get equal
treatment. Bertie Mee, meanwhile, grins throughout as though this is the most
fun he’s had for a long time.
He proves to be a keen tackler, entering into the spirit of
things more whole-heartedly (or perhaps simply understanding the tactics
better) than his team-mates. Ted Moult, when not brushing pipe ash from the
desk in front of him, is equally keen to prevent attempts on goal. So keen, in
fact, that at one point he even commits a ‘foul’ by tackling before Mee has
even chosen his route to goal. Amid the hilarity that ensues, Vine informs us that
a player is only allowed two fouls, but we are left to ponder for ourselves what
punishment might be meted out to a player who transgresses for a third time. That
the ‘tackle’ questions are the hardest (or, possibly, least easy) is confirmed
by the fact that all the goals are own goals - two each from Mee and Moult,
with Forest coming from behind to lead, before being pegged back at the death. TV
quiz shows, of course, require a winner, so we go into ‘extra time’ – a single,
sudden-death question about types of cloud, which Ure answers correctly to win
the game for the Gunners. Finally, Tony Hatch plays us out over the credits,
which are accompanied by similarly jaunty cartoon stereotypes of harrassed
match officials, cuddling players and rattle-wielding fans.
But long before then I have seen why Dad got so worked up
about the partiality or otherwise of referee Vine. Arsenal are asked how many
men are usually on a cricket field. After some thought, Mee offers 13 as the
answer just before Ure, who has remembered the umpires as well as the fielders
and batsmen, suggests it might be 15. “15 is the answer I heard and 15 is the
answer I’m taking”, pronounces Vine – and a decades-long grudge is born. He
goes on to compound his error when Neill incorrectly replies that what happened
to the first FA Cup was that it ended in a riot and was abandoned. For no
obvious reason Vine gives him another go, helping him further by saying he
meant the Cup itself. If this were not enough to have Dad reaching for some pins
and a bespectacled voodoo doll, Vine has already let slip an isolated, ignorant
reference to “Notts Forest”.
I’m watching all this almost 50 years later and many of the
protagonists are, like Dad, no longer around to care. Yet I still find myself
getting indignant on Forest’s and Dad’s behalf. This hardly ranks alongside Newcastle
74, Anderlecht 84 or Milford/Gascoigne 91 in the “We wuz robbed” file in Forest’s long
and fascinating history, but clearly the instinctive reaction to feel hard done
by when we lose in controversial circumstances is more deeply ingrained than I
might have thought.
