I’m making a comeback (From Times Series)

I’m making a comeback

1:06pm Thursday 27th November 2008

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Forget the credit crunch. Forget talk of recession. Forget Barnet FCs dismal first half of the season with only three victories in 22 games (not easy that one, mind you).

I am pleased to announce that I am planning a triumphant comeback early in 2009 in my famous role as Father of the Bride when elder twin Claire marries Woody.

I will ignore the obvious retort from the cynical among you: How can he be making a comeback when he hasn't been anywhere in the first place?

I have dusted down the speech that I have used at previous Signy weddings .... conscious that the family join in as I start with the now traditional opening line: "Pat and I hope that you two will be as happy as we thought we were going to be".

Mrs S and I married on a Friday as Saturday was religiously earmarked and reserved from early in my life for 3 p.m. football kick-offs.

On that historic day in 1966 close family friend Michael Grade, now executive chairman of ITV, drove my child bride to Hendon Register Office in his James Bond-style Aston Martin. After the ceremony, conducted by a tall, stately lady with an impossing voice, Mike addressed the assembled party. "Anyone else while we are here, we'll get a cut rate?"

Many of Fleet Street's finest dropped by at our place in Hendon for a celebratory drink that evening. Many of them brought newspaper posters advertising their attendance at matches.

"Capture the thrills with Harry Miller" read one. Happily the Daily Mirror did not record details of our wedding night.

It became traditional that Signy weddings were staged on a Friday ... broken only when Richard got married in Manchester on a Saturday afternoon and I had to be dragged protesting to the ceremony complaining that West Ham United were playing Manchester City a few hundred yards away and the Mail on Sunday were willing for me to cover the game. I could have been back to deliver my speech at the reception.

In the event, it wasn't a bad day. The London contingent went North in a mini-coach and I won money playing cards on the way home. That's the only time I made a profit on a wedding.

When we got back to Hendon, Ray Gee, one of the travelling guests, was a long time coming off the coach. "My jacket has disappeared", he announced. As the search renewed it transpired that I had put it on by mistake.

One of my favourite films of all-time was, in fact, Father of the Bride, with Spencer Tracy starring as the role of the harassed parent watching his wife and daughter heading him towards bankruptcy in the name of happiness ever after.

I have hosted weddings at The Savoy, the House of Commons (with Margaret Thatcher among the guests) and an establishment in Cricklewood run by old friend Tony Samuelson that was called The Rat Hole.

It is a sign that I am mellowing that I have sat down with Claire and consented to a Saturday lunch-time kick-off ... so, if I am not at Underhill when the game against Chester City starts, you will know why. I'm having trouble convincing people at the moment that I could be back - the wedding is a couple of miles away from the ground - to deliver my Father of the Bride speech.

In fact, any of the family could deliver it for me .. they all know it by heart.

Thanks to those of you who have expressed concern about my well-being with the absence of a blog but, apart from being "bunged up" as a result of midweek excursions to such exotic places as Rochdale to get knocked out of the FA Cup in extra time and Burslem (where Port Vale play) to sit through a 0-0 draw that saw less than a handful of shots and no discernible danger to either goalkeeper, I have been in rude health and gearing myself for the Big Day in 2009.

Really I should have talked Claire into a Tuesday evening wedding so that Mrs S and I could have avoided sitting in the freezing cold at grounds north of Watford Gap and having to grit our teeth afterwards, smile and say: "You were the better team".

PS: I'm not a one-trick pony - I do a fair job as Father of the Bridegroom too.