Hello everyone,
People often ask me what I do when I have a few days off from stand up? The answer (at least today) is that I jump on an early morning train from Edinburgh to London where I catch a connecting commuter train to Crystal Palace just in time to make a game of football with some of my fellow comedians which happens every Tuesday at 2pm. It’s madness, I know. But it’s quite simply the most enjoyable thing in my life, and why let the slight inconvenience of a 788 mile round trip get in the way of that. The thing is, I’m not very good at football, but then it’s not really about the football. It’s a really good work out especially after a month of excess in Edinburgh, but it’s not really about the exercise either. It’s about the people and the banter.
I was one of the founding fathers of Tuesday afternoon football at Crystal Palace back in 2000. Myself, and fellow comedians Andy and Daniel have at various times in its 8 year long history spent our Tuesday mornings, and sometimes our Monday afternoons trying to rally a minimum of 10 people for a game. It isn’t always easy. Trying to get a comedian to commit to being in a certain place at a certain time when he doesn’t have a call time and ‘cheque to follow’ is a thankless task. It didn’t take long in those early days for us to weed out the kind of people who weren’t right for the occasion. My personal vetting process involved not inviting anyone, who when asked if they wanted to play? Replied “I don’t know, who else is playing?” A policy through all the various transformations, I still employ to this day on the odd occasion I still organise it.
If you want a more serious indication of how much some of us love this weekly tradition consider the fact that I lived in London for 2 years longer than I could bear, just so I could be around for those Tuesday games. I wasn’t even doing gigs for most of that time, just ambling through the void that ran from roughly 5pm on Tuesday through to 2pm the following Tuesday. They were tough times, sometimes I was the last person to leave Crystal Palace Sports Centre, dropping off the pump at reception on my way out, and you could see the sadness in my eyes knowing it was all over for another week.
Very few things have stood in the way of those games. “I’m very sorry Mr. Plowman, but if Tuesday is the only day you can do, then I’m afraid you’ll have to stick your 3 year tie-up deal with the BBC up your arse!” My friend Daniel, a similar fanatic, once got a limo back from a gig in Hull at considerable expense, just to make the game. And indeed, both of us have been know to change long haul international flights so we could make it back in time for kick off, sometimes turning up at the game jetlagged with suitcase in hand. And it’s been worth it every time. Even when the games haven’t been that good, it’s still just enormously good fun.
It’s also a great leveller. There are few arenas left in the world of stand up now where profile and egos don’t result in someone, or someone’s agent attempting to pull rank. There is no room for that kind of bullshit at Tuesday football. This does mean we have lost most of our big names down the years, but if you ask me that has only added to the general camaraderie. I am confident that if Chris Rock called up Andy and asked him if he would be able to move the game to 1pm, so he could make his flight back to LA, he would be given a firm ‘no’, and would probably get a bit of an earful for even suggesting it. “Tough shit Rock, we run a very tight ship.” If Robin Williams turned up late, then tried to avoid his turn in nets, he simply wouldn’t get the call the following week. If Seinfeld repeatedly tried to leave early to avoid shelling out the £3 administration fee collected at the end, he would be forced to take home the bibs and wash them. If John Oliver missed a sitter in front of an open goal, he too would have to wear the shamed red jersey as punishment for the rest of the match, just like everybody else.
The world of stand up had changed a lot in the past 8 years, but despite a few new faces, Tuesday afternoon football has pretty much stayed the same. There is a group of about 8 of us, who are still regulars from the very beginning, and probably another 15 or so, that come and go when they can. I’m probably more in the latter category now, but I surely still hold the record for most miles travelled in a single year to get there (or biggest carbon footprint per goal, depending on how you look at it?) There are many irregularities in the life of a touring comedian. Perhaps I am destined to live my life in the ephemeral world of the hapless troubadour. A world where personal relationships suffer, reality is slightly skewered and stability is an almost laughable concept. There are times when I stand behind that dusty red velvet curtain in another theatre in another town waiting to be announced on stage, listening to the low hum of people chatting to one another, and I do wonder ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ Then I remember that sweet cross I floated in from the right last Tuesday which Lee volleyed home with aplomb. And I remember that the next Tuesday I have off, I’m only ever a tube, a car journey, a train journey, a flight, or sometimes all of those things away from that one constant in my life. God Bless Tuesday afternoon football.
Danny Bhoy.