David Parkin on a Big Weekend in the 'Gate and being mistaken for a film star

IT sounded like a good idea at the time.

The note from Sean Jarvis piqued my interest.

Given “Jarvo” is an influential and experienced figure in the world of sport - current chief executive of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, ex-commercial director of Huddersfield Town and former owner of Oldham Athletic - an invitation from him is not to be sniffed at.

Sean has also just been named as a contender for an award for “Sartorial Eloquence”.

But given it is in the Alternative Business Awards that are a part of the annual Leicester Comedy Festival, perhaps we’ll leave that one back in the wardrobe.

Anyway his idea was for a sporting trip with a difference.

Those of us brave (or daft) enough, had to throw our hats into the ring before we knew any rules.

We just knew that we had to be available for a trip over the weekend of January 20th to 21st.

The rules were that on Saturday, January 13th, whichever team scored first in the 3 o’clock kick-offs in the English Premier League, Football League and National League, then we would go to support that team wherever they were playing, home or away in England.

It could have been Plymouth, Sunderland, Carlisle or Ipswich, who knew?

Instead, Grimsby scored first (in what ended up a five-all draw with Notts County) and we were off to support the Mariners in their match the following weekend…in Harrogate.

Different members of the eight-man group of temporary Grimsby Town supporters were put in charge of tasks for the trip such as transport and accommodation.

My job was to come up with suggestions of pubs and bars to visit in Harrogate on the Saturday evening after the match.

Shall we say not a great deal of homework was needed on that one.

Pre-trip discussion focused on important issues such as whether to take inflatables to the match.

When I admitted I thought my lilo had a puncture after a collision with a snorkeller off Filey last summer it was explained that Grimsby fans have a history of turning up to matches waving inflatable fish while they sing their anthem: “We only sing when we’re fishing”.

It takes all sorts.

Fast forward to Saturday at noon and I met the others in the Brownlee Arms in Horsforth which was close to my home in Leeds and on their route from Huddersfield to Harrogate.

Driven in a swish back Mercedes van that property entrepreneur Christopher Lee had had hired from Geoff Bloore’s Global Autocare in Leeds, the Huddersfield group decanted, swiftly sorted a kitty and we sat down over a pint to discuss plans for the rest of the weekend.

It was at that point that a phone pinged and news arrived that Harrogate’s match against Grimsby had been postponed because of a frozen pitch.

Research found that every other game of league and non-league football within driving distance had also been postponed.

So we switched sports and headed to Harrogate Rugby Club for its match against Doncaster Phoenix only to find the shutters down and the car park empty with the game postponed because of, you guessed it, a frozen pitch.

Another switch of sport saw us head across the road to Rudding Park Golf Club where we spent the afternoon drinking beer in the bar and watching the scores come in on the TV from what games were actually still taking place on Saturday afternoon.

Then it was a short drive (it helps when one of your group is observing ‘Dry January’) to drop off bags at our hotel and then off on a tour of a few pubs and bars around town before we all went for a curry at Cardamom Black in the former Empire Theatre in Harrogate.

I have to admit to feeling pretty weary by about 10.30pm and worried that if I showed any weakness then the rest of the group, all tough Huddersfield types, would never let me forget it.

However there appeared to be yawns all round and we agreed to head back to the hotel where I was in bed for 11pm dreaming of a Florentine Rösti for breakfast in Betty’s the next morning.

I’ve always said if you are going to do a lads’ weekend, then you’ve got to go large.

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ONE of the bars we visited in Harrogate was The Fat Badger and while there one of the group, entrepreneur Andy Needham who runs Surplus Group which operates Approved Food - the UK’s largest online grocery clearance store - and cash and carry Morris & Son told us he had sold one of his businesses that week.

I suggested that we celebrate with some fizz.

Andy nodded, walked up to the bar and asked if they had got a bottle of Lambrini.

You can take the boy out of Huddersfield…

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ONE of the high level conversations we had during our time in the bar at Rudding Park Golf Club focused on who was the most famous person each one of us had met.

One of the group, Jason Taylor, a former colleague of mine from the Yorkshire Post and now something of a man-about-town in Huddersfield, told me I wasn’t allowed to play my trump card - Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He asked who the next most famous person I had met was and when I said The Queen, I was disqualified from the game.

Jason proudly told everyone that he had had dinner with Pamela Anderson.

I helpfully provided background that there were also a couple of hundred other people there at the time at a charity dinner at Princess Diana’s former home, Althorp House.

Sean Jarvis said that when he had been a director at Huddersfield Town he had met Dickie Attenborough at a match against Chelsea.

One of our group asked who Dickie Attenborough was.

I explained that Richard Attenborough appeared in the film Brighton Rock but he shook his head and said he’d never heard of it.

I said he had also won the Oscar for Best Director for eight-time Academy Award winning film Gandhi in 1983.

There was another shake of the head.

I eventually explained that he was Sir David Attenborough’s brother and had also appeared in Jurassic Park.

He said he thought he might recognise him.

Probably not a future candidate to join our Film Club.

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THANKS very much to those of you who have generously made donations to support this blog.

I thought my idea to get all of those who have contributed together for an event later this year might end up more like a seance.

But given the quality of the individuals who have kindly contributed, it is shaping up to be pretty, pretty good (as Larry David might say).

FAREWELL Norman Jewison.

The Hollywood director who was nominated for Academy Awards three times in three separate decades for In The Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof and Moonstruck, died this week aged 97.

I credit myself with being a bit of a film buff, but until this week I thought Fiddler on the Roof was about a peeping tom rather than a musical about a milkman in Russia trying to marry off his five daughters.

In Jewison’s fifth film he directed Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid as an up and coming poker player who takes on the undisputed king of the game, Lancey “The Man” Howard, played by screen legend Edward G Robinson.

But it is the film that Norman Jewison directed after In The Heat of the Night, that I love.

Also starring Steve McQueen, The Thomas Crown Affair didn’t really command Oscar or film award plaudits but it must sit high in the pantheon of the most stylish movies ever made.

McQueen plays the eponymous wealthy businessman, a bored socialite who aims to mastermind a Boston bank robbery as the perfect crime.

Faye Dunaway is the beautiful insurance investigator sent to find out what happened.

I won’t spoil the rest of the plot for you but suffice to say Steve McQueen strides across the screen in some of the best outfits that film has ever seen.

Which is doubly impressive as up to this point when it was made in 1968 he was given principally blue collar parts and many in Hollywood doubted his ability to play a sophisticated millionaire.

But the combination of McQueen’s acting ability and a wardrobe made for him by British tailor Douglas Hayward delivered the goods.

His three-piece suits, particularly a striking grey and blue Prince of Wales check, went down in movie history.

Earlier in the 1960s, fellow Mayfair tailor Anthony Sinclair had done the same for Sean Connery when he became James Bond.

Even Thomas Crown’s casual outfits, such as a Baracuta harrington jacket and navy baseball cap and the orange linen shirt he wore to drive a beach buggy across the dunes, are still vivid in my memory.

The remake with Pierce Brosnan is a pretty good film too.

But if I’m honest, I always wanted to be Steve McQueen.

And in my younger days I did have a mop of blonde hair.

Perhaps I did become a victim of delusions of grandeur.

When I co-hosted TheBusinessDesk.com’s Rainmakers’ Awards a few years ago I did so with the then editor in Manchester, Chris Barry and comedian Justin Moorhouse, remembered for his role as Young Kenny in Phoenix Nights.

He turned to the audience of 200 of the North West’s top dealmakers at the dinner at the Hilton Hotel and said: “Do you know, David reminds me of somebody famous but I can’t think who.”

I helpfully suggested that perhaps it might be Steve McQueen.

He turned to the audience and said: “The black, British film director? You daft tw*t!”

That’s showbiz.

Have a great weekend.