Famous people you have met.

met Ryan Sidebottom and his Dad Arnie on holiday a few days ago. Not very friendly to be honest. Mind you i think my Lee Cooper flip flops intimidated them a bit.

 

My mate lived opposite Mick Ronson on Greatfield so we bumped into Mick quite often, but the bonus came one day when Bowie stepped out of Micks house as well. Stood talking to them for half hour or so, great blokes.

 

Terry Wogan
James Whale
Ant and Dec
Melanie From Neighbours! (the one that laughed like a seal)
Lee Evans
Robbie Fowler
Gervase Phinn
Geoff Capes
Dave Gorman

 

I struggle with these threads because I don't tend to think of people as famous, and then I see some of the suggestions by other people.

Justin Wilson, ex-F1 and current Indycar driver. Met him at the Indy 500 Pole day a few years ago.

Seen a few F1 drivers very briefly at events around Grand Prix but not really talked to them.

Touring Car drivers with them coming up to Knockhill every year.

Met a few football managers, players, chairmen etc but mainly Scottish ones as it's been Dunfermline games when I've been let in the players entrance.

Various comediens during the Edinburgh festival (it's half hour away and about £4 return on train so I spend a lot of time there in the the summer).

I'll say Hugh Whittaker (Housemartins), Dave Parsons (Sham 69), and when I met DP I met the rest of the group because we were drinking with them after they'd been on. It wasn't the original lineup, one of them was in UK subs, and I can't remember about the rest because I'd had a bit to drink by this stage.

There'll be more, but because I'm not usually introduced to them as though they're famous people (I usually meet them as they're friends of friends/family) I don't think of them as famous so they don't spring to mind.

My mum has the best record for seeing people and not realising who they are though. At a touring car meeting (I was at football this time) someone went walking past in a stupid hat and she made a comment to my step-dad about how he must think he's the guy from Jamiroquai, next thing the PA system is saying they've got a special interview coming up with JK. Then on their last holiday Freddie Flintoft and his friends were sat near them in the departures area and she didn't know until someone on the plane said they were always on flights with celebrities.

 

'Kinell...the mind boggles

David Bowie on Greatfield

Can you remember what you talked about?

Once saw Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks walk into Hammonds one Saturday morning in 1974 - think they'd been playing at Hull University the night before

I think at least on that occasion that town was big enough for both of them

 

Melbourne Tiger

Do you know Mike Pearlman? He lives in Melbourne and is a City fan.

I went to see the Edgar Broughton Band at .... I think it was Brid in the early 70s. We were stoned out of our minds on acid and in the bar before the gig. Turned to talk to some guys and asked them if they had any water because we were thirsty and got chatting to them. It turned out it was the band. I was young then and I was surprised how posh they spoke given their long hair and clothes.

I was on Kings Cross station waiting to go to Hull one Saturday morning and somebody said "There's Princess Anne". I thought he was joking but when I turned round she walked past me about a couple of feet away. Her security people were practically running behind to keep up with her.

I met James Johnson on a train back to London after a night match in Lancashire. He lived near me so I would go to his house and give him HCCS documents and chat.

I met David Mellor when he was my MP.

I sat next to Andy Townsend on a train back from a Lancashire City match (again). He had been playing for Welling before he signed for Southampton. We talked about football all the time. He'd had a trial with Sheffield Wednesday when Brian Marwood was playing for them.

 

I was at a chess tournament in London and I got talking to this really good chess player. She was Lithuanian. I gave her my number and she phoned me and she stayed with me a few days before going back to Lithuania. I took her to my local chess club and she did a simultaneous display. She beat about 20 people and drew one game. She was really sweet and gentle but when she played chess she was very aggressive.

I kept in touch with her for awhile but eventually she emigrated to the USA and she was joint winner of the US womens championship one year.

 

Got any more pawn anecdotes?

 

I served nicky B at mcdiddys in Willerby circa 1997

 

Not really. Once I was playing in a tournament and I was playing this woman. She spent ages thinking about her move and then she reached over and moved one of MY pieces!

I told her: "You can't do that".

 

I've also met the Victorian english gentlemens club (see the Friday night thread) in Birmingham

 

I met several touring car drivers but for some reason I never regard them as famous, i go to Donington. When I went it was Maxi Jazz who walked past us (from Faithless- the black dude who prattles about 'can't get no sleep') on the Insomnia track. He's into racing cars quite a lot I think.

 

Knockhill is only about 20 minutes from me, and it's usually at the start of September so it lands on the usual international break in the football so it times well for weather and other commitments. I wouldn't mind going to some of the others, Croft, the new Snetterton, ones with a decent number of corners. Bit gutted that I didn't get to see the Touring Cars on the old International circuit at Silverstone, the National circuit is farcically short but now that they've taken up the tarmac through Bridge it's the only circuit available there. At least Knockhill with it's shortness has a lot of gradient to account for in the corners, it's amazing how much flatter it looks on TV. It's weird as well, Mel C from the Spice girls being O'Neill's cousin, she seems to be at Knockhill every year except when I'm there. I'm not bothered about meeting her myself, but it adds someone to the list. I guess I can hope for Lewis Hamilton now his brother is doing one of the support races for BTCC as well.

Oh I forgot, Spencer from Ballamory is on my list. He was one of our customers and I'd known him for months before someone told me who he was. He now drives one of the buses to the local high school, for the kids that must be a weird experiance.

 

I've met Ian Botham at hull fair, Bobby Charlton at the man utd game, Stephen Mulhern, all of Elliot Minor (they're a band), Billy Joel, all of the Kaiser Chiefs and I managed to speak to both Jack Hobbs and Dean Windass in St Stephens Tesco within the space of 2 hours.

 

Brilliant band. Ban The Gin is the oddest song ever!

I'm working with Chris Evans for a few days at Radio 2 in London in three weeks. Considering he's somebody I grew up watching on the likes of TFI Friday and admired to be, I'm very excited and a tiny bit nervous.

 

You might have a good chance of into bumping Lewis Hamilton, he is close with his brother. As for Lewis himself, I saw him win in GP2 before his F1 career, was busy pointing out to my mates the future star of F1 but they were too bothered with having a few beers and watching the England game on the big-screen to care much!

 

The day he did that 3 car overtake at Becketts in GP2 we were sat at Club, but me and my mum had gone for a wander round the circuit and had got as far as the embankment at Church, so we were watching it as the three of them headed straight at us down the straight from Copse.

 

We were at Club Corner when he did the three car overtake, I remember that much, it was him, Piquet and one other who I will never remember! I'm not even a Hamilton fan as you can probably tell from my picture but it was a good weekend, the actual F1 race itself was quite boring.

 

I've realised, I mean Chapel not Church, Church is another circuit. I've got Pizzonia in my head, but I know it's not him because he was in F1 before that, it's someone with a similar name though.