Madwoman, Lager Dave and Scottish Norman

I’VE met quite a few weird and wonderful people in my time.

A lot have been press photographers and computer geeks but a fair few have come from non-league football — characters like Lager Dave.

He got his name because he would always order two pints of lager after a match and by the time he got to his seat he had spilled about half of each and only had one pint in total.

Dave, who had a wild mass of unruly silver hair, was always to be found behind the goal, worse the wear for drink. He always had a radio with him and a carrier bag containing a newspaper. His cries of “come on the pride of Hyde” could be heard far and wide.

His greatest moment came on Christmas Eve, 1983, when he participated a little too enthusiastically in the hokey-cokey and fell backwards into the tree. He lay there for a few moments, legs flailing, covered with lager and fairy bulbs, before being carried out.

Funnily enough, I saw him one morning when I was a postman. He stepped out of a lift as I was getting in. His hair was combed and he was wearing clean, ironed, binman’s overalls. “Morning Dave,” I said cheerfully. He squinted, and then said: “Do I know you?”

But the most weird and wonderful person I have ever met is my friend’s mam, Crazy Clara, known to us all simply as Mad or the Madwoman. A psychiatrist would have a field day with her.

At my wedding, she complained that the soup was too hot and the ice-cream too cold.

This forced my Scottish friend Norman to turn to me and say: “That wooman, she’s doin’ ma heed in.”

At sport, she always supports Germany. And she doesn’t like dolphins or any aquatic life. Certainly not sharks — they could have your arm off.

When I was a sports editor, I was unbelievably busy one Tuesday evening. Suddenly the phone rang and it was Mad. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “I don’t mean to be rude but I have got lots to do.”

“I just wondered if you knew how to cook a haggis,” came the reply.

“Why on earth would I know that?” I asked, utterly amazed.

“Well,” said Clara, “you go to Scotland every year don’t you?”

Her greatest moment, God love her, came when her son rang her from holiday.

At the end of a 20-minute conversation, as the pips were going, she said: “I don’t want to worry you, but your dad’s had a heart attack.”