[ January 13, 2005 ]
This is Hull: Exton's Beautiful Game
This is Hull
Why Exton Enjoys the Beautiful Game
13 January 2005
Courtesy of Gina Dipper
What makes a man stay 44 years with one club?
Ask Tony Exton why he has spent that length of time with local amateur football team Sculcoates Amateurs and he has to think deeply.
"It just happened," he smiles. "I played for Scullys for 10 years - although not very well - and then the secretary Albert Emson died.
"So I was given the job - and 34 years on I'm still here.
"It's a job you either love doing - or you just don't do it," says the 65-year-old retired sales representative from north Hull.
"It's now a major part of my life, I've loved nearly every minute of it and I'll stay here until they kick me out.
"Winning trophies has always been my major plus - and we've won our fair share."
Scullys won the County League championship five seasons in a row from 1991 to 1996, along with the League Cup, the HE Dean Cup and the East Riding Senior Cup two seasons running.
They've also won the Humber Cup and the Dave Whitton champion of champions trophy.
Scullys also made headlines of a different type when they signed Paul Heaton, lead singer with pop group The Housemartins.
"This was in 1986 and caused a fair amount of media attention," remembers Exton.
"He was playing Sunday League football with Grafton and a few of the Sculcoates players were in the same team.
"They recommended Paul to me so we signed him at virtually the same time as The Housemartins released 'Caravan of Love' which went straight to number one in the charts."
"The funny thing was he turned up on his bike, chained it to the changing rooms, and played the game as though he was any other player. That was Paul, he was so down to earth, there was absolutely no edge to him.
"In a following game we had to play in the village of Bainton and we couldn't believe it when they told us to change in a caravan.
"Caravan of Love was the country's number one and the sound coming from that caravan was something else."
Despite his worldwide fame, Heaton still insisted on playing.
"One night I got a call from Milan, it was Paul telling me he was just coming off stage and was catching the next plane home and would be back for tomorrow's game." Heaton, though, was only made substitute when he eventually arrived.
Exton adds: "When Paul formed the South and became more famous, his appearances for Sculcoates were limited.
"He still keeps in touch and has been to many of our club events and presentations."
Sculcoates are currently joint top of the Humber Premier League while Exton's own jobs now include being a County League vice president.
He's been on the league committee since 1973, on the East Riding County FA since 1976 and now organises the British Legion Inter-League Cup and the Dave Whitton Cup.
His own playing days may be a thing of the past, but he remembers playing for Blundell Rovers, White Star, Greenwood, Redifusion, Sculcoates and Southcoates.
"Don't make it sound as though it's a one-man job being secretary of Sculcoates Amateurs, I've had tremendous support from people like Pete Naylor, George Quinn, Trevor Jones, Harry Dobbs, Mark Petch, Darren Lever, Steve Burlock and Pete Smurthwaite.
"Football is a team game and you have to have a good back-room team. I've been very lucky, they've made my life a pleasure."
Delores / Link to Here
[ January 5, 2005 ]
Word: Enters the Greatest Pop Quiz Ever ...
Word
WORD Enters the Greatest Pop Quiz Ever ... and Comes Second
January 5, 2005
Courtesy of Julia Grant
Now we know how Beckham, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate feel. Destiny in our hands, only for us to balloon it over the bar. The Word team was one tie-breaker question away from certainly the greatest pub quiz we'd ever seen: an expenses-paid weak in Las Vegas for the team of six, plus two spouses and partners, all on The Beautiful South's tab. Better, you'll agree, than scampy for two upstairs at your local. We'd already bested thirty rival outfits from the music industry and gone toe-to-toe over five tie-breakers with the players who came joint top - a crack team of trainspotters and CD-alphabetisers from music retailer MVC.
The finale was an epic clash of meaningless trivia. "MVC, when was Madonna's Papa Don't Preach a hit?" 1986? Pah, too easy. "Word, which country act covered Dr Dre's Gin And Juice?" The Gourds! Oh, it was going so well. We could almost hear the rattle of the roulette wheel and smell the complimentary chicken wings. And then...
"Word Magazine, which British solo artist covered Al Green's Let's Stay Together on his debut album last year?"
We got it wrong.
Ah well, we reflected as we made the Walk of Shame back to our table, it had been a good night. The Beautiful South organised without doubt the most lavish pub quiz ever in support of their new album, Goldiggas, Head Noddaz And Pholk Songs. The venue, Porchester Hall in Paddington, resembled a swanked-up working men's club - all dark wood and murals. There had been free beer and free gourmet Square Pies. The badn themselves competed, under the disarmingly honest name Will Suck Cock For Airplay, and at half time gave a short performance. Bon mot of the evening came from Paul Heaton. "It's a nice change for us to be able to sing 'Who ate all the pies?' at the audience instead of vice versa."
Our team - Word Up! - consisted of encyclopaedically-minded writer Dorian Lynskey, Art Director Keith Drummond, Jude and me plus two ringers, Word subscriber Kathryn Hudson and her chap Rupert Cook, who admitted they take the Guinness Book Of Hit Singles on holiday. Spirits rose when we saw the quizmaster was our own Stuart Maconie, who proved unbribable but accepted the commission for this issue's Tom Wolfe feature by text message while onstage and actually reading a question. That's multi-tasking.
It started well. We stormed the intros round, spotted that the writer of Girlfriend on The Beautiful South's debut album was lost Prince protege Pebbles and nailed both the original and hit performers of Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts and The Isley Brothers. But as ever, it's the schoolboy errors you remember. Who produced Lou Reed's Transformer? David Bowie and Mick Ronson, not the Dame and Tony Visconti. Who had a recent hit with Stephen Stills's Love The One You're With? Damn you, Will Young! Days later you should have heard the scream of agony that went round the office when the original version of Yazz's The Only Way Is Up came on. If we'd said Otis Clay, I'd be dictating this from a Jacuzzi in Caesar's Palace now.
In the end, MVC whooped in triumph but we had our consolations. A night at a London Casino on the South's dime, when we intend to win enough to buy MVC outright and fire everybody. the warm feeling of having beaten every other music mag in Britain. And we might not be going to Vegas, but we're proud that we didn't know who murdered Al Green's Let's Stay Together. It was Lemar from Fame Academy.
Delores / Link to Here
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