via BBC Sport/Football

Away from the glamour of the Premier League, thousands of footballers turn out for their local team week after week.

Scheduled to coincide with an international break, Non-League Day is about giving football fans across the country the chance to show support for their local non-league side. This year it marks its 10th anniversary, on Saturday, 12 October.

The photographers of When Saturday Comes magazine have been documenting the game for the past 15 years and here we present a small selection from their archive.

Good morning everyone. Today I will be attempting to prepare a full English breakfast at home. Tired of bacon and egg McMuffins or paying the £7-£9 at cafes. I decided to try making my own which will include hash browns! Yes I know it has become an Americanism in the cooked breakfast menu but I love them!

Also, while not that keen on black pudding,  I’m going to include it. And the tomatoes? If someone were to be coming round, you must grill fresh tomatoes I feel, as if tinned would be an insult. The breakfast pictured above is the £6.50 model served at my favourite local eatery.

So, while everything is cooking along nicely, here’s a full article on the history of the traditional cooked English breakfast.

The traditional English breakfast is a national institution. Most of us love a full English breakfast; you can even travel abroad, to the Mediterranean resorts in Spain for example, and find this quintessentially British dish on sale in cafes and restaurants.

Sometimes also called a ‘fry-up’, the full English breakfast consists of fried eggs, sausages, back bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread and often a slice of white or black pudding (similar to bloodwurst). It is accompanied by tea or coffee and hot, buttered toast. These days, breakfast may also include other items such as baked beans and hash browns.

There are many regional versions of this staple. For example, the Ulster Fry includes Irish soda bread; the Scottish breakfast boasts a tattie scone (potato scone) and even maybe a slice of haggis; the Welsh breakfast features laverbread (barra lawr, made from seaweed); and the Cornish breakfast often comes with Cornish hogs pudding (a kind of sausage).

The tradition of breakfast dates back to the Middle Ages. At this time, there were usually only two meals a day; breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was served mid or late morning, and usually consisted of just ale and bread, with perhaps some cheese, cold meat or dripping.

A lavish breakfast was often served by the nobility or gentry at social or ceremonial occasions such as weddings. A wedding mass had to take place before noon, so all weddings took place in the mornings. The first meal the new bride and groom ate together would therefore be breakfast and became known as the ‘wedding breakfast’.

By Georgian and Victorian times, breakfast had become an important part of a shooting party, weekend house party or hunt and was served a little earlier. The gentry loved to entertain lavishly and that included breakfast.

Breakfasts were unhurried, leisurely affairs with plenty of silver and glassware on show to impress the host’s guests. The breakfast table would groan under the weight of the produce from the host’s estate. Newspapers were available for the family and guests to catch up on the day’s news. Indeed, it is still socially acceptable today to read newspapers at the breakfast table (a definite ‘no-no’ at any other meal).

As well as eggs and bacon, which was first cured in the early 18th century, the breakfast feast might also include offal such as kidneys, cold meats such as tongue and fish dishes such as kippers and kedgeree, a lightly spiced dish from colonial India of rice, smoked fish and boiled eggs.

Seasoned Lincolnshire sausages – £1.29
Eggs – £1.25
White bread – £0.49
Organic mushrooms – £1.25
Black Pudding – £1.79
Baked beans – £0.30
Beef tomato – £0.48
Hash browns – £0.69

Et voila!

And there’s enough for another two breakfasts at least!

At the cafe I’m served with toast and butter, which I actually prefer so the reason I made fried bread was because I realised I was out of butter! One thing’s for sure, an essential item for me is for this to be washed down with a good strong hot coffee!

Now I don’t know if that would pass served in a cafe and I didn’t go about it like I was a host on Four In A Bed but then, I’m the one eating it so… bon appetite!

Gerotifant” (according to Getty), the mascot of KFC Uerdingen 05, celebrating a 2-0 victory over VfR Aalen, November 24, 2018.

Soccer is massive in Germany. In many ways, the teams from its local leagues are a reflection of the country itself. And in other ways, their names are just plain funny.

And just how big is soccer in Germany? Germany has a population of over 80 million people (82.79 in 2017), and about 6.5 million of them belong to one of the over 27,000 soccer clubs in Germany nationwide. The DFB’s local league and team website fussball.de lets your browse from the top tier all the way down to the lower levels of amateur leagues based in rural villages.

Now, some German clubs just sound plain naughty…

SV Sportlust Gröna

Sportlust plays in the Salzlandkreis, a rural district in the middle of Saxon-Anhalt, roughly between Leipzig and Hanover. Gröööööööna!

FC Sexau: Pronounced “sex-ow,” this painfully sexy little club is based in a tiny village north of Freiburg in southern Baden. Their first and second teams are currently in first place of the 2. Kreisliga B and C! Aw yeah!

Hymendorfer SV

The “hymen-villagers” hail from the far north, currently dead last (13th) in the “1. Kreisklasse – Kreis Cuxhaven” — something like the 9th tier — near the North Sea, north of Bremen and west of Hamburg.

SV Süptitz

The ‘titz hail from Saxony, northeast of Leipzig. They’re currently second behind ESV Delitzsch in the “Ur-Krostitzer Nordsachsenliga.”

DJK Pörndorf

Where, you ask, lay Pörndorf? Why, in eastern Bavaria, about 40km west of Passau. This particular club is especially naughty, because it’s exclusively a youth club. The DJK stands for “Deutsche Jugendkraft” (= “German youth power”), a very common acronym used for youth clubs.

FV Venusberg

The real Venusberg is a neighborhood of Bonn, but in medieval German myth the Venusberg was the home of a fairy queen and ultimately the inspiration of Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser.

TSV Aßling

And of course TSV Assling 1932 is also based in Bavaria, about 45km southeast of Munich. The Asslings are currently 8th in the “Kreisklasse Inn/Salzach Chiem 2.”

There are a huge number of local clubs founded by the many immigrants who have made a home in Germany. First and foremost are Turkish clubs. Turkish clubs are so common in Germany that they have their own acronym. There are hundreds of clubs throughout Germany named Türkgücü (“Turkish power”), like SV Türkgücü-Ataspor München of the Turkish community of Munich. Many others bear the name “Türkspor” like Berlin Türkspor 1965 or Inter Türkspor Kiel in the far north.

There are many others, though, reflecting a wide array of nationalities. One standout I stumbled across is the Aramaic Christian club Aramäischer Kultur SV Leimen (“Aramaic Culture Sport Club Leimen”), based in a small town south of Heidelberg. There also are Greek clubs, like Griechischer SV Prometheus Köln-Porz 1964 (“Greek Sportclub Prometheus Köln-Porz”) from the Porz borough of Cologne; Italian clubs, like the confusingly named FC Eintracht Italia Köln (yes, Cologne has Italians, too); and many, many more.

FC Sprockets: Fußball durch Technik

If you venture into the former territory of East Germany, you’ll find a variety of clubs whose names recall the gritty, mechanical culture of the Soviet-backed state. Here, club names still evoke dedication to engineering and the hard sciences.

There’s SG Rotation Leipzig and TSV Rotation Dresden (yes, “rotation” is their name); SSV Fortschrit Lichtenstein (“progress” Lichtenstein)/FSV Motor Brand-Erbisdorf (“motor” Brand-Erbisdorf), and even some two dozen clubs named after “chemistry,” like SC Chemie Halle. Of course, there are outliers.

High-tech Bavaria has its own modern SV Plasmaphysik Garching, a soccer club founded by members of a local institute for plasma physics. Alas, a genuine FC Sprockets remains an unfulfilled dream.

FC Why-Is-My-Club’s-Name/So-Frickin’-Long?

One peculiarity of German soccer clubs is a predilection for rather cumbersome names. Virtually every soccer club in Germany has some sort of geographical term in it, ideally a city. Hence the FC Bayern Munichs and Borussia Dortmunds of the world. But in a nation full of tiny villages where everyone still plays soccer, it’s sometimes necessary to band together. That leads to some painfully complete club names. SG Butzweiler/Newel recently merged with the reserve team of SV Aach to create a new team called SG Aach/Butzweiler/Newel in the hinterland of Trier.

Of course, there are many other specimens of such club mergers. There’s SV Frisia 03 Risum-Lindholm near the border to Denmark. TSV Drelsdorf-Ahrenshöft-Bohmstedt, just a bit to the south, is so long they call themselves “TSV DAB” for short. My personal favorite, though, has to be SG Koosbüsch-Weidingen/Wißmannsdorf-Hütterscheid, although they now seem to have dropped Wißmannsdorf-Hütterscheid from the official name.

Of beers and beavers

Beers and beavers are regular occurrences in the German soccer federation — because of course they are. There’s FC 1934 Bierstadt (“beer city”) based out of . . . “beer city,” a suburb of Wiesbaden. Then there’s 1. FC Bierbach 1921 (“stream of beer”) near Saarbrücken, well west of Stuttgart.

But it gets so much better: the Altbier Rangers (“ale rangers”) based in Düsseldorf survived for a few seasons, at least until 2014-2015 — the date of their last squad picture. The Bierfreunde Mett (“beer-friends minced-raw-pork” — yes, mett is minced raw pork) played in the “Hobbyliga” of Düsseldorf for a year.

There also is a short-lived (2015-2016) 1. FassbierClub Kölsch (“1st Kölsch beer-on-tap club” — get it? 1. FC Kölsch?) on record. They were based, not in Cologne, but at the University of Passau in eastern Bavaria, playing against a strange array of clubs like Arminia Bierfehlt (“beer’s missing”), the Queens Park Pussy Rangers, Hangover 96, Fellatio Roma, Crystal Phallus — ahem… moving along now…

FC Germania Bieber (“Germania beaver”), not to be confused with Justin Bieber FC (an Indian Justin Bieber fan club, of which our own Ineednoname is a member), is a small club near Offenbach, near Frankfurt. That is hardly the last beaver club in Germany. There’s FSG Biebertal (“beaver valley”), SV Bieberehren (“beaver honors”), SV Hofbieber (“court beaver,” like a court jester), and — my personal favorite — VfL Oberbieber, the “Club for Light Athletics Supreme-Beaver.” Believe it or not, Oberbieber is a real place, a suburb of Koblenz north of the Rhine.

JRR Tolkien 1937

A few German clubs sound like they’ve been taken straight out of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and maybe they have. Suspect no. 1 is SV Schwarz-Gelb Radegast. You might recall Radagast the Brown, whom the Istari sent to Middle Earth along with Gandalf the Grey.

While Tolkien never elaborated much on Radagast’s personality, he was clearly a baller, playing as a (very) deep-lying midfielder for the forces of light against the Dark Lord. How he became Radegast the “black-and-yellow” in Eastern Germany is another tale.

Germany also boasts a few Silmarillion-sounding clubs in SV Fortuna Dingelstedt 1922, near Brunswick in central Germany, and FC Fortuna Dingolfing north of Munich.

FC WTF?

And then some German club names just catch the eye on their own unique merits.

DJK Don Bosco Bamberg: “Don Bosco” isn’t Don Ballon’s latest competitor, but rather St. Giovanni Bosco, an Italian priest who became famous during the 19th century. Bamberg being in Catholic northern Bavaria, this youth team was founded by a priest in 1950 and once managed to win promotion all the way to the Bayernliga.

Wormatia Worms

Worms is already just the coolest city name, but add the same name in Latin, and you get Wormatia Worms. The full name is VfR Wormatia Worms 08. This team is actually one of the bigger ones on this list, playing in the 4th tier of German soccer. They were even once in the top flight before the Bundesliga was founded in 1963.

KFC Uerdingen 05: Kentucky Fried Chicken Uerdingen? Alas, no. The unusual acronym KFC stands in this case for Kriegspiel-Gemeinschaft, “war-games-association,” derived from the name the club adopted during WWII. This KFC is based in Krefeld, just to the northeast of Mönchengladbach in North Rhine-Westphalia, and their mascot is reportedly the monstrosity named “Gerotifant” you see at the top of this page.

SV Spielberg: Spielberg is a real place, a suburb of Karlsbad, which itself is a suburb of Karlsruhe in Baden-Württemberg. It would have been pretty cool if ET had his own club, though.

MTV Leck von 1889

No, that’s 1889, not 1989, so no Dire Straits on this MTV. MTV is actually a fairly common acronym for German soccer clubs. It stands for “Männer-Turnverein,” i.e. “men’s gymnastics club.” This particular MTV, from Leck near the Danish border, has multiple divisions, including a chess team.

Here are a few others…

Polizei SV Flensburg III: The third team of a police department? Believe it or not, there are many clubs in Germany that trace their roots back to the local police. One of BFW’s writers in fact plays for a Polizei club based in Mannheim (disclaimer: they’re not actually all cops anymore). Polizei SV Flensburg was founded by police officers in northern Germany not long after WWI, in 1924.

FC Spöck 1929 or TV Spöck 1896? It’s so hard to choose. SV Spöck and TV Spöck are different clubs in the same tiny town of Spöck and share virtually the same grounds. They’re based in fact right across the street from one another.

SV Battuna Beach ‘99: I can’t find where exactly this club is based, but it plays in a 1. Kreisklasse league against a bunch of villages north of Leipzig. Maybe one of the local ponds is called “Battuna”?

1. FC Ranch Plauen: This unusually named club is also based in Saxony, but south of Leipzig. There’s also a 1. FC Wacker Plauen, and SV Concordia Plauen, and a VfB Plauen Nord. That’s a lot of Fußball for one Plauen!

SSV Blau-Weiß Barby: Another blue-white Saxon club near Magdeburg. Barby just happens to be the town’s name. They’re still searching for their own SV Ken.

1. FC Willy Wacker Hechtsheim 1973

Willy Wacker and the … sausage factory? As the club’s page explains, after the club was founded and celebrated its first win, the founders settled on the name “FC Willy Wacker” after a Saturday comic series in the local newspaper in Mainz — but changing an i to a y. Willi Wacker was the German version of cartoonist Reg Smythe’s Andy Capp.

PSV Bork: Bork bork bork! This club is based in the village of Bork just north of Dortmund.

1. FC Aha 1976: FC Aha! Aha is a hamlet just outside of Frickenfelden, which in turn is a part of Gunzenhausen (each of them has their own FC [insert town name here]) — all in Bavaria, of course, between Munich and Nürnberg.

And on Nürnberg, as I had been conversing with someone in Hamburg on one of the forums I frequent, it seemed a fitting end to this post to take a llok at them and where they’re at.

1. FC Nürnberg

I wasn’t any different to any other teenager growing up in Farnham. If you were tall enough you could chance your arm trying to get served in the Wheatsheaf or The Hop Bag… or wherever. Leaving school my first job was working for the office of a steel stockholding company not far from The Hop Bag. The boss was a fat Tory man called Archie who had gout and my immediate boss was a young wannabe guy in his forties called Paul Singleton with the middle name of, I kid you not, Groundwater.

I witnessed drinking and its behaviours much earlier than that as I was allowed in the Central Club in South Street. One of my best memories of that place was the juke box. One time they’d got John Lennon’s Imagine but that never got played as much as the flipside Working Class Hero. Those of you who know that song will understand why it got taken off… eventually but not before us kids had had a good giggle about it.

When I was old enough to legally drink there, it was the eighties and what I enjoyed most was the table top video games. They were in most of the pubs, the likes of Asteroids and co but Space Invaders was my favourite. Who remembers it was fourteen aliens you killed before waiting at the bottom for the Mothership to go across the top to get your big points. Once eighteen, my favourite tipple was Snakebites and rum and black chasers.

Wages were spent by the following Wednesday mostly if you got paid weekly on the Friday. My nights out were either at the Jolly Sailor or The Lamb in town; I never went in the Coach And Horses. I knew it had a reputation along the lines of Saturday night’s alright for fighting but I didn’t want to get a little action in.

On a recent visit to my hometown I saw that the Coach And Horses had gone but so had all of The Woolmead! That used to be great on Saturday mornings as there was this cafe called The Gorge with its waterfalls and stalagmyte-like caves where you’d get a cola float or a milkshake maybe before heading to spend your pocket money in Pullingers or Our Price. The above is all I could really find for The Gorge; it’s certainly no longer in The Woolmead – has it moved elsewhere?

On ShotsWeb there was a discussion that began off-topic about Farnham’s pubs and LowerBourneShot mentioned that The Eldon Hotel was no longer. I didn’t remember that but knew The Fox of course and The Cricketers. You’d pass those on the drive out to Frensham Big Pond.

On the cricketing theme, there was the Ball and Wicket at Hale (long gone apparently) but the Bat And Ball Inn is still going and there’s a website with plenty of info.

The Bat and Ball is a Freehouse in the true sense – A family run public house over 2 generations and run completely free of any brewers ties. We are a traditional country pub offering excellent food and drinks whilst boasting a large child friendly garden with lovingly kept flower borders. The pub has been around for over 150 years and is located close to the Surrey/Hampshire border, nestled in the beautiful Bourne valley on the South side of Farnham. We are passionate about the quality and range of our food, using locally sourced produce as much as we can. Beer is just as important to us, so we have 6 constantly changing local traditional cask ales as well as local ciders and craft beers to tempt you.

I wondered how many of the pubs and inns were still around these days. The Spotted Cow at Lower Bourne is still going. On Sundays we were either taken there because it had a playground or we went over to The Cambridge Hotel in London Road, Camberley. There I’d listen to trad jazz and have chicken in the basket and a coke (too young for ale at the time) but they were very happy times.

The Albion, still there, was opposite my old primary school. My mum worked at Martonair. That’s gone and so too has Crosby Doors!  And the Seven Stars!

Farnham was such a great town to grow up in with summers playing down Gostrey Meadows or Farnham Park or at the open air swimming pool. And there was Aldershot FC a few miles away of course! Living in The Chantreys, West Street was my main walk into town and why The Plough and The Jolly Sailor were pubs I used most although from work, sometimes I’d lunch in The Bush Hotel.

Mekki’s is interesting isn’t it seeing as Aldershot had Adam Mekki at one time playing for them. Doubt there’s a connection but others would know. Used to be The Exchange and that’s as much as I know. I can only find images of The Exchange or related pictures of a pub that I don’t know of called The Mulberry.

So these are the ten pubs I remember best that are still going, oh and remember I made a post about that singer Peter Crutchfield? Here’s a song he’s done asking where have all the pubs gone.

THE JOLLY SAILOR

THE QUEEN’S HEAD

THE LAMB

THE MARLBOROUGH HEAD

THE HOP BLOSSOM

THE WHEATSHEAF

THE SHEPHERD AND FLOCK

THE SIX BELLS

THE ALBION

THE PLOUGH

Finally, I found this article that gave a list of Farnham pub closures going way back when.

Farnham has lost lots of Pubs over the years, here’s a list of them in order by date.

Darlington’s post-war story is mostly one of serial, stubborn survival. The core of loyal fans are taking pride in past players, from Arthur Wharton, England’s first black footballer, who joined in 1885, to Craig Liddle, who played 315 matches in defence from 1998 to 2005.

And at Feethams, the unique, charming ground for cricket and football, with its twin towers, which sits abandoned in the town, missed by all who have shivered in Reynolds’s 25,000-seat arena since he moved the club there nine years ago.

The last owner, Raj Singh, appointed Madden after declaring the club unsustainable at the arena, having thrown in around £2m in three years, and been crippled by the stadium’s running costs. A local consortium is looking into salvage possibilities, but the overwhelming obstacle is the vanity stadium Reynolds built and named after himself.

With crowds of less than 2,000 huddled into one stand, the Darlington Arena is a rattling monument to the reckless buying, selling and mismanagement of historic football clubs.

The Football League used to laugh at the very idea of testing whether football club owners were “fit and proper people”, and back then it presented Reynolds in supporting evidence. He was a respectable businessman, it said, whose criminal career, which earned him time in prison for robbery, was behind him, so how would a test barring criminals apply to him?

The answer was obvious, incorporated into the fit and proper person test when the League finally adopted it in 2004, that convictions are a bar until they are spent.

But Reynolds’s case posed more difficult questions about his fitness, and the source of his money, which were never tackled, and to which football clubs are still vulnerable. He had made a fortune in chipboard, and via his company, GRUK, put £7m into Darlington, which was in financial difficulties then, with Feethams requiring repair.

Later, in 2005, Reynolds undertook not to act as a company director for eight years due to “unfit conduct” which, according to the Insolvency Service, was that the money was sunk into Darlington while GRUK was making “gross losses”, “to the detriment of GRUK’s creditors … imprudently or irresponsibly.”

Reynolds, in his autobiography – Cracked It! – chronicled his criminal life as a safecracker and thief, and the Dickensian misery of his childhood, when he was consigned to a residential approved school, where he was beaten and abused. But sympathy and admiration for his success dried up among most Darlo fans because Reynolds was a bully who did not listen to supporters dissenting from his grand plan.

Had he done so, he would never have considered spending around £20m building a 25,000-seat stadium for the Quakers.

In his time, and that of subsequent owners, it has proved a millstone to service, and a miserable experience for spectators. In October 2005 Reynolds, having lost the club and been forced to put it into administration, was convicted of defrauding the Inland Revenue and sentenced to three years in prison.

The arena is now owned by two businessmen, Philip Scott and Graham Sizer, who lent the last owner, George Houghton, £1.7m at 10% interest. They are not interested in taking over the club but said they will talk about a favourable rent deal for anybody who will.

A local consortium has been formed but the shortage of money is so acute that Madden is warning the club will fold before they have had a chance to inspect the disastrous accounts and consider whether any plans are viable.

Madden said he dismissed 12 staff the day he walked in because there was no money to pay them, and five employees remain, plus the players and the club legend Liddle, now the caretaker manager, awaiting their fate.

The supporters trust has raised £50,000 over years of rattling buckets, and some are urging it to hand that over now, to give the club a brief while longer to see if a rescue can be achieved. However, the trust says there is no viable long-term plan in which it can properly invest its members’ money; they do not want to lose it for Madden’s fees.

For years, since the first in a straggle of administrations, the trust has been preparing contingency plans for forming its own supporter-owned club and starting again, as AFC Wimbledon, now in the Football League, did, should the club finally fold.

Claire Stone, the trust secretary – the chairman, Tony Taylor, resigned following abuse he received – said she takes her autistic son, and four other young people with similar difficulties, to Darlington’s matches.

“Going to support the football has been a great benefit to these children; they have learned to socialise with each other, and make friendships.

If the club does fold, we will be devastated. We love the club, we want it to continue, but we cannot throw trust members’ money into a black hole.”

If Darlington do die, in the greatest financial boom English football has ever known, it will be at a folly of a stadium, built with millions improperly spent while Feethams, a beloved sporting home, sits rotting back in town.

That was a piece from an article published in The Guardian back in January 2012 when the death knell was sounding for one of our football league’s most loved clubs.

I say that because I always remember Darlo as perennial underdogs (and you do get status from being such) while as a traditional northern club, they were rich in cup history and slayed many a giant across the years. In any event, the sad demise of Darlington and that report apropos, came just a few years after another battle for survival, documented here in this article from the BBC.

What is it about following Darlo that seems to attract despair and joy in disproportionate measures?

In 1993, a farewell presentation was made to Dennis Thompson, my predecessor at BBC Tees (then BBC Radio Cleveland). Dennis had been covering the Quakers for around 30 years and somebody joked after the event: “Two good years, Dennis, and 28 bad ones.”

I think I’ve got almost the same ratio, since I started watching the Quakers in the early seventies as a teenager.

In only my second season, we had gates of around 1,000, and around Christmas one year, we lost 7-0 at Bradford City. The manager said afterwards: “That won’t happen again” – but a week later, we were thumped 7-0 at home by Southport.

In those days, Darlo were lucky that there was no automatic promotion and relegation into the Conference as there is now. The old pals’ act usually came to the rescue – that and the fact that Darlo is one of the stops on the main railway line and is right next to the A1. Barrow were booted out of the league because they finished at the bottom of the old Fourth Division at the wrong place at the wrong time – and Barrow doesn’t have a railway, and the nearest motorway is 40 miles away.

Owners have come and gone, the dim rays of hope have all too often been shut out, like a light bulb suddenly blowing when you arrive home from an away match at 3 in the morning.

The club has probably had more crises than any other in the Football League, and it hasn’t been helped by the spiralling costs of running a football club over the last three decades.

Managers have come and gone, so have ambitious owners who have vowed to turn the club – which hasn’t tasted football at a higher level since 1992 – and that one day it will play in the Premiership/Championship/Division Three.

Yes, it could be the Premier one day – the UniBond Premier.

And then, of course, there’s that 25,000 seater stadium, so grand, but so empty.

Feethams was maybe past its best, but it had a unique character – plus for us fans, you could walk all the way around the ground so then you could stand behind the end that Darlo were attacking, or in some of the bad seasons, watch them defend badly from 100 yards away.

There have been some great moments in the last thirty years or so. Back to back title wins in 1990 and 1991, a trip to Wembley for the play offs in 1996, a play off win against Hartlepool in 2000, a league cup draw at Leeds – and it’s the prospect of some sort of repeat that keeps us going.

Many fans thought before the home game with Rochdale on a Tuesday night in February that this could be Darlo’s year for promotion – and then suddenly at 11pm somebody switched the light off. We were in administration again, the Football League deducted ten points, and we’re trying to raise cash to save the club. Again – for the second time in six years, and for the umpteenth time in 35 years.

Why do we bother? Because it’s part of our lives and while we have more bad years than good, we always hope that there’ll be one good year around the corner.

So how had Darlington got to this stage in the first place?

In 1999, the club was bought by local businessman George Reynolds, who had huge ambitions for the club. This was shown by their unsuccessful approaches for players such as Paul Gascoigne and Faustino Asprilla, along with the brand new Reynolds arena. However, his ambition was the start of the end for Darlington.

Before the move to the Reynolds arena, Darlington played at Feethams, an 8,000 capacity stadium, right in the heart of the town. With Darlington only 30 miles away from Newcastle, many of the 100,000 population supported the Magpie’s, meaning that Feethams’ was rarely sold out. The small, intimidating ground suited Darlington, who became an established Football League club. Then Reynolds, in 2003, moved the club to the Reynolds arena.

On the outskirts of town, the Reynolds arena has an impressive capacity of 25,000, more than some Premiership clubs. An attendance of around 11,500 fans saw Darlington open the stadium against Kidderminster but this remains the stadium record to date. Even derbies against Hartlepool failed to attract large numbers, with the ground has averaging around 1,500 to 2.000 fans.

Six months after the completion of the stadium, Darlington went into administration. The cost and maintenance of the stadium (rumoured to be around £80,000 per month) was too much for the club to handle and it only survived due to a benefit match featuring ex-players such as Dalglish, which raised around £100,000.

Five years later the club was back in administration with the situation off the pitch affecting the one on it. In 2010, the club were relegated from the football league.

Darlington has remained in the Blue Square Premier ever since, struggling to attract crowds as the future looked bleaker and bleaker. The club won the FA trophy in 2011, but five months later, the club went back into administration. This saw a remarkable effort by fans, who helped raise money to pay for the club’s pre match meal, with the players only making the match due to the efforts of a local Newspaper.

The case of Darlington is a sad one, with one man’s ambition proving to be the downfall for the club. Fans plan to bring the club back under a phoenix name in a stadium closer to the town, where the Darlington story can start again.

The recent efforts of the fans and Liddle are truly remarkable, as they try to raise every pound they can in an effort to keep the dying club alive.

But there have been some better times:

Darlington 1883 were crowned Northern League Division One champions in 2012–13 with a club-record haul of 122 points, scoring 145 goals in the process. In the 2013–14 season they were Northern League Division One North runners-up, but lost in a play-off semi-final against Ramsbottom United.

Before I go on to look at where Darlington are right now, this piece taken from the blog ‘A Beautiful History’ tells us how Darlo came to be originally.

Despite there being a football club in the town since as far back as 1861, the Darlington Football Club that we know today grew from a meeting held at Darlington Grammar School in July 1883. They soon grew to be the leading club in South Durham and in 1889 became one of the ten founding members of the Northern League. Success followed with championships in 1896 and 1900, and the club moved on to the North Eastern League. Annual applications for Football League membership showed the club’s ambition, and although unsuccessful until 1921 they took professional status just before the First World War.

Football has been played at Feethams in one form or another since the 1860s. Feethams ground itself was originally rented from a certain magnificently named John Beaumont Pease, a prominent member of the local Quaker community. The ground was re-laid with turf from the old Park Street cricket ground, where cricket had been played since 1839. The early founder’s religious persuasion led to the team’s nickname of The Quakers.

Darlington took on the blue and white stripes of the first club in town, who in turn adopted these colours from the town’s shield, representing the River Tees. They introduced for themselves black and white hoops when they became founder members of the third division north in 1921. The choice for black and white was inspired by the traditional dress code of the Quakers and remains until today, having seen over the years both unusual and fashionable variations in shirt patterns, including chevrons and chest bands.

Towards the end of the penultimate century the town had adopted a locally designed “badge” or “symbol” which was widely used on uniform buttons, public transport and Council documents and publications.  This was unofficial and never registered with the College of Arms. It also became Darlington’s first badge. The shield shows the Stephenson’s ‘Rocket Locomotion’, Stockton and Darlington Railway’s first steam engine, which dates from 1825.

The St. Cuthbert’s cross commemorates the legend of the monks of Lindisfarne fleeing from the Danish invaders. They carried with them the body of the Saint and eventually came to Darlington. On the spot where the body rested an early Saxon Church was built. Hence the Parish Church is named after Darlington’s Patron Saint, Cuthbert. The white and blue lines symbolise the River Tees. The motto ‘Floreat Industria’ means “Let Industry Flourish”

Darlo these days

Feethams these days means luxury homes. Darlington ground shared with Bishop Auckland at Heritage Park for a few seasons then struck a deal with Darlington Rugby Club to ground share at Blackwell Meadows in the town and have redeveloped the ground up to National League standard since. 

Vanarama Northern League

Some household names there aren’t there. Kettering, Hereford and Altrincham with FA Cup pedigree and Southport, Chester and York City, all previously found in the fourth tier at least.

But while the Quakers may have had their oats so far as English league football is concerned, it’s good to know that Darlington are still alive and kicking.

From the national stadium in Oslo to a windswept but beautiful pitch in the Arctic circle, here are the best football stadiums in Norway.

Groundhopping is a popular hobby among football fans. Some in the UK try to join the ’92 Club’ by visiting all the stadiums used in the Premier League and Football League.

Others visit a stadium in a different European country each year. Norwegians join in on the hobby too. One Norwegian football fan interviewed by the BBC has been to over 400 grounds in the UK!

Norway has its fair share of football grounds and it’s relatively easy to plan a trip to a football match whether you’re in Norway or coming from abroad. But the interesting thing about groundhopping in Norway is that many of the most interesting grounds are some of the smallest!

Henningsvær, Lofoten

Up on the rocky islands of the Arctic circle, you find space for a football pitch wherever you can. Here in windswept Henningsvær on Norway’s famous Lofoten islands, this astonishing pitch was dubbed the world’s most beautiful by a UK newspaper.

In this aerial view, you can clearly see the fish drying racks that surround the pitch. These are to be found all over the islands. They are used to dry Arctic cod to make stockfish that is exported all over the world.

This tiny ground doesn’t seat the number of spectators as the country’s biggest stadiums. In fact, you’ll have to take your own chair if you want to sit down! But the bewildering views surely makes this one of the most incredible grounds at which to play or watch football anywhere in Norway. Perhaps even the world.

Ullevaal Stadion, Oslo

From one of the smallest grounds to the biggest. The national stadium hosts the home games of the Norwegian men’s national football team and the final of the annual Norwegian cup.

The Ullevaal Stadion also hosted the home games of Vålerenga until the club’s recent move to the purpose-built Intility Arena. Open since 1926, the stadium has been upgraded several times and now holds up to 28,000 for football matches.

Owned by the Norwegian Football Association, the stadium also stages a handful of major concerts throughout the year.

Fosshaugane Campus, Sogndal

Is it any wonder that the players of Sogndal haven’t been able to focus their minds on the job of staying in Norway’s Eliteserien when they have beautiful snow-capped mountain landscape all around their stadium?

The 5,500-capacity football ground is the centrepiece of the impressive Fosshaugane Campus development, which also includes substantial education and business elements.

One of the downsides of visiting the ground is its awkward location, making it difficult to get to easily. Perhaps that’s why a few years ago, captains of Eliteserien teams voted it their least favourite ground.

However, its location can also be seen as a plus if you plan on combining a visit with a holiday. Sogndal is at the very heart of the fjord region, with the epic Sognefjord, glaciers, stave churches and more nearby.

Lerkendal Stadion, Trondheim

The Lerkendal Stadium is home to the most successful team in Norwegian club football, Rosenborg. Based a mile south of Trondheim city centre, the Lerkendal has the highest average attendance in the domestic game.

It’s also the biggest club ground, so it’s usually possible to get a ticket for most games on the day. The exceptions are usually the 16th May game (the eve of the Norwegian national day) and if and when Rosenborg are closing in on the league title.

Rosenborg’s Lerkendal Stadium in Trondheim

The Lerkendal also hosts Champions League qualifying and Europa League games. In recent years, the likes of Ajax, Celtic and Lazio have played here.

In addition, the stadium hosted the 2016 European Super Cup between Sevilla and Real Madrid. The annual UEFA match is played out between the winners of the past season’s Champions League and Europe League. In recent years the showpiece game has been played in some of UEFA’s smaller member countries.

The large club shop is located within the western end of the stadium, along with a pizza restaurant and the ticketing offices. In 2014, the eye-catching Scandic Lerkendal hotel opened with a panoramic skybar that overlooks the stadium from the 20th floor.

Aker Stadion, Molde

The club that interrupted Rosenborg’s dominance by winning the league title in 2011, 2012 and 2014 play in this smart stadium by the water’s edge.

Funded mostly by Norwegian businessman Kjell Inge Røkke, one of Norway’s richest people, the all-seater stadium can hold 11,249 spectators.

As with Rosenborg’s Lerkendal Stadion, a Scandic Hotel towers over the ground. The picture above was taken from one of the rooms, and the one below from the away end clearly shows the hotel. The stadium is within walking distance from the town centre, so there are several other accommodation options.

The stadium has hosted two international games (Norway v Saudi Arabia and Norway v Scotland) and several Molde games in the UEFA Champions League and Europe League. The stadium has had artificial turf since 2014.

Many visitors combine a trip to Aker Stadion with a trip to one of the many nearby tourist sites. I recommend the nearby Atlantic Road, a trip down to Ålesund, or some hiking in the Åndalsnes region.

Intility Arena, Oslo

The newest stadium on my list is Oslo’s Intility Arena. Capable of holding up to 16,555 spectators, the stadium is the new home to Oslo’s biggest club, Vålerenga.

The opening of the arena in 2017 was a landmark day for the club. After decades of playing at temporary homes, they were finally able to play a home game in east Oslo, their traditional home. A new ice hockey stadium is also being constructed at the site for Vålerenga’s top tier team.

The planning of the stadium wasn’t without its political controversy, with many people against the council selling the land to the club for a symbolic one krone. The club paid for the stadium, at a total cost of around 760 million kroner.

One of the intriguing features of the arena is the incorporation of a brand new school, one of the conditions of the stadium being built. The city council has entered into a 25-year-lease with the club for the school.

The stand behind one of the goals (pictured above) is entirely safe standing, along with one-third of the stand at the other end, which is where away fans are situated. Seats are locked for Norwegian games but can be put into place for European games that require all-seater stadiums.

With direct flights from all over Europe to Oslo, the Intility Arena is one of the easiest stadiums for international football fans to visit.

Alfheim Stadion, Tromsø

The last stadium isn’t on the list for its aesthetics. Depending on the league standings all over the world, Tromsø’s Alfheim Stadion is often ranked as the northernmost top flight stadium in the world.

Coming here for a match can be quite the experience, especially at the beginning or the end of the season. At these times, snowfall is common and the pitch often has to be cleared by volunteers for the game to go ahead.

Football fans of a certain age are sure to remember one of Tromsø’s most famous ever victories. In October 1997, Chelsea came to town for a UEFA Cup match. The English side were beaten 3-2 as a blizzard raged across the Alfheim during the second half.

Other notable stadiums

Other Eliteserien stadiums in easy to reach places include Bergen’s Brann Stadion, Stavanger’s Viking Stadion, and Lillestrom’s Åråsen Stadion. The latter is close to Oslo Airport.

Viz Comic is a British magazine published ten times a year. Since 1979, its irreverent mix of foul-mouthed, childish cartoons and sharp satire has seen its creators hauled over the coals by the United Nations, questioned by Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch and exhibited in the Tate Gallery.

Now well into its fourth decade and suffering from hairy ears, stress incontinence and piles, Viz is firmly established as a national institution, just like Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane, the DVLA and the Porton Down Chemical Weapons Research Facility.

The comic hails officially not from Filey but Whitley Bay, about 25 minutes’ drive from Newcastle city centre. It is a beautiful stretch of coastline. Around the corner from the beach is a Victorian house with a spacious back garden, where there are all sorts of unsurprising family accoutrements – a table-tennis table, a volleyball net, at least one or two cats roaming around (five live there in total) – as well as a big green shed that has been modified into a kind of office, with a sofa, chairs, and coffee-making facilities.

And in this shed are two affable middle-aged men with one of the most remarkable stories in the history of British publishing to tell. It’s a story that encompasses more than 30 years, includes everyone from Hollywood actresses to Boris Johnson to David Bowie, and tells you everything you need to know about the industry’s modern history.

The first couple of decades of Viz are documented in this book by Chris Donald. The short version – also the one everyone involved agrees on – runs like this. In 1979, Donald, a DHSS clerical officer, along with his brother Simon and a friend called Jim Brownlow, set up the magazine from his bedroom in Jesmond, Newcastle. It started as a small fanzine for a local record label, and gradually became more popular around the local area.

It was making almost no money at all, but within six years, a deal had been signed with Virgin Books to publish the thing nationally. By the end of 1989, each bimonthly issue was clocking over a millionsales. At its peak, it was the third-most-read magazine in the UK. Which is kind of odd, because we’re talking about a strange mix of X-rated spoofs of children’s comics, satirical news stories (long before The Onion), funny letters, and other things. It didn’t pander to any one audience, retaining several characters and jokes that really should only have worked for people from Newcastle. Indeed, its comic tone was (and is) all over the place.

Thorp points out: “There were a lot of competitors when we were at our peak, magazines like Zit – they were complete copies of our business model, but they were bound to fail. The thing is, we’ve always been more stupid than actually funny. It’s been things that make us laugh. You need to be genuine or people just won’t like it.”

“I knew it wouldn’t last,” says Dury of Viz’s mega-successful period.

“Really?” says Thorp. “I didn’t.”

TIP TOP… IT’S TOP TIPS!

By any standards, the decline in sales since then has been significant, and it now sells in the tens of thousands, although it’s holding steady. The statement “Viz isn’t as funny as it used to be” has been a mantra for years, and has regularly been printed in the magazine itself. But that’s a common in-joke among its readers, and anyone who still reads it knows it’s not true. So what, if anything, went wrong?

“Well it’s certainly a lot less visible in shops than it used to be, but I think the interesting question is why it ever hit that level in the first place,” says Dury. Viz, undoubtedly a product of its time, happened to absolutely catch the 80s/early 90s media mood, when brash comedy with a fiercely British identity was in vogue. Many readers from that time simply got too old for it. And of course, sales of all British magazines have slumped dramatically.

That’s not to say there haven’t been a number of questionable business decisions over the years. By their own admission, Thorp and Dury are “crap” at business – which is only to be expected, given that they’re illustrators and humourists. The problem seems to be that over the years the people in London paid to look after their brand haven’t been much more competent.

List of Viz comic strips

Finbarr Saunders and his double entendres – a boy with a good ear for homophones. The strip almost always revolves around his liaisons with his neighbour, Mr Gimlet, whose manner of speech is always interpreted by Finbarr as graphically sexual in nature (in fact, it is deliberately scripted this way), usually when Gimlet is reminiscing about everyday situations with Saunder’s mother. However, at the end of each strip, Mr Gimlet and Finbarr’s mother invariably do end up having sex and make blatantly obvious verbal references to their doing so, but Finbarr interprets these as being nothing untoward. Finbarr’s creator, Simon Thorp, described the character as a cross between a small boy and Sid Boggle (Sid James) from Carry On Camping. He is sometimes visited by his mother’s Russian friend, Sergei whose English pronunciation is very bad, which results in his sentences being corrupted in often lewd ways (for instance, “Your mother wants me to fetch her aerosol“ becomes “Your mother wants me to felch her arsehole“).

In 2001, Donald left the magazine. The stress of producing it had taken its toll. “Don’t get me wrong, Chris is one of the funniest blokes I know, says Dury. “But it got very difficult to work for him by the end. We moved into this office, and he got himself a partitioned-off booth. Then we moved office again, and it was even more partitioned off.”

It seems like the more successful the magazine got and the more money he made, the less Donald wanted to be there. In his book he writes, “Once you realise a dream – as someone blessed with more money than sense is often able to do – you discover that dreaming the dream was actually the whole point of the exercise.” Thorp says: “I don’t think he needed to do it any more, and that was it.”

Donald’s resignation was at least in part sparked by the fact that publisher John Brown (the Virgin director who set up his own company to handle Viz around the time of the magazine’s peak) had sold the magazine to former Loaded publisher James Brown’s (no relation) company I Feel Good (IFG), for £6.4 million.

LETTERBOCKS

Dury and Thorp aren’t overwhelmingly positive about either Brown. It seems that John Brown had ideas far above the magazine’s station. Dury says: “They put us up in a hotel in Devon, trying to get us to write a film. We ended up getting pissed and playing pool all week. It was a lovely week, mind.”

Things didn’t really improve under IFG. As Dury puts it: “Under James Brown there were more deadlines than we could cope with. That was pretty horrendous. And the whole issue over payment… At one point we were owed money for six comics [Note: James Brown denies this – see update at the end of this article]. We started putting jokes in the comic itself, asking if anyone had seen IFG’s accounts department. It’s funny now – actually, it was really funny at the time – but it shouldn’t have been like that.”

The magazine was being looked after by a metropolitan publishing clique that didn’t really understand its audience or culture, but thought they saw a lucrative cash cow. Thorp says: “We used to have a lunch in London, because that was what Private Eye did. Apparently that was a good idea. But people didn’t show up. Which isn’t really that surprising. Who’d go to a Viz lunch? Boris Johnson [then editor of The Spectator] did, though. He liked us. He got us to draw stuff for The Spectator, and I think we managed to successfully lower their tone… I’ve seen novelty records, someone came to us with a prototype Viz fizzy drink. I mean, who’d buy that?”

The attempts to diversify the brand carried on long into the 21st century. “The Profanisaurus app looked really popular,” Thorp says. “We thought it would make us rich. Somehow all we got was a bill for the development fee at the end of it.” And the bad business calls seem to have extended beyond the merchandise. Dury says: “We were told too much money was coming from newsstand sales rather than adverts. Then the advertising market collapsed with the credit crunch, and we never heard that line again.”

On the financial side, things perhaps reached their nadir in 2012. The magazine, which had been published by Dennis Publishing for the past eight years, was operating out of an office in Tynemouth, but overheads proved too much even for that. Dury and Thorp were forced to let two members of staff go, and relocated to the shed in Dury’s back garden. “If we hadn’t done it, we’d definitely have gone under,” says Thorp.

Former Viz publisher James Brown denies any suggestion that his company was slow to pay employees. He told BuzzFeed:

“Viz were paid every month – I saw the money come in and out like a tide. I should also point out the publisher Will and I visited Viz monthly and they never once raised issue of late payments. We were a PLC. Held audited board meetings with our directors every month. All retrospective accounts will show fees and royalties going out to Viz every 30 days.”

Viz has, essentially, returned to how it started: a tiny team based in someone’s house, helped out by a team of outside contributors. And now the comic is quietly making something of a comeback. It’s got nearly 300,000 Facebook likes, over 100,000 Twitter followers, and a steady circulation around the 60,000 mark.

“This is the most enjoyable time we’ve ever had,” says Dury.

“You look at the past and you think – how did we ever get a comic out?” says Thorp. “I suppose the one constant thing is that Graham and I have always loved writing it. We always worked as a pair. And we couldn’t do anything else. If we had unlimited money, we’d still do it, we’d just do one book a year.”But then we’d do bugger all and have a massive panic in November,” says Dury.

The magazine feels different, more sure of itself. “I believe it’s funnier now,” says Thorp. “If you look at it [previously], it was very hit and miss.”

And no doubt the internet has changed things a bit. “We get a lot of honest feedback, people saying ‘That was shit’ or ‘That was good’, basically,” says Dury. “But if you start worrying about what makes your audience laugh, it doesn’t really work.”

“It’s an odd culture on Facebook,” says Thorp, “You can have horrific videos of violent things from conflicts floating around on there, but we got censored when we made a joke about how eating Smarties can make you grow tits.”

Which leads us back to that earlier conversation about comic acceptability. “We’re a lot more conscious of what we can get away with now,” says Dury. “I remember in the early days we made a joke about how Angela Rippon had wet herself during a broadcast, and thought it was incredibly daring. Now we’ve got a barrister, but she lets us get away with a lot of stuff.”

Thorp says: “Some of those conversations are hilarious. I remember we had an entry in the Profanisaurus” – a long-running section which documents all the terms one should know in order to swear effectively – “about how flat Kate Moss’s ‘biffing plate’ was. I remember her asking us, ‘What is Kate Moss’s ‘biffing plate’? Could you prove it’s flat in court?’ And we offered a ‘marriage-wrecking affair with Paul Hollywood from The Great British Bake Off’, but she told us that because his marriage was salvaged in real life it had to be a ‘marriage-threatening’ affair. In those cases our trump card’s a good one, which is that everything we write is a lie.”

The comic places a lot more weight on prose jokes. Dury says: “There are a lot more features and letters now. That’s because the thing Viz was originally a parody of – kids’ comics – don’t really exist in the same way. Same with photo stories – we used to send up Dear Deidre [from The Sun] a lot. We get the best responses for the written things.”

Profanisaurus is one of the most popular sections. Thorp says: “That’s generally sent in to us. It was originally Sweary Mary’s Dictionary. The publisher had this site where people could submit, and had paid no attention to it, then one day we had a look and there was just this horrible, seething, racist mass of words, all with ‘copyright John Brown’ under it. But we had some decent ones, and it took off from there.”

And some of the best-loved characters have changed in line with society. Student Grant, a nerdy university stereotype, began to feel outdated. (“They’re customers now,” says Dury.) Roger Mellie was just a sweary TV presenter; now he’s a way to satirise recent media scandals (at the time of writing Ian Botham’s Twitter account has recently posted a picture of an erect penis, and Thorp and Dury are going to have Roger’s do the same). Others remain a constant: Sid the Sexist is still yet to lose his virginity, and Fru ‘T’ Bunn remains a sketch about a baker who makes his own sex dolls (magnificent analysis here).

Viz still retains some of its regional elements, but has an appeal that stretches across the country. Dury says: “Yeah, in a way that’s not surprising. I’m not from the northeast and Thorpy’s from Pontefract – those characters could come from anywhere. Actually, the only characters who are definitely from Newcastle are Sid the Sexist and Biffa.”

And the magazine is far less likely to get involved in ill-advised side projects now. “The thing is, we’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Dury says. “We know our limitations. We’re unlikely to break America with it. We still get offers now – like, a West End producer came to us offering to do a musical. They see ready-made characters that they can take, and fuck up, and then give back to us. We know that now.”

Above all, Viz just aims to be funny. Nothing’s changed. “I like the fact no one knows where we’re coming from,” says Thorp. “No one knows where we really stand. There’s no point trying to be too topical. There are enough people on Twitter trying to make those jokes.”

Over the years, the comic’s built up a pretty impressive cult following. David Bowie’s a fan, as, they tell me, are Bryan Ferry, Mike Judge (“He liked the Sisyphean nature of 8 Ace,” according to Dury), Trey Parker, Matt Stone, “and we’ve got a couple of female vicars who like us,” says Thorp.

The pair have got a lot more efficient at putting the magazine together. They don’t pull all-nighters, and now they have to rely on their kids to keep tapped into youth culture. (Thorp: “We were offering Justin Bieber hot water bottles only the other month.”)

And, little by little, Viz is taking on a new life, led by the internet. If it hasn’t translated into riches yet, it’s keeping Thorp and Dury ticking over, and the magazine remains a fundamentally British institution. “People in Australia and Canada get us a bit, but no, we’re never going to crack America,” Dury says. “That British self-deprecation is a cliché, but it’s important. We’re the first to say the comic’s shit. It’s always been the way. According to my dad, everyone would run out of the cinema when it was time to stand up for the national anthem.”

What Is Zorbing? And Is It Really Fun If You’re Over 20?

Or, as inflated plastic balls float, it could be a new river activity, for those who want to brave whitewater rapids, but are too lazy to paddle. In any case, this is a young sport that’s lots of fun and has room to grow.

From Youtube, this is water bubble zorbing…

Be Prepared

Potential riders should be aware that zorbing is affected by wind speed and direction and, for safety reasons, rides sometimes need to be cancelled at short notice. To avoid disappointment, always call the zorbing centre on the morning of your trip. Clothing is also of some importance when zorbing. Comfortable, non-restrictive everyday clothing can be worn but shoulders must be covered. Trousers or shorts are advised and socks must be worn. Riders who opt for hydro-zorbing are guaranteed to get very wet, so a change of clothes is highly recommended.

Is Zorbing For Me?

Zorbing is not appropriate for those suffering from some injuries and illnesses. If in doubt, check with the zorbing centre before booking. Height, age and weight restrictions also apply for some types of globe-riding. Zorbing is classified as an extreme sport and, as such, is not for the feint hearted. Those whose idea of a dream day out is a quiet walk through the woods might want to give zorbing a miss. That being said, non-harnessed zorbing is often described as being the less extreme of the two types, as riders do not roll head over heels. As such, it is a good option for those who have little or no experience of extreme sports. Those who are new to sphering and somewhat apprehensive should therefore think about begin with non-harnessed or hydro-zorbing.

Experiences of zorbing vary between individuals. Whilst a number riders report feelings of terror or intense exhilaration, many look to zorbing as a guaranteed good time and are drawn to the sport again and again for the comic sensations and escapism it can afford. Unusual and extreme, zorbing should definitely be considered by all those looking for alternative recreation in the countryside.

And here’s a link should you be in the UK and want to try out this zorbing lark:

Go Zorbing (UK) website

Fawlty Towers has been named as the greatest British sitcom of all time, as its creators attribute its success to an era where BBC commissioning “decisions were taken by people who had actually made programmes”.

The sitcom, which starred John Cleese, topped a Radio Times list of the 20 best British sitcoms despite running for only 12 episodes.

It beat other series including Father Ted, Blackadder, I’m Alan Partridge and Only Fools And Horses, winning a special place in viewers’ hearts for its combination of “farce” and “precision”, experts said.

Fawlty Towers, a BBC series, ran for just two series of six episodes each in the 1970s.

But perhaps not all tv comedies work on radio. Fawlty Towers somehow does and occasionally appears on ROK British Classic Comedy channel…

http://rokradio.com/

Conversely, I can’t watch Count Arthur Strong on tv! I think it’s brilliant on the radio though.

I love the true old time shows like Hancock’s Half Hour, The Men From The Ministry and I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again but there are more recent programmes like 1834, Radio Active and The Skivers that either make or just fail to make my top ten radio comedies.

And what are they?

1. The Burkiss Way
2. The Men From The Ministry
3. I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again
4. Round The Horne
5. 1834
6. Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off
7. Jim The Great
8. Beyond Our Ken
9. Hancock’s Half Hour
10. Delve Special

And back to the Telegraph for their top ten…

The 20 funniest radio comedies of all time

10. Blue Jam (Radio 1, 1997-1999)

The dark, very twisted genius of Brass Eye creator Chris Morris was given full licence in this “ambient comedy”, a disturbing mix of satire, music and sketches. Among the recurring characters were a pair of lovers who made increasingly bizarre demands of each other (“I want you to s— your leg off.”). The format was later developed for Channel 4.

9. Ed Reardon’s Week (Radio 4, 2005-present)

A frustrated writer whose big moment occurred in 1981 when he scripted an episode of Tenko is the centre of this brilliantly structured sitcom. The Berkhamsted-based scribe’s relentless need to keep buggering on, relationship with his preternaturally wise cat Elgar and strange charisma when it comes to the ladies give it a wide appeal – and a very human heart.

8. Flight of the Conchords (Radio 2, 2004)

A precursor to the HBO series that saw New Zealand’s fourth-most-popular folk duo attempting to break America, the radio show has Brett and Jermaine struggling to make it in Britain. If anything it’s even funner than the TV version, with much more of Rhys Derby’s hapless manager Murray (his phone calls with Neil Finn, the very patient lead singer of Crowded House, are a recurring highlight), bone-dry narration from Rob Brydon, and even a cameo from reclusive comedy odd-bod Daniel Kitson as the UK’s “king of novelty” Dan and the Panda.

7. Saturday Night Fry (Radio 4, 1988)

Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Phyllida Law, Jim Broadbent, Alison Steadman – how’s that for a cast? This wickedly inventive sketch show sent up bland Radio 4 staples such as the Afternoon Play with savage wit, and a self-aware edge; Law played herself, bitterly resentful towards her real-life daughter Thompson. The “very third” episode was a mockumentary about the show’s history, while in another instalment the cast locked Fry outside the studio while they rewrote his scripts. Chris Morris is reportedly a huge fan.

6. Cabin Pressure (Radio 4, 2008-14)

The longevity of John Finnemore’s sublime comedy is, no doubt, partly due to the presence of Benedict Cumberbatch, but this sitcom about a tiny airline company’s eccentric cabin crew was, in truth, a magnificent ensemble. Take your pick from Roger Allam’s smoothie ex-smuggler, Finnemore’s slow-witted polar bear enthusiast, Cumberbatch’s prissy jobsworth and Stephanie Cole’s commanding but beleaguered company head.
Cabin Pressure: (from left) John Finnemore, Roger Allam, Stephanie Cole, Benedict Cumberbatch

5. Round the Horne (Light Programme/Radio 2, 1965-68)

The crack team of Marty Feldman and Barry Took gave us this sublime and ever-so-slightly risqué sketch show which featured the versatile vocal talents of Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams. It introduced the gay slang of polari to the nation (Bona!), while a generation of schoolboys tittered along to Rambling Syd Rumpo’s innuendo (“Green grows the grunge on my lady’s posset”).

4. The Goon Show (Home Service/Light Programme, 1951-1960)

Spike Milligan drove himself through a string of nervous breakdowns churning out Goon Show scripts, but his fevered imagination gave us one of the greatest influences on modern (and post-modern) comedy, at once daringly avant-garde and deeply silly – and impossible to explain. Monty Python looks tame by comparison.

3. Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (Radio 4, 1992)

No, this wasn’t the mighty Partridge’s debut – that honour will always belong to Radio 4’s spoof news show On the Hour, broadcast the previous year – but it was here that one of comedy’s all-time-great characters first let his desperate, Little England, magnificently insecure psyche roar.

2. Hancock’s Half Hour (Home Service, 1954-1959)

The sublime peregrinations of a tortured genius formed the backbone of radio comedy for Fifties listeners. Hancock broke new ground with its sitcom format, and also perfectly captured the humdrum existence of the post-war suburban man – rainy Sundays, interminable queues at the bus stop and the petty bureaucracy of local councils. There was also more than a dash of surreal humour, which is said to have influenced Harold Pinter.

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Radio 4, 1978-80, 2004-05, 2018)

Before the books, film, TV series and novelty towel, Hitchhiker’s was a radio sitcom – and the best one ever made. It starred Simon Jones (soon to reprise the role in a new series) as Arthur Dent, the mild-mannered Englishman who wakes up to find the Earth is about to be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

Writer Douglas Adams pushed the medium to its limits, conjuring otherworldly landscapes no Hollywood movie could ever match (with help from the pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop). It had a killer theme tune, to boot. Endlessly quotable, often profound, Hitchhiker’s was a sui generis masterpiece. You’d have to be a Vogon not to love it.

Do enjoy below a selection of  no less than thirteen favourites!

Delve Special

Delve Special was a UK BBC Radio 4 comedy starring Stephen Fry as investigative reporter David Lander. It ran for four series from 1984 to 1987, each series being four 30-minute episodes long. It was written by Tony Sarchet and produced by Paul Mayhew-Archer. The first series was wiped by the BBC but has since been found and consisted of a four-part investigation into the proposed building of London’s third airport in “Shifton”, a small village situated ‘just to the north east of Birmingham‘, and the alleged bribery and corruption that accompanied the choice of location and building contractor.

David Lander’s investigative technique was usually somewhere between the questionable and the illegal – during each episode he also displayed some degree of ineptitude or lack of understanding in the subject matter he was reporting on. As a result, he occasionally found himself being set upon physically by those concerned. The programme heavily spoofed the style of topical radio reporters such as John Waite of Face the Facts and Roger Cook, a Radio 4 presenter who went on to television work such as The Cook Report.

Actors appearing in Delve Special included: Tony Robinson, Felicity Montagu, Stephen Frost, Mark Arden, Jack Klaff, Harry Enfield, Dawn French, Brenda Blethyn, Arthur Smith, Janine Duvitski, Philip Pope and Andrew Sachs.

The theme music to the programme was Crunch by Soft Machine.

Blue Jam

Blue Jam was an ambient dark comedy and horror radio programme created and directed by Chris Morris. It aired on BBC Radio 1 in the early hours of the morning from 1997 to 1999.

The programme gained cult status due to its unique mix of surreal monologue, ambient soundtrack, synthesised voices, heavily edited broadcasts and recurring sketches. It featured vocal performances of Kevin Eldon, Julia Davis, Mark Heap, David Cann and Amelia Bullmore, with Morris himself delivering disturbing monologues, one of which was revamped and made into the BAFTA-winning short film My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117. Writers who contributed to the programme included Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews, Peter Baynham, David Quantick, Jane Bussmann, Robert Katz and the cast.

The Men From The Ministry

The Men from the Ministry is a British radio comedy series broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977, starring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Murdoch and, from 1966, when he replaced Hyde-White, Deryck Guyler. Written and produced by Edward Taylor with contributions from John Graham, and with some early episodes written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, it ran for 13 series, totalling 145 half-hour episodes and two specials. A further 14 episodes were made by the BBC Transcription Service in 1980 but never broadcast in the UK, until 2012 on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Versions were made by Yle in Finland, Sveriges Radio (SR) in Sweden, and Springbok Radio in South Africa, where it was made into a feature-length film.

Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off

Two m’s, two g’s. Backpacker, ethnologist, fearless investigator of cultural diversity, and upper-middle-class student ponce from Budleigh Salterton.

The show follows the travel adventures of title character Giles Wemmbley-Hogg (“Two Ms, two Gs”, full name: Giles Peter St John David Habakkuk St John Wemmbley-Hogg), a nice but somewhat dim upper class former public school boy (Charterhouse) played by co-writer Brigstocke. Giles is on a gap year before university, and he records his (mis)adventures with his portable digital recorder, in places such as Bolivia, India, and Egypt. Throughout the series he does somehow graduate, albeit with a 2:2 in Canadian Studies. Later episodes have followed Giles in his search for a job and his engagement to the fearsome Arabella (fondly known as Belly-Bells).

Themes in this comedy are Giles’s naïveté, and small-mindedness, with his frequent (and usually inappropriate) comparisons with life back in his native Budleigh Salterton. In Giles’ first broadcast incarnation, as a recurring character performed by Brigstocke on satirical radio show The Now Show, he is offensively boorish and unlikeable. However, in Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off he is a sympathetic fool and clearly does not mean any harm. Broadly similar characters are Harry Enfield‘s Tim Nice-But-Dim, and P. G. Wodehouse‘s Bertie Wooster. On 9 April 2006, Brigstocke appeared in BBC Radio 4’s Classic Serial adaptation of The Code of the Woosters as Bertie Wooster with Andrew Sachs as Jeeves.

The Burkiss Way

The Burkiss Way is a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series, originally broadcast between August 1976 and November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in early episodes by John Mason^[1][2], Colin Bostock-Smith, Douglas Adams, John Lloyd and others. The show starred Denise Coffey (series 1), Jo Kendall (series 2 onward), Chris Emmett, Nigel Rees and Fred Harris. The series had three producers, announced as “Simon Brett of Stepney“, “John Lloyd of Europe“, and “David ‘Hatch of the BBC’ Hatch“.

The show’s humour was based on surrealism and literary and media parodies, sprinkled with puns.

The series had its roots in two half-hour sketch shows entitled Half-Open University which Marshall and Renwick had written with Mason for Radio 3 as a parody of Open University programmes. The first, broadcast on 25 August 1975, spoofed science, the second, on 1 December 1976, history.

In a similar vein, The Burkiss Way was styled around fictional correspondence courses by “Professor Emil Burkiss” entitled The Burkiss Way to Dynamic Living, and each episode or “lesson” had a number and a title based on one of the course’s subjects: “Lesson 1: Peel Bananas the Burkiss Way”, “Lesson 2: Pass Examinations the Burkiss Way”, and so on. Although the numbers and titles were maintained throughout the run, a significant change of style early in the second series saw the radio correspondence course become a hook rather than a narrative device, and it was mentioned only in passing.

From here on the programme continued in a more conventional sketch format, though it was to use increasingly Pythonesque devices including surreal, stream-of-consciousness linking, back-referencing and aggregation. Like the Pythons before them, the writers lampooned and tinkered with the medium on which the show was broadcast, including spoofs of Radio 4’s continuity style. Many later episodes had false endings, sometimes disguised as genuine continuity announcements. The opening and closing credits might be anywhere within the show. One show ran backwards from the closing to the opening credits, while another was allegedly dropped, broken and glued together with a tube of BBC coffee, resulting in a disjointed running order with many sketches beginning and ending in mid-sentence. For one pair of shows, one sentence was split over two programmes, with ‘Eric..’ ending lesson 37 and ‘..Pode of Croydon’ starting lesson 38.

As time went on the show became increasingly surreal, and in several sketches the writers seemed to see how many strange ideas they could cram into a sketch. For example, one later episode contains a sketch about an amoeba employed by the Department of Civil Service Staff Recruitment and Fisheries as a token Desmond Dekker and the Aces but who keeps reproducing asexually by mitosis while singing a Lee Dorsey song.

I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again

I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again (often abbreviated as ISIRTA) is a BBC radio comedy programme that originated from the Cambridge University Footlights revue Cambridge Circus. It had a devoted youth following, with live recordings being more akin to a rock concert than a comedy show, a tradition that continued to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

The pilot programme and Series 1 were broadcast on the BBC Home Service. Series 2–9 were broadcast on the BBC Light Programme (renamed BBC Radio 2 in September 1967).

It was first broadcast on 3 April 1964, the pilot programme having been broadcast on 30 December 1963 under the title “Cambridge Circus”. The ninth, final series was transmitted in November and December 1973, with fewer episodes (eight instead of the earlier thirteen per series). An hour-long 25th anniversary show was broadcast in 1989. It is comically introduced as “full frontal radio”. I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, a spinoff panel game show, was first produced in 1972.

The title of the show comes from a sentence commonly used by BBC newsreaders following an on-air flub: “I’m sorry, I’ll read that again.” Having the phrase used to recover from a mistake as the title of the show set the tone for the series as an irreverent and loosely produced comedy show.

The Skivers

Billed as coming “from the same stable as And Now In Colour”, the only real connection between the two shows was the presence of Tim de Jongh, who carried elements of his unique brand of humour (probably best described as ‘silly’) into this sketch series, co-written with newcomer Nick Golson.  If The Skivers lacked the polish of similar Radio 4 shows, it was also more than usually creative: a typical routine would begin, “Now, most driving instructors are humans, aren’t they, but I had one once who was a dog…”

The sketches, which also featured Pete Bradshaw and Melanie Giedroyc (replaced by Sally Phillips in Series Three), were interspersed with snatches of music, link-pieces from Tim and Nick, and authoritative but baffling voice-over announcements (“For identification purposes: I am not a toucan”) from, amongst others, Patrick Allen.  But the most important component of each week’s show was the special guest feature.

Lining up to appear as Tim and Nick’s “hero for one day” — and taking part in their surreal, disconnected crosstalk — was a succession of celebrities of, shall we say, a certain status (suffice it to say that Lewis Collins, Rodney Bewes, Britt Ekland and Peter Stringfellow have all appeared).

The Skivers has gained itself a permanent footnote in radio comedy history: the final programme of Series Two was the last Radio 4 show ever to be recorded at the Paris Studio, the BBC’s main venue for audience recordings for several decades.  To mark the occasion, the show featured a special guest who was more special than usual: Spike Milligan, arguably the greatest and most influential figure in British radio comedy.

Round The Horne

Round the Horne is a BBC Radio comedy programme starring Kenneth Horne, first transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The show was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman, who wrote the first three series. The fourth was written by Took, Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and Donald Webster.

Horne’s supporting cast comprised Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and, in the first three series, Bill Pertwee. The announcer was Douglas Smith, who also took part in the sketches. All except the last series featured music by Edwin Braden, played by the band “the Hornblowers”, with a song in the middle of each show performed by the close-harmony singing group the Fraser Hayes Four; in the fourth series, the music was by Max Harris with a smaller group of players than the earlier series.

The show was the successor to Beyond Our Ken, which had run from 1958 to 1964 with largely the same cast. By the time the new series began, television had become the dominant broadcasting medium in Britain, and Round the Horne, which built up a regular audience of 15 million, was the last radio show to reach so many listeners. Horne was surrounded by larger-than-life characters including the camp pair Julian and Sandy, the disreputable eccentric J. Peasmold Gruntfuttock, and the singer of dubious folk songs, Rambling Syd Rumpo, who all became nationally familiar. The show encountered periodic scrutiny from the BBC management for its double entendres, but consistently received the backing of the director-general of the BBC, Sir Hugh Greene. Horne died suddenly in 1969; the BBC decided that Round the Horne could not continue without its star and they cancelled plans for a fifth series that year.

Over the following decades Round the Horne has been re-broadcast continually, and all 67 shows have been published on CD. In 2019, in a poll run by Radio Times, Round the Horne was voted the BBC’s third-best radio show of any genre, and the best radio comedy series of all.

Beyond Our Ken

Beyond Our Ken (1958–1964) is a radio comedy programme, the predecessor to Round the Horne (1965–1968). Both programmes starred Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee, with announcer Douglas Smith. Musical accompaniment was provided by the BBC Revue Orchestra. The title is a pun on Kenneth Horne’s name that hinges on the familiar expression “beyond our ken” (ken being a now mainly Northern English and Scots word meaning “knowledge or perception”).

Eric Merriman had previously written material for Kenneth Horne on Henry Hall‘s Guest Night and Variety Playhouse and written some stand-up comedy material for Barry Took. In June 1957 the BBC Radio Variety department asked Merriman to come up with an idea for a radio series starring Horne. Merriman devised a format for the show with the working title Don’t Look Now. The original memo on the subject still exists in the BBC archives.

The proposal was for a solo comedy series based on a formula of a fictional week in the life of Kenneth Horne. Other memos from the BBC archive show how the proposed format evolved and the discussion of alternative titles, including Around the Horne. (When the programme returned, it was, in fact, called Round The Horne.)

Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show!

Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show! is a sitcom broadcast on BBC Radio 4, written by Steve Delaney. It features Count Arthur Strong, a former variety star who has malapropisms, memory loss and other similar problems, played by Delaney. Each episode follows the Count in his daily business and causing confusion in almost every situation. First broadcast on 23 December 2005, Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show! has had eight series and four specials. In 2009 the show won the Gold Sony Radio Academy Award for comedy, the highest honour for a British radio comedy.

Count Arthur Strong is a former variety star living in the North of England. The Count, now in his old age, has delusions of grandeur. He has selective memory loss, never hearing what he doesn’t want to and malapropism-itis, which result in his confusing anyone he happens to be talking to and even confusing himself. However, he more often than not blames the people he is talking to for causing the confusion in the first place.

A typical conversation for the Count will involve his confusing both himself and others, while becoming drastically sidetracked from the matter in hand. He is usually oblivious to the chaos he causes, often blaming his interlocutors for any confusion. On the rare occasions he realises he is at fault, he often attempts to divert the blame by lying. Inevitably becoming confused by his own lies, his last resort is usually to claim he was recording a stunt for a hidden camera show. The Count does very rarely encounter frustrating situations which are not his fault such as doing a cooking show and only being brought products that were prepared in packets however he tends to simply complain in these circumstances before making matters worse than they were to start with. He has a misguided belief in his ability to hold his drink, and has often performed on stage or live TV/radio when drunk (or occasionally, concussed, with similar effects). He will often go to great lengths to get as drunk as he can as cheaply as he can.

Bleak Expectations

Bleak Expectations is a BBC Radio 4 comedy series that premièred in August 2007. It is a pastiche of the works of Charles Dickens – such as Bleak House and Great Expectations, from which it derives its name – as well as adventure/ science fiction and costume dramas set in the same period, and parodies several of their plot devices (such as cruel guardians, idyllic childhoods interrupted, lifelong friendships, earnest young people), whilst simultaneously tending toward a highly surreal humour along the lines of The Goon Show. The series has also demonstrated a fondness for allusions to and parodies of the films of Alec Guinness, particularly the Edwardian satire Kind Hearts and Coronets.

It is written by Mark Evans, who plays minor characters in most episodes, and produced by Gareth Edwards. Its opening and closing theme is the main theme from the Mazurka from Three Characteristic Pieces by Edward Elgar, from a 2004 recording by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The plot revolves around Philip “Pip” Bin, inventor of the bin and his various fantastic adventures as he attempts to thwart the machinations of his evil ex-guardian, Mr. Gently Benevolent. It is narrated by Pip as an old man to the journalist (and his eventual son-in-law) Sourquill, who brings various useless inventions to assist in recording the events.

The Castle

The Castle is a BBC Radio 4 comedy set in the Middle Ages and referencing modern life: in the words of its own introduction, “a comedy set in the filth, grime, stench and brutality of the Middle Ages, with some nice music”. The exact timeframe of the series is not fixed; one episode specifies it to be in the early 12th century, yet another references Joan Of Arc. It is written by Kim Fuller and, from series 2, Paul Alexander with additional dialogue by Nick Doody, Matt Kirshen and Paul Dornan. It was first broadcast on 7 September 2007, at 11.30am, and a second series began on Friday 2 January 2009 in the same time slot. Series 3 debuted on Wednesday 14 July 2010. Series 4 began its broadcast in 2012.

The Arthur Haynes Show

Arthur Haynes (14 May 1914 – 19 November 1966) was an English comedian and star of The Arthur Haynes Show, a comedy sketch series produced by ATV from 1956 until his death from a heart attack in 1966. Haynes also appeared on radio and in films.

His ATV series, The Arthur Haynes Show (1956–66), networked on ITV, made Haynes the most popular comedian in Britain.^[5] There were 95 thirty-minute shows, 62 thirty-five-minute shows and one fifty-minute show, spread over fifteen series. Haynes’s most popular character was a working class tramp – created by Johnny Speight, now better known for the Alf Garnett character. Speight said he got the idea of the tramp from a real tramp who climbed into his Rolls Royce when it was stopped at a traffic light. In 1963 and 1964 Haynes worked with Dermot Kelly who played another tramp (called Irish), who was not very bright.^[6] Sometimes Patricia Hayes would join them as a woman tramp. In early episodes, the shows were played out on a stage, and basic scenery and props were used where, for instance, the audience could see outside and inside a house, as there was no wall on their side. Later episodes had improved sets. The stars sometimes forgot (or did not bother to learn) their lines, and would ad lib them. If someone fluffed a line, that would be used to get more laughs. Haynes and others sometimes failed to keep a straight face and occasionally burst into laughter.

Finally, from my list, 1834 is really difficult to track down. I have tweeted the author Jim Poyser and if I do get hold of any episodes I will update this post with one.

BBC Radio 4 sitcom. 6 episodes (1 series) in 2003. Stars Michael Begley, Joe Caffrey, Kenneth Alan Taylor, Mark Chatterton, James Nickerson, Toby Hadoke and Julia Rounthwaite.

After a few drinks, English teacher Jason Slater wakes up in the 19th century.

For the 21st Century Cheadle Hulme resident, finding himself suddenly in 1834 Macclesfield is, to say the least, a surprise.

Unable to glean any information on the situation from his faithful valet, Ned, Jim discovers that he is now Tarquin, third son of Lord Belport.

He has also acquired a suspicious brother, a spurned ex-girlfriend and an over-excited Luddite cum cauliflower farmer.

EPISODES

What Century Are You Living In?
Episode 1 of 6

After a few drinks, English teacher Jason Slater wakes up in the 19th century. Stars Michael Begley. From June 2003.

The Time Machine
Episode 2 of 6

As Jason attempts to return to 2003, he gets involved with various culinary devices. Stars Michael Begley. From June 2003.

Strong Continental Lager
Episode 3 of 6

21st-century Jason decides 19th-century Macclesfield needs a decent pub with decent beer. Stars Michael Begley. From June 2003.

Dentists and Lovers
Episode 4 of 6

Ned needs root canal work, but 21st-century Jason needs lessons in 19th-century courting. Stars Michael Begley. From July 2003.

London
Episode 5 of 6

Trapped in Macclesfield in 1834, a bored Jason heads to London, but is waylaid by a mint-loving highwayman. Stars Michael Begley. From July 2003.

Victorian Principles
Episode 6 of 6

When Queen Victoria comes to visit, Jason unwittingly changes the course of history. Stars Michael Begley. From July 2003.