It will be a terrible shock to all you new lads out there but news
reaches me that David Baddiel, Fantasy Football League presenter and
footie fan incarnate, may not always have been as football crazy as one
might suppose.
Former university chum Jon McLeod, of Westminster Strategy, tells me
that, at Cambridge, Baddiel was more interested in donning the latest
Goth threads than a football strip.
‘He was very fashionable,’ McLeod recalls. ‘He was noticeably reluctant
to play and more into back-combing his hair than kicking a football.’
Even after university - where Baddiel managed McLeod’s ‘thrash funk’
band The Red Army Choir - it seems Dave was reluctant to take to the
pitch.
‘All my attempts at lobbying him to attend a game at drizzle-soaked
Regent’s Park were in vain,’ McLeod laments. ‘He didn’t come once.’
* Anyone who does want to play footie with McLeod and his Westminster
Strategy chums, as part of a public affairs league, should contact
McLeod on 0171 799 9811.