Football 365 on Alan Brazil.

[Steed_Train]

Always worth a revisit

 

[Furball man]

I've met Mike parry and in real life he's a bigger idiot then he portrays himself on the radio

I waited 4 & a half years for that reply.
Finally , I now can sleep soundly

 

[Furball man]

It’s actually 3 and a half years .

THATS HOW TIRED I AM !!

 

[paddy spur]

Article in The Times about Alan Brazil with his autobiography being published this week. I’ve always wondered why he doesn’t seem to be held in too high regard by Spurs fans - is that true and is it because there were so many bigger, better players at the time?

Here is the article...

Alan Brazil’s new book has seven photographs from his playing days or with former team-mates, eight where he is in a studio or with talkSPORT colleagues, two where he’s at the racing, seven where he has a glass of booze in his hand, and none of Jill, his wife of 40 years. Surely not a horrible blunder? “That was her request, she likes to stay out of the limelight,” he explains. “She knows me, don’t worry about that.”

Doesn’t everyone know Brazil, or at least think they do? For 20 years he has hosted a live talk show on breakfast radio, one of the most demanding roles in broadcasting, yet many assume he just about keeps things together for his four hours on air and spends the rest of his time marinating in red wine and Guinness. Brazil’s pursuits seem utterly incompatible — industrial drinking sessions and daily 3.30am rises — yet he has consistently pulled it off. Over two decades, what’s one sacking and reinstatement between friends?

Only Here for a Visit recalls his dismissal after overdoing things at the 2004 Cheltenham Festival and failing to turn up for his own show. There are other scrapes and drink-fuelled excesses but that episode is the most revealing because of how the public responded. The station was inundated with complaints and he soon got his job back.
Brazil is a natural broadcaster and raconteur with a great voice and a freewheeling, conversational style. People gravitate to him on the radio just as they do when he has established base camp in the corner of some pub, holding court as the empty glasses pile up.

He doesn’t deny being a natural. “I love cheering people up, telling a few stories, talking about where I went with Ray Parlour or Ally McCoist after the show. Just giving people a wee lift in these dark times. For me that’s what breakfast radio is about. I don’t want to hit them with bad news or doom and gloom. This is talkSPORT, it’s about punters, football fans who love their sport, who might be in trouble with their boss or they were in the pub too late last night and the missus has had a go. That’s my audience.” Would he ever have joined the BBC? “I’m probably too right wing and too outspoken.”

Over the years there have been about 10,000 guests. “We had George Foreman in the studio. When the red ‘live’ light was on he was as nice as pie, talking and smiling. When that light went off and we went to the news or travel? Woof, he’d glare at you with those soulless eyes. I think he was trying to flog his chicken grill and didn’t want to be there. On the other hand, Tyson Fury came in like a breath of fresh air. He opened up like you wouldn’t believe. He was fascinating. I could have done four hours with him.”

The show finishes at 10am and Brazil can soon be found in a favoured bar or restaurant, wine in hand. A session can last until early evening. Not unreasonably, people suspect he has an alcohol problem. “People are just intrigued by my lifestyle. I’m a big drinker but I can go ten days without one. If you think I’ve got a drink problem you try doing radio, getting up at that time in the morning, for even two years, let alone 20. It would be impossible.”

These days he “very rarely” gets drunk, although he can put away quantities that would floor a rhino. “I’m not indestructible. I’m not proud of it but I seem to be able to go on a wee bit longer than others.” The highlight of his social year, Cheltenham, can mean 12 pints of Guinness and a couple of glasses of champagne by 12.15pm, before he has even set eyes on a horse. “And then I wonder why I sometimes can’t back a winner.”

He is 61. His knees, ankles and back are all knackered from his playing days, his complexion is florid, he’s on pills for high blood pressure and he knows he’s too fat. Jill, three daughters and three grandchildren push him to look after himself but he insists he is fine.

“I wouldn’t be donating organs to people or anything like that. I could do with losing three stone, but I’m happy in my body and in my life. Until I start having serious health problems I’ll continue doing what I’m doing.”

For the most part the book makes him sound blessed as a bloke who made one career playing for Ipswich Town, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Scotland and an even more successful one talking about sport. He has maintained a happy marriage, blurred the lines between work and play and thoroughly indulged his love of booze, horse racing, gambling and travel. But not everything can be played for laughs. There is a crunching gear change and a dark chapter in which he recounts being a victim of sex abuse when he was a teenager with Celtic Boys Club, one of a number of youths targeted by men around the feeder club from the 1970s to the 1990s. Brazil gave evidence in court against the man who molested him, the club founder Jim Torbett, who was subsequently jailed.

Brazil believes that people at Celtic knew or suspected something was going on with boys at the time. “I’m not talking about people presently at Celtic. But there’s no doubt in those days they knew something.” A number of survivors are bringing a civil case against Celtic to be heard in court next year, with the club insisting that the boys club was a separate entity. “It’s a difficult one for Celtic because I don’t know what it entails in terms of compensation if more people come forward to sue the club. As far as I’m concerned I’m done and dusted with it but there’s a lot of people out there who might come forward if they thought there was a chance of compensation. If it happened to them, and they’re right, then there should be.”

Torbett is the only person he has ever hated and he writes that while his abuser remained alive there would be a shadow over his own life. “I don’t wish anyone to die, I’d rather that they just threw the key away and just let him rot because he’s destroyed so many people’s lives. These people are monsters.”

In March talkSPORT announced a shake-up, with Brazil hosting only on Thursdays and Fridays. The Sky Sports presenter and rising star Laura Woods and his close friend McCoist took over from Monday to Wednesday.

“I’m really enjoying just doing two days a week now. I still wake up around the same time, half three, but over the weekend or Monday and Tuesday it’ll be about five. I give the wife a nudge to take the dog out then I go back to sleep.”
That is a joke, unless Jill breaks her silence to confirm it, but Brazil’s lines are not everyone’s cup of tea. He is unapologetically old school and knows critics see him as a dinosaur. “Not just me, but people of my age and my views. The way this ‘woke’ thing has gone, give us a break. It’s doing my head in. Racism is different, there is no doubt we have to knock that on the head.

“You’ve got to be so, so careful. You can’t say a thing now. It’s driving me mad. I’m pleased that my 20 years of broadcasting won’t be over the next 20 years because I wouldn’t enjoy it so much. I wouldn’t be as comfortable sitting there, talking the way I do, thinking, ‘I better watch what I say.’ I won’t stop until I stop enjoying it but that may come sooner rather than later because of the way things are now with freedom of speech.”

Other interests pull at him. Racecourses welcome him with open arms, he cherishes family time and walking the pet dog, Hugo. And during lockdown he recorded podcasts on his love of wine. “I ended up getting boxes of the stuff delivered because of it. My wife just looked at me and shook her head.”

Only Here for a Visit by Alan Brazil (Bantam Press, £20) is available now

He's a right wing dinosaur and stands for a lot of things I despise. That being said I can't help but like him. He has charm on the radio and his Cheltenham bashes are heroic. I like the man.

 

[Bazali]

Talking of Parry and Cheltenham
Didn’t he once advocate ‘wing mirrors’ for jockeys?
lol

 

[Legacy Lilywhite]

He's a right wing dinosaur and stands for a lot of things I despise. That being said I can't help but like him. He has charm on the radio and his Cheltenham bashes are heroic. I like the man.

I like him on the radio. But I don’t listen regularly enough to have heard him say anything controversial. A right wing Celtic fan is an unusual perspective.

 

[TonySoprano]

Can tolerate him in (very) small doses but any more than that and it's like listening to the pub bore.

I'm amazed he's still alive, he looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.

 

[mummy]

All morning, from 6am, for the past 3 hours, they've all been laughing about nothing else except Brazil not turning up to present his final morning show of the Cheltenham Week on Talksport. ...Especially the gobby little Scots girl who is delighted that he's not there, so she can build her own part.
Why don't they stop treating Brazil like the 'Cuddly, funny mascot' and get him the professional help he so clearly needs. He's an obese dypso, drinking himself to an early grave. Alcoholism isn't funny.

Yes, he's amusing, but I don't know of anyone who can tell jokes when they're just a pile of ashes in an urn on the mantelpiece.

 

[Nutter-Naylor]

All morning, from 6am, for the past 3 hours, they've all been laughing about nothing else except Brazil not turning up to present his final morning show of the Cheltenham Week on Talksport. ...Especially the gobby little Scots girl who is delighted that he's not there, so she can build her own part.
Why don't they stop treating Brazil like the 'Cuddly, funny mascot' and get him the professional help he so clearly needs. He's an obese dypso, drinking himself to an early grave. Alcoholism isn't funny.

Yes, he's amusing, but I don't know of anyone who can tell jokes when they're just a pile of ashes in an urn on the mantelpiece.

And when he is brown bread they will come out with the usual bollox 'if only we knew' or 'we didn't know it was so bad'....

 

[White Van Jan]

A right wing Celtic fan is an unusual perspective.

 

[White Van Jan]

All morning, from 6am, for the past 3 hours, they've all been laughing about nothing else except Brazil not turning up to present his final morning show of the Cheltenham Week on Talksport. ...Especially the gobby little Scots girl who is delighted that he's not there, so she can build her own part.
Why don't they stop treating Brazil like the 'Cuddly, funny mascot' and get him the professional help he so clearly needs. He's an obese dypso, drinking himself to an early grave. Alcoholism isn't funny.

Yes, he's amusing, but I don't know of anyone who can tell jokes when they're just a pile of ashes in an urn on the mantelpiece.

From 6am he'll be living off bacon sarnies and plates of biscuits put in front of him. He hasn't a chance has he. You'd need insane levels of self control to say no to that lot.

 

[Shotgunofmichalebrow]

All morning, from 6am, for the past 3 hours, they've all been laughing about nothing else except Brazil not turning up to present his final morning show of the Cheltenham Week on Talksport. ...Especially the gobby little Scots girl who is delighted that he's not there, so she can build her own part.
Why don't they stop treating Brazil like the 'Cuddly, funny mascot' and get him the professional help he so clearly needs. He's an obese dypso, drinking himself to an early grave. Alcoholism isn't funny.

Yes, he's amusing, but I don't know of anyone who can tell jokes when they're just a pile of ashes in an urn on the mantelpiece.

Spot on Mummy, It's the last truly acceptable ism left to laugh at, and just like all the other ones, people will eventually wise up and call you out for the cint your are for it.

 

[justin]

Great bloke Alan is. I'm meeting him and Ray parlour in a few weeks time. My mate designed the talksport and talkradio studios so he regularly visits the building for maintenance.

I'm sure Alan will be touched at your concerns for his health.

 

[mummy]

Great bloke Alan is. I'm meeting him and Ray parlour in a few weeks time. My mate designed the talksport and talkradio studios so he regularly visits the building for maintenance.

I'm sure Alan will be touched at your concerns for his health.

He probably won't - but he should be.

 

[Shotgunofmichalebrow]

And when he is brown bread they will come out with the usual bollox 'if only we knew' or 'we didn't know it was so bad'....

This exactly. The enablers are not your freind. They don't care enough to say something uncomfortable to you.