Michael Parkinson is football daft.
He caught the disease from his father who stood for forty years in the same spot watching Barnsley F.C., a remarkable feat of endurance hitherto unrecorded.
Michael Parkinson stood alongside his father for sixteen of those years before leaving Barnsley to seek his fortune elsewhere.
He watches for signs of football mania in his three sons. His vigilance was rewarded when, on asking his five year old boy who he most wanted to be when he grew up, he was told 'Bobby Charcoal'.