Their big break came with a TV appearance on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1968 – but they came last. When the Newton Abbot (Buckland Athletic) game ended in penalties, their mayor kindly wrote to me afterwards and in his letter he said, 'I wasn't sure your heart was going to make it through the penalty shoot-out'," said mayor Day. The family lived in a one-bedroom house and Bobby slept toe to toe with his two sisters on the landing. The pair were seen together in several reality TV shows: the 2005 series of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Already singing in local clubs under the name Stevie Rhythm, he invited his colleague to join him and they performed first as the Sherrell Brothers, then the Harper Brothers.

The Monday Night Club discuss whether Jude Bellingham is England's best talent since Paul Gascoigne, after he was named best young player at Monday's Ballon d'Or ceremony. However, they had another chance to make their mark on screen as one of the acts throughout all five original series of The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club (1974-77). From 2005 to 2008, Ball appeared in three episodes of Last of the Summer Wine as Lenny, first seen travelling down the canal on a giant inflatable swan.

They have fought their way through six rounds since to reach the last four, with larger and larger numbers joining their Green Army along the way.

Although Cannon and Ball recorded seven segments for the marathon Saturday-evening show Bruce Forsyth’s Big Night in 1978, not all were screened. Littlehampton Town play Loughborough Students in the other semi-final, with the two winners meeting at Wembley on 22 May.

Then, I changed to a striped suit, then bold checks and then, at last, we found the baggy suit and braces I use today. The coaching staff have been doing their level best to keep emotions in check among the players, but head of football Vivion Cox admits the town is at "fever pitch". The show was in the same vein as their previous feature film breakout, as useless police officers, in The Boys in Blue (1982), which was loosely based on the 1938 movie Ask a Policeman, and featured the pair inventing crimes to justify their existence when the police station in Little Botham is threatened with closure. Although it failed to give Cannon and Ball the hoped-for jolt into the new television era that followed the advent of alternative comedy, they continued to perform on stage for another three decades. It's every football player, every coach, every team's dream in this country to achieve that and we're no different.

He also had long-running acting parts as Frank, father of Lee Mack’s fictional version of himself, in the sitcom Not Going Out, from its 2009 series until last year, and Barry Harris, a widower, ageing rocker and father of Sally Lindsay’s high-flying recruitment firm boss Lisa Johnson, in all seven runs of the comedy-drama Mount Pleasant (2011-17). Like Eric and Ernie, their performances were pitched perfectly for weekend TV audiences looking for family entertainment. They were launched on their television career by Michael Grade when he was director of programmes at the ITV company LWT.Newport Pagnell Town are currently fifth in United Counties League Premier Division South external-link , while Dorset-based opponents Hamworthy come from the top flight of the Wessex Football League. In 1983, they set a then record for one-night variety acts by performing 134 shows in 45 theatres over a 13-week spring tour. Later in the run, they introduced a sitcom element to the show, which depicted the pair living together in a well-appointed London flat while performing away from their homes in the north of England.

The run has been financially very good for the club, but the FA rules are that you have to share the profits with the away team so it's not quite as good as it would be if you were taking all of the gate receipts," said Cox. Even people who don't have access to a pool were dropping their hard-earned cash on a piece of plastic filled with air and shaped like poop.

The reason I don’t do blue,” said Ball, “is that, if I can’t fetch my children to see me perform, I’m not doing the right stuff. Named lovingly by David Shrigley himself, the statuesque swan stands at 35 inches tall and comprises all that is to love about Shrigley's charismatic work, while also being pool-ready. According to the listing on Third Drawer Down, the float was originally a sculpture, but the world fell in love with the thing, and it has since been made into a pool float. Bobby Ball was born Robert Harper in Oldham, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester), to May (nee Savage), a cotton mill worker, and Bob Harper, who worked in a rubber factory. Of the other women, he said: “My pride wouldn’t allow me to see that it wasn’t anything to do with me as a person.