With football very much with us at the moment, I go back to a great favourite of mine ‘The Love Match’ with Arthur Askey

In the film Arthur’s son is a young professional footballer who has signed for United when Dad, all his life, has been an ardent supporter of City

This is a very funny film from the mid 50’s about Bill ( Arthur Askey) who is a railwayman and a real football fan. He goes to a match with his co-worker Wally (played by the writer, Glenn Melvyn) and by accident he hits the referee with a pie in the face. He is hauled off to court and fined 5 pounds, but Wally, who is deliberately dim, hands the bag of money which was for a railwaymen party to someone who promptly uses the money to pay her fine of 50 pounds.

They then have the task of somehow getting the money back.

There are other characters in this film, namely Bill’s wife – Thora Hird -who has great one liners, his son who is going to play football for the team Bill hates and his daughter, the stunning Shirley Eaton, who is entered in a dance contest in Liverpool. This is a great comedy film.

The screenplay by Glenn Melvyn is superb, and there are genuinely hilarious moments. No matter what kind of comedy you like, this is very highly recommended. Its crisp, the wit keeps flowing and the laughs are plenty.

Alf Hall ( played by Danny Ross ) is Rose Brown’s dim-witted boy friend. When he knocks on the Brown’s front door for the very first time Bill Brown opens it and all Alf can do is splutter out his name “Alf ‘all, Alf ‘all.” Bill’s reply is “Don’t worry I’ll catch you.”

ABOVE – Glenn Melvyn again teamed up with Danny Ross as they appeared together in a stage play at the Victoria Palace in London in the mid to late fifties with Mollie Sugden – and Valentine Dyall – BBC Radio’s ‘The Man in Black’

Valentine Dyall is a name that was around all the time on Radio, TV and films in the fifties. I remember him doing a TV Series with mysterious true stories that both fascinated us and scared the life out of us at the same time

More about him in a later article on this Blog – he is an interesting character