Bob Paisley on This Is Your Life is fascinating look at a bygone time | Barry Glendenning

Dec 11, 2016

With Liverpool in their 1970s pomp, their manager was ambushed by Eamonn Andrews on the team bus after a game at QPR

With the original tape long destroyed in some needless ITV purge, such was the hubbub of excitement when a recording of Bob Paisley’s 1977 appearance on This Is Your Life surfaced unexpectedly last week that one could have been forgiven for assuming intrepid relic hunters had actually been searching for it in the first place. Indiana Jones and the Quest For A Complete Recording Of The Appearance Of A Former Liverpool Manager On A Once Ridiculously Popular Midweek Light Entertainment Show Presented By Eamonn Andrews might not have much of a ring to it, but would almost certainly have made for far more entertaining viewing than the intrepid archaeologist’s critically panned search for the legendary crystal skull of Akator.

The truth seems more mundane. A bloke called Pete Day seems to have chanced upon a complete recording of the Paisley tribute on VHS (teenagers, ask your parents) and uploaded it to YouTube (parents, ask your teenagers) for anyone who might like to watch it. Indeed, perhaps the most surprising thing about Day’s exotic find is that, in the fine tradition of hidden video treasure in that dusty cupboard under grandad’s telly, the crucial moment when Andrews surprised Paisley with the iconic Big Red Book did not segue abruptly into a recording of a different show: an episode of Minder or Ned’s Atomic Dustbin soundtracking a hideously drunk Oliver Reed as he slurred his way through Wild Thing on Channel 4’s much maligned but sadly defunct weekend “yoof” vehicle The Word.

Tags: Football Liverpool Sport