It’s the same old story – Cliff Richard fans are out camping in a car park to buy tickets to a celebrity tennis tournament which go on sale on Monday. The reason for this excitement is supposedly because it’s the last time Cliff will be playing tennis. He’s 64.
Cliff Richard fans, as we all know, are completely mad (Well not as mad as Michael Jackson fans, but I’ll leave that alone since someone who works not too far away from me is a member of that “community”).
Years ago I was travelling home on the tube at around the time of one of Cliff’s concerts at Earls Court had finished. Being in that carriage was like being shut up with a large number of your mum’s dottiest friends. You could smell the HRT.
But my favourite memory of Cliff fans dates back to 1998 when Chris Evans was on the Virgin Radio breakfast show. Due to some slight or other, followed by a “ban” on playing his records, we had fans camping out on the pavement in front of the station protesting. Virgin put out a statement that spoke about the station banning his records. Of course it played out wonderfully for the PR, since Virgin banning Cliff is a bit like Virgin banning Wagner – completely meaningless. Still you did have to step around the tents on the pavement to get into work, and they did stay out for about a week.
Phil Williams on Five Live asked one of the fans who was queueing this time around when the tournament was being played and she (it’s always a she) November. So why were the tickets on sale so early? It’s probably so we can queue in the warm, said she. Er no. It’s so the promoters have got the fans’ cash for six months in a bank account.