Bio[]
Match of the Week is a British weekly sports highlights series that plays the best of the week in local sports. At the start, the host (Benny Hill) announces the progress of the Golden Goalie competition. The prize is having Brighton Champion Brian Klump sitting in the winner's home to watch the competition. Second prize is to have him sitting two seats away.
The nominees include Ginger Thompkins from the Maidenhead Academicals; his footage shows him leering at the female spectators, a blind referee (Jackie Wright), cheating players moving the ball and a string of magical sports moves. The second nominees is Hugh Jarse of the Titfield Thunderbolts, who deflects the ball with his butt, and the third is Willie Groper of the Bristol City Rovers who gets hit with a ball on the head, catches a ball in his third hand and deflects another with a huge shoe. The last nominee is Walter Guy of British West Hempstead, a former model who poses on the field for photographers and catches the ball even after it partially deflates.
Back in the studio, the sports newsman is caught drinking with a scantily clad girl (Diana Darvey) who appears with another girl (Malou Cartwright) to present the award with professional British football player Georgie Pest (Jackie Wright. The winner is Ginger Thompkins, and as Pest delivers it, he describes his hands "as safe as the banks of England," upon which the award disassembles before his eyes.
Trivia[]
- This sketch is a spoof of "Match of the Week" a British sports news series that aired intermittently on Anglia TV from 1961 to 1983. It was hosted separately by sports reporters John Camkin, Gerald Sinstadt and Gerry Harrison.
- Although unidentified, Benny Hill seems to be impersonating Camkin who had departed the show seven years prior.
- William Brown of "Benny's Place" speculates Benny is actually impersonating British sports commentator Jimmy Hill, last seen as "Jemmy Hill" in Holiday Sports Spectacular.
- Ginger's female spectators are played by Jeannie Collings, Zoe Hendry, Claire Russell, Bella Emberg and Diana Darvey.
- The British football players are played by Jerold Wells, Bob Todd, Jack Wright, Jon Jon Keefe, Jim Tyson, Brian Nolan, Len Keyes, Bob Bauld, Kevin Moran and Stephen Kane.
- This was Len Keyes first appearance in the series; he was later brought in as a potential replacement for Jackie Wright.
- Jackie, Bob and Jon Jon also play referees and photographers.
- The so-called sport stunts were created with the cast acting backwards and then reversing the film.
- Georgie Pest is a parody of professional British football player George Best who played from 1961 to 1984. Sadly, he died at age 59 in 2005 due to complications after a liver transplant in 2002.