A thumbed nose to those who questioned City’s right to continued Premiership status after an ominously lacklustre start to the year might have been more apposite.It has been a perplexing start to 1999 for the normally garrulous Ulsterman, whose post-match analyses have become as subdued, and acquired almost the same gravitas, as confessionals. When that scheme fell, understandably, on stony ground, the alternative suggestion was to request Martin O’Neill to don one for a photograph. The Leicester manager was caught between entering the spirit of the occasion and watching his dignity slip to the floor.
“Do you want to make me look a complete prat?” he asked, with a sardonic smile. There’s something about a city whose football team are Wembley bound.

A joie de vivre permeates the place and the most unlikely looking citizens ostentatiously declare their allegiance with hats and car stickers. In Leicester, the Mercury had exhorted its readers to “Wear your blue nose to Wembley”. It meant a taxi to somewhere near the river, then a two-mile walk in their dinner clothes The bank was muddy It was bitingly cold Brambles tugged at their clothing Worst of all, it was dark Nobody had a torch. So they walked along the river, stumbling over branches, while Neil pointed out a good spot and the others admired it – without being able to see a thing. Neil tried to add atmosphere, I am told, by describing the reeds, the flow of the water, a willow where large chub lie. But it was like belly dancing to a Venusian.When they reached the end of the stretch, they had to walk all the way back to the hotel I asked one of the party what they had seen “Well, er, nothing,” he said.

“It was like looking into a very dark room.”I have to tell you that among those involved in this madness were John Hotchkiss, managing director of The Auction Channel, and our association secretary, David Profumo, who writes for Country Life. It was not far from the Millwaters Hotel, the conference venue “You ought to see it Beautiful water,” Neil said “Yes, we ought to,” agreed those who were chatting to him. “Why don’t we do it now?” And so they did.Bear in mind that this conversation took place around midnight. He opened the conference and picked up the Tight Lines award for services to angling.

As chairman, it fell to me to perform Bernard’s presentation. It was a bit like awarding the Queen a crystal rosebowl for services to the nation, and I fluffed my lines.Unfortunately, Bernard had to get home (he’s working on another book), so he missed the evening’s highlight, an event so lunatic that it even upstaged the raffle, where prizes included such sought-after items as a sack of feathers (for keen fly-tiers). It all came about because the author and journalist Neil Patterson fishes a rather exclusive stretch of the Kennet called The Wilderness. Small surprise he is called “the father of modern angling”, though a better description would be “the father of true angling”, given some of the unsavoury happenings that have crept into the sport.He is looking a little frail, as well he might at 92, but it was a pretty good evening for a nonagenarian. It hasn’t even reached a quarter of the total achieved by Bernard’s seminal work, Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing, which altogether sold more than two million copies.He also set up Angling Times. Everyone seems to be spouting on about the cricket umpire Dickie Bird’s autobiography being the best-selling sports book in history It’s not.