Golden Gordon

Well this is where I came in. My first encounter with Ripping Yarns was with this episode and it is probably one of the best remembered.

Golden Gordon is about football fanatic Gordon Ottershaw during the 1930s depression. His beloved Barnstoneworth United were once a mighty non league team but now have fallen on hard times in the local Yorkshire league.

They have not won a match year in six years and their latest defeat was an 8-1 loss. Gordon comes home and smashes the furniture in disgust, even smashing the window. His wife and son look on in despair. His wife desperately tries to tell Gordon she is having a baby but Gordon will not listen. He is down in the dumps when he leans that the club has been sold and the new owner is going to disband the team. Barnstoneworth United will be no more.

Gordon decides to round up some of the past veterans from their cup winning side for the final match.

The highlight is a rant by the team's football manager about shorts who then throws his shorts away and runs around showing his bottom. He is later arrested in the bakery for indecent exposure.

It is a loving parody of football fans of small town football clubs who are going through difficult times with some funny lines, the Match of the Day theme and a brief cameo from John Cleese.

Directed by Alan J.W. Bell who would direct many episode of Last of the Summer Wine, there are some links between the two shows. Ken Kitson who plays the barman was the policeman in the panda car and a few other actors from here turned up in Summer Wine including a brief cameo from John Cleese.