Celebrity deaths always come in threes

The last couple of weeks have felt like this thread would be a perm rather than a treble...

2015 went out with bang.
They were dropping like flies.

2016 starts with a HUGE bang.......David Bowie.
2 years older than me and I have always adored the guy and his music.
Very sad.....the big C don't give a fuck who you are.

We lost Ed Stewpot Stewart as well, Tone.

The two of course don't compare. Bowie shaped the last forty years. Stewart didn't.

Colin Vearncombe died this week as well after being put into an induced coma after a car crash. His most famous work is of course instantly recognisable when you have his group/stage name. He pinched a few shots from New Brighton at the start in the video too (the Art Deco look seats and shelter, the lighthouse and the shots of the promenade).

Now Paul Kantner dies at 74.
He was the founder and a member of one of my favourite bands, Jefferson Airplane.

Fat face Cameron eulogising economic migrant Terry Wogan

Paul Daniels, Barry Hines and Johan Cruyff

The first never did leave when Labour got in as he promised ('Say "No, Paul"'), the second wrote the first thing I ever watched that actually riveted me to the couch to the point that I did not move, transfixed (it was Threads) and was the man who brought us Kes, and the third, well, the third was simply a standout phenomenon.

Aside from his ability that made him one of those rarest of rare football phenomena, he wasn't easily cowed, joining Barcelona because he wouldn't sign for Real Madrid, Franco's team, and naming his son Jordi despite the name having been suppressed and outlawed along with the rest of the Catalan language by Franco. Didn't go to Argentina in '78 after retiring from internationals because of the threat of kidnap and there would be no return when the Argentinian authorities couldn't guarantee his and his family's safety.

The full back forever captured doing a spot the ball and missing by half the page who Cruyff turned (although for what he actually did, "turn" is such an inadequate verb) was Jan Olsson. His tribute was that over forty years on, he watches The Turn and still cannot understand how he doesn't have the ball at the end of it. That he has the move named after him in a sport that doesn't name its steps after its exponents (Roeder Shuffle aside...) is testament to its innovative nature - no-one had ever seen anything like it, the nerve, the absolute nerve...

I'd like to think that Olsson would attend the funeral but while in the cortege, the lead car jinks and Olsson is initially sent to a church at the other end of the street from the one where the funeral takes place.

From 1957 to 1978 he played for two clubs. He was born in the shadow of the former and died a legend at the latter in the city that had been his home for more than half his life. Did we mention his coaching and its philosophy were pretty tidy and influential as well?

Ajax won three European Cups and a World Club Championship while he was there. He left for Barcelona and they won the league the first year he was there. Within a season of his leaving, Ajax were no longer champions and would be in the UEFA Cup, only going through on away goals in their first round against Tony Waddington's Stoke City after failing to beat them in either leg. I doubt it was coincidence.

Never tried the Cruyff turn myself. Given where he did it, I was a winger as well but I think I'd have broken an ankle or something. Unusual at the time for a foreigner to influence English people as he did, and he kept on doing it.

He was indeed a wonderful player......2 years older than me. Saw him in his prime.
Worth 500 million quid if he was playing today.

For those who lived through the golden age of heavyweight boxing, Muhammad Ali is about as big as you can get.

I recall reading The Fight Doctor by Ferdie Pacheco, Ali's doctor and how Pacheco left his camp when he couldn't countenance him boxing on after taking severe renal consequences after he went the distance in beating Earnie Shavers, and so took forty-five minutes of punching from the boxers' opinion of the man who punched the hardest of them all. You have to wonder of how much those consequences were an influence on his later life.

However, from the same book, his story of the first Liston fight is brilliant. Liston was a big man, taciturn to the point of threatening and used to wear towels over his shoulders under his robe to make himself look bigger. It worked, the entire heavyweight division was terrified of him and the thought of a light-heavyweight stepping up and giving him a kicking wasn't expected. Ali was 7/1 to beat him.

At the first press conference, Liston had Joe Louis (rated the best ever heavyweight by one source, Ali second) in his corner while Ali (still Clay then, of course) had in his corner the one boxer who outstripped him in pound-for-pound rankings across all weight in another ranking - Sugar Ray Robinson. Robinson told Ali to not be disrespectful, not run his mouth off, not go for any dramatics and Ali was contrite and agreed. He stepped out into the headlights and led with "AaaaaARRGhh! Rumble, man, rumble!" and proceeded to lead off as he would for the rest of his career, telling Liston "I got you now, you big ugly bear" every time he caught his eye. He turned up on his doorstep in the early hours of the morning with a bear trap and called him out. When it came to the pre-fight weigh-in, though, Liston, silent, menacing, set himself up and stepped up to face Ali, looking like the towelled-up man-mountain he was. He set up to look down on Ali as he stepped up and... Ali was two inches taller than him, 6' 1" against 6' 3". First round Ali.

In pre-fight checks, Ali's BP was ringing - 200+/140+ - and Pacheco had to stay with him as he would not be allowed to fight with such numbers. The upshot of this was threefold - firstly, it illustrated that Ali threw everything into this act; secondly, it showed it was an act (Ali would at later days hanker to Angelo Dundee to rumble people "like they did Liston") as within twenty minutes he was back at 120/80; and thirdly, Pacheco was holding the cash for himself and the other cornermen to bet on Ali where he could possibly secure 9/1 but crucially couldn't get out as he had to look after Ali. They missed out on (IIRC) $70,000 minimum in winnings as a result, having scared up 10k between them (Pacheco was responsible for half alone). "And that was when $70k was a lot of money..."

Read it if you can. Obviously to a degree an embellished personal account but some of the stats/medical stuff is compelling because it is clearly undoubtedly true.

I'm so old I remember him as Cassius Clay!
Norman Mailer's book from 1975, 'The Fight' is the greatest sports book ever written.

Denise Royle, Mrs Merton and Caroline Aherne, all in one night.

Nobby Cheese wrote:Now Paul Kantner dies at 74.
He was the founder and a member of one of my favourite bands, Jefferson Airplane.

Soz Tony couldnt resist

Off go the great Leonard Cohen, quickly followed by Robert Vaughn, the man from uncle.
We never mentioned Gary Sprake either.

NotBert wrote:Two people who many would have thought went a while back.  Robert Vaughn and Peter Vaughn said to be shitting themselves

Nobby Cheese wrote:Off go the great Leonard Cohen, quickly followed by Robert Vaughn, the man from uncle.
We never mentioned Gary Sprake either.

Or Jimmy Young earlier in the week, Tone

Florence Henderson, David Hamilton (photographer/perv) and Fidel Castro.
There's the hat trick.

Ex Rangers man Davie Provan joins them.

Didn't realise there were two Davie Provans, Tone, I remember the Celtic lad more. Both internationals as well, which probably confused the cocks at the SFA too.

Forgot Paul Futcher.
A very good player.

Brother of less capable twin Ron IIRC. His name sounds like it should be rude but isn't.

Andrew Sachs and Manuel die on the same day.

He must be ecstatic that Dead Ernest never got a re-run and so isn't remembered for it. He was 86 and is apparently solely remembered for a part he played 41 years ago on twelve occasions. If I were him I'd try and come back as a ghost and say "Hang the fuck on..."

Nobby Cheese wrote:

NotBert wrote:Two people who many would have thought went a while back.  Robert Vaughn and Peter Vaughn said to be shitting themselves

Peter makes the set

NotBert wrote:

Nobby Cheese wrote:

NotBert wrote:Two people who many would have thought went a while back.  Robert Vaughn and Peter Vaughn said to be shitting themselves

Peter makes the set

Greg Lake, promising Man City midfielder who, had he stayed sound, may have lined up in the middle for England with Paul Merson and Carlton Palmer.

OK, legendary prog rocker. I couldn't do his obituary justice, except to say that anyone of 30+ years knows Fanfare for the Common Man through them alone.