The (Love)Joy of an Auction – Norwich City Style

The seemingly ever-popular world of antiques and auctions is one I have dipped in and out of over the years, both in terms of buying or selling items of little financial value it must be said.

One of my favourite TV programmes back in the day was unashamedly Lovejoy.

For MFW readers who passed it by for one reason or another, Lovejoy starred Ian McShane as a lady-killing charmer of an antique dealer who lived by his wits alone and was never short of upper-class female company, with Phyllis Logan appearing as Lady Jane in the first series.

Both actor and actress were superb in their “Will they, won’t they” roles considering that he was often on the wrong side of the law and she was married to Lord Alexander Felsham.

The second series saw Lovejoy very nearly get married to the very-British property magnate Charlotte Cavendish [Caroline Langrishe], but this nasty helicopter came along and the Police arrested poor old Lovejoy for a crime he hadn’t committed so the wedding service was cancelled with indecent haste.

Two interesting things about Ian McShane are firstly that his father Harry was a professional footballer in the 1950s. A Scotsman, he played for many clubs including Man United, where he started 56 matches and scored eight goals.

Secondly, McShane is a rabid Red Devil – as with his heritage he is fully entitled to be – and it was rumoured that he threatened not to play Lovejoy unless his allegiance to the incumbents of Old Trafford was made in the script.

The programme was often filmed in and around Long Melford in Suffolk, a real chocolate box lid of an East Anglian village, which sometimes also featured in my dinner breaks from work when BASF had offices and a large warehouse in nearby Hadleigh.

Somebody who worked in a pub in Melford told me one day that McShane’s issue with the production team was quickly resolved when he was allowed to feature his Man U supporter’s coffee mug in every possible episode. Is that true? How long is a piece of string?

My practical auction experience is limited, from going to British Car Auctions at Enfield as a spare driver for my dealer mate back in the 1980s, through attending the totally make-it-up-as-you-go-along plant sale in Aylsham on a Monday [it’s still going and still hilarious to the best of my knowledge] and meeting local antiquarian Mike Hicks. Five minutes in his company taught me more than Arthur Negus on Going for a Song or Fiona Bruce on Antiques Roadshow ever could.

Mike did a quick appraisal of some stuff I wanted to offload around 2008 when I was moving from one part of Coltishall to another [next door to my previous house in fact ] and although 99.9% recurring of my disposable treasure was predictably worth Jack, he found the item that was worth a few bob with consummate ease when I didn’t have a clue.

A quick bit of research showed me that Mike Hicks is still going strong at Stalham Antiques Centre. It would be nice to drop by one sunny day and pay him a visit, this time safe in the knowledge that I’ve nothing that is worth anything to sell.

But what of the live online auction, that phenomenon of the Internet?

I have long looked at the Norwich City site, wherein bits and pieces of club memorabilia are posted online with a brief description. As deadline hour approaches you might find that a signed Andrew Omobamidele training top is creeping up to the £100 mark as those from, say, Kenny McLean will be approaching £80 and Tony Springett and Adam Idah will be hitting the high £60s. Return just as the hammer has fallen and late bids will usually have seen the items go for roughly £150, £120 and £100 respectively.

There are other items for sale too, such as signed footballs, match programmes and a particularly popular line lately has been Dressing Room ID posters, autographed by the pictured player in question. The women’s team have been getting in on the act with these recently as well.

There are bursts of stadium signage that appear from time to time, and about a fortnight ago the refurb of the Barclay bar to accommodate the Lion and Castle threw up something that for the very first time, I wanted to own. 

The object in question was the A2-sized sign that had been the last thing I saw as I went pitchside from D Block in the Barclay for around the last 25 years. That’s a guess and I’d love to know when the sign was originally installed.

I can be a dyed-in-the-wool sentimentalist at times, and it is perfectly fitting that the sign should enjoy a happy retirement on a comfortable wall at my house in Mundesley. It has lived a long and informative life warning people that might be tempted otherwise not to take alcohol into the ground with them or they’d be ignominiously ejected, which is also a variation on the theme of why I can no longer sustain a season ticket on medical grounds

Determined to secure tenure of this inanimate object that had unconsciously been part of my footballing life for so long I thought “What the heck” and went for it online.

It was a far easier process than I had imagined.

All I had to do was sign in with my customer number and key in how much I was prepared to pay for said object. Bids went up in increments of £5 so I thought I’d just have a quick shufti for the first five days. By then it had reached £40, as roughly had its three counterparts representing Blocks A, B and C.

I thought I’d bid a round £50 and see what happened.

A couple of hours later I got a mail from the club telling me some nasty piece of work [not really, a fellow supporter obviously] had bid £45 so I was once more in pole position but with no further credit, although I could top up at any time if I wanted to.   

The status quo remained and there was an hour left so I decided to leave matters in the hands of the mighty Football Gods and devote myself to the last session of a crucial day’s play at the Third Test Match.

I remembered to check out the result about 10 minutes after the auction ended and the Gods had spoken: the signage was mine for a nifty. Blocks A, B and C made £45, £55 and £60, so honours were more or less even between the four of them.

I offered to pick the sign up from Carrow Road to save my postage and the Club’s packing, but they failed to get back to me. Ho hum, no harm done.

And when it arrived, by courier, whoever packed it had chucked the kitchen sink at it. It took me so long to open I felt like a kid playing pass the parcel with their hands tied behind their back.

When I finally wrestled it open it contained a Red Dwarf-style hologram to prove its authenticity that Rimmer would have been proud of and a really good certificate to accompany it.***  

It’s important to mention here that all the proceeds from these off-the-wall articles [mine and some others were literally that!] go straight to the Academy.

And the comms from the courier [in this case Evri, the revamped version of the previously discredited Hermes] really could not have been any better.

The Auction Page is one thing I’m happy to say is something NCFC has got exactly right and it was good fun to use.

*** The Authenticity Certificate that arrived along with my little piece of the Barclay states rather starkly:

“This Concourse Seating Sign was on the wall of the Barclay Stand Concourse by the seating area entry.”

And now the Football Gods have decreed that we should spend our dotage together, we will continue to share many a Norwich City story between us.

I only know one song about signs, and if you like heavy blues it’s a belter: