INTERVIEW - Alistair McGowan

the famed impressionst speaks to LS about his new book

By Hannah Glick

As the furthest thing from a football fan you could find, I was a tad apprehensive about meeting self-confessed football addict, Alistair McGowan, to chat about his new book, which is, incidentally, also about football.

But McGowan was chilled out and charming like a cool uncle, and I fought it hard not to reminisce about our times at Leeds University too much despite the generational gap, which was exemplified by his shock at how the 56 and 95 buses have had a £1.40 increase since he was riding them.

But back to the book. It turns out I did not have much to worry about it; football may be the main character, but relationships produce the plot.

McGowan wrote it with ex-girlfriend Ronnie Ancona (his partner in crime on The Big Impression), with an aim to treat football addicts- McGowan reckons that his obsession was what destroyed their relationship. The premise is a bit bizarre, seeing as Ancona is now married with kids, to a man who she says is also a football addict: should it not be him she is weaning off football?

By a course of identifying the cause of the problem and trying to wean McGowan off his weakness, the book endeavours to repair relationships. McGowan assures me that the book will help me with my own in the future, when my other half is torn from my side in the direction of the pub to watch a football match. Sound familiar girls? I guess Ancona felt our frustration; throughout the book this is certainly authentic, as at times she speaks with the anxiety and paranoia of someone on acid.

But why would McGowan begin a course of therapy for something that he was so passionate about? Well, apparently he was up for the “challenge of self-realisation” and I bet, was pretty apologetic to his ex for how football “dominated his life” when he was with her. As he pointed out, “football can bring people together, but with relationships it can be one of the biggest causes of strife”.

McGowan says that “a wife or girlfriend will always come second to football”, yet I couldn’t help but feel that his insistence that this was the sole reason for Ancona’s and his break up came across as a media ploy, especially as she has since married a football addict and she and McGowan do not hide their irritability with each other at times during the book. But this has worked in their favour; their banter throughout the book is genuine and full of chemistry.

As part of Ancona’s ‘12 Step Plan’ she tested replacement techniques on McGowan to divert his attention away from the sport. These did not stray far from the interests he already had, such as going to the theatre and opera. When McGowan was younger, “I loved going to a football match in the afternoon, and then to the theatre in the evening, with your football programme still sticking out of your back pocket.  That was great, I loved that”.    

But when trying different sports, the failed attempts at alternatives offered another conclusion, which any football fan would agree with: that there is “no other sport that is so internationally loved, worshipped and obeyed and there has never been a really good football film, which shows that the drama is unbeatable and that you can’t replicate it”.

So, did McGowan triumph in his football free challenge? Apparently not, as not only did he relapse, but he acknowledged the whole of the Leeds football team at the back of the book. This may not be the result Ancona or I were hoping for, nor is it reassuring for relationships the world over, yet McGowan stressed to me that “it is a case of meeting at the halfway line, which is what the book concluded at the end” and that he has become “a more rounded human being”.

Which makes me question the book altogether; although engaging and enjoyable due to its charismatic writers and the charming anecdotes from their careers, the plot turns out to be pretty pointless. I envisage that this book will be a popular Christmas gift from women to their partners, fuelled with bitterness and tension from fall outs over football.

    On McGowan’s course of self-realisation and amidst a football free life that felt like a “parallel universe”, the plot of relationships gave another dimension to it. He was surprised that his addiction for football was, in fact, not an addiction: he was simply “yearning for the relationship I had with my father when I was younger”.

As a football cynic, I found it hard to grasp that this cliché could be the only reason for his affection for the sport but he assured me that this “is true with almost any father and son: one of my favourite memories of my father was when we watched a Leeds game together here [in Leeds]”. Comfortingly, he concluded that “I don’t need to follow football as much as I did in order to maintain a connection with my father”.

Another crucial character in the book is Leeds; McGowan explained that “my decision to study at the University of Leeds came from my affection for the team”. At this, he explained that he first fell for Leeds football team (although not a supporter anymore, he still follows their scores) because of an “old lady from Leeds who I met on holiday and promptly adopted as a makeshift grandmother out of my affection for her. When I started telling my father I was going to follow football, he asked who I was going to support, and I said Leeds”.

Like any Leeds student, McGowan had a “fabulous three years and absolutely adored it”. His first year in Devonshire Hall is included in the book, and he recalls “how horrible that was”. When I suggested that it is not much better, he defied me by simply saying that “at least girls are living there now”.

Football-wise, he played for the English society team as a goalkeeper. “Due to shortage of players, I once had to referee a match, which was one of the worst decisions of my life. I’m not very decisive, and that’s what you must be.” McGowan then winced at the conflict that ensued.    

McGowan finished our chat with his favourite memory of being at the University of Leeds; standing in the “skylight of my house on Brudenell Street with my best friend, watching the city by day and night”. Unfortunately (and simultaneously instilling final year fear in me), they have failed to keep in touch as life got in the way.

This essentially sums up the book; although fun and light hearted like our perception of the televised McGowan, it actually digs deep into the reality of our lives. McGowan speaks from experience about how our relationships are trialled