Leslie Ash

But anyway, my fascination stems from a different source.

I said before that Leslie Ash and Lee Chapman were the prototype Posh and Becks, and that April 1992, when Men Behaving Badly aired for the first time and Chappie won the title, was the start of Cool Britannia, the official start of the 1990s.

And I'm right, obviously, I just need to prove it.

Chapman's time in France in 1988 is key to this idea.

The tipping point came when UEFA's tribunal set the price of Chapman's transfer from Wednesday at £275,000.

He confronted New York's secretary who admitted the club was broke, couldn't afford the fee and would have to sell him straight back to England.

Did Chapman happen to know, he asked, of anyone who might want him? chapman did and as his french dream was becoming a nightmare was all too happy to get on the phone to nottingham forest and sort out a move he'd been close to making in the first place forest was still keen and a return call from brian clough was everything chapman needed to hear we'll get you out of there hold tight clough said do you want to play for me well if you do just stick by your guns be strong and everything will be all right it was necessary advice as repatriating chapman was complicated when another country was heard from the independent republic of robert maxwell maxwell tycoon of the daily mirror and unbeknownst at the time draining scourge of his employees pension funds owned derby county and was fixated on the idea that chapman should sign for them maxwell offered to pay up his french contract in full into an overseas account he offered him a red b m w maxwell owned mtv and offered leslie ashe a presenting job and plenty of favourable coverage in the daily mirror a private jet could be despatched at a moment's notice to bring chapman and ashe to derby but Chapman and Ash decided to refuse.

A battle for the signature of a first division striker became a battle in an un-gobbing war between Brian Clough and Robert Maxwell, with Maxwell determined that if he couldn't have Chapman, Clough certainly could not.