George and angie in bed matched any posh and Becks gossip in Barrie eccleston's letter from America

Date: 7/30/2007; Publication: Derby Evening Telegraph;

As David Beckham pursues his crusade to interest Americans in the beautiful game, Derby journalist Barrie Eccleston (right) looks back 30 years to the days when he wrote a Sports Letter from America for The Sun, covering matches and gossip including his notorious interview with Angie and George Best in bed. Pat Parkin reports.

Former Derby sports and news journalist Barrie Eccleston has followed David Beckham's move to the U.S. with more than a passing interest.
For 30 years ago, when some of the world's top players, including several Derby County stars, went State-side to try to teach the Yanks to love soccer, he covered their endeavours in a Sports Letter from America, published three times a week in the Sun newspaper.
Having given up his job as news and sports editor at Radio Derby, he used his skills as a newsman and broadcaster to cover matches over there, as well as providing gossip and news of the players, without even leaving his Derby home.

With some matches taking place 3,000 miles apart - from Los Angeles to New York and Seattle to Miami - he would make middle-of- the-night telephone calls to contacts to keep the flow of news going.

Sun readers, starved of football news during the close season, loved it and sales of the tabloid rose dramatically, much to the delight of publisher Rupert Murdoch and former Derby Telegraph sports reporter, Frank Nicklin, then the Sun's sports editor.

But while English fans were kept well informed about what was going on, the majority of Americans hardly noticed.

Despite players of the calibre of Brazil's Pele, Germany's Beckenbauer, Holland's Cruyff and Ireland's George Best - not to forget Clough's Derby stars like Kevin Hector, John O'Hare, David Nish, Bruce Rioch, Alan Hinton and Roger Davies - performing on their territory, they continued their love affair with baseball, American football and basketball.

Said Barrie, 75, who now lives in Duffield: "So I can't see the celebrity gimmicks of Beckham and Posh succeeding now.
"Television, radio and newspapers have given his team, LA Galaxy, tremendous exposure but I still think he has one hell of a job on his plate to get it going.

"Pele led the world in the 70s to no avail. It's a pity but that's America. To my mind, it is because the Yanks' attention span is minimal. Baseball has time-out every five minutes and American football gives time-out for a burger, a Bud and a bit of banter. Forty-five minutes of watching a game of English soccer, without a break, is just too much for most of them."

Barrie went over to the U.S. several times to make further contacts and met up with old pals like Alan Hinton and Terry Hennessey from Derby County.

"During one of my visits, while on a winter holiday in Florida, I got a frantic call from Frank Nicklin telling me that all sport had been cancelled in England due to heavy snow falls and could I do something for them to fill the sports pages.

"He said the woman's editor would also be very grateful if I could get a story angled on footballers' wives' lifestyle in the States," said Barrie.
"I struck lucky when I rang George Best, who was playing for San Diego Sockers at the time, and Angie answered the phone. We chatted and she gave me lots of good quotes. When I asked if George was there, she said he was lying next to her in bed.

"I filled a couple of pages in the Sun and dined out for some time on the fact that I was probably one of the few journalists who had interviewed George and Angie Best in bed," he laughed.

He finally decided to take his family and move to Washington for a while, though by then the North American Soccer League had folded because of lack of interest.

However, the game was still being played with great enthusiasm by youngsters from the age of four, through to school and college - and they had their own leagues.

He opened a store called Soccerama in a mall near Washington which was kept busy with parents and children buying footballs, footwear, club shirts and other accessories.

"I'd never sold anything but words before," said Barrie, "but I thoroughly enjoyed it."

He organised soccer camps, coached some local clubs and school teams and continued to do some freelance work for the BBC and the Sun.
Both his daughters played soccer at school in the U.S., the youngest scoring a penalty goal when she was just eight years old and the elder captaining the Oxford women's team after the family returned to live in Duffield.

Barrie Eccleston was a well-known face and voice in the Derby area when he first worked for Raymonds Press Agency, covering news and sport for national newspapers as well as radio and television.

After a few years, he went to work in Leicester where he helped put Britain's first radio station on air.

Then he became news and sports editor on the newly-opened Radio Derby in the early 1970s, where he covered the Clough team's glory days in the First Division as well as in European football.

He has always followed the ups and downs of Derby County and is delighted to see the team back in the big time once again.
"Like everyone else, I hope they can play well and stay there," he said, "and, of course, I'd like to be proved wrong and see soccer take off in the U.S., but I don't think I'd put any money on it."

Some older readers may recall the late Frank Nicklin and his wife, Maggie, when they were reporters on the Evening Telegraph.
Frank was a sports writer until he moved on and became one of the founding fathers of modern tabloid journalism when the Sun was re- launched by Rupert Murdoch in the 1960s.

He was born in Ilkeston and covered the Rams in the 1940s. He died, aged 80, in 2002.

Copyright 2007 Derby Evening Telegraph