The trouble with having a photo of Ollie the Ox as your Twitter and blog profile picture is that some casual observers get the impression that you are the man who dons the foam suit on match days. Being the creator of the Facebook fan page Ollie the Ox Rocks further confuses people.
Before the second leg of the Rushden play-off semi last season, a few of the regular Oxford United twitterers got together for a tweet-up pint. My travelling companion Oxblogger related afterwards how disappointed a couple of the guys looked when it dawned on them that I was not in fact Ollie the Ox. One of them actually asked the question 'Aren't you Ollie the Ox?! Shouldn't you be getting ready for the game rather than standing here in the hotel bar drinking piss poor lager?'.
This week the level of confusion has been cranked up a notch, with the wonderful and very professional West Ham blog the ball is round asking to interview me for a piece on mascots - the unsung heroes of football. Although I'm very tempted to masquerade as the Ox Who Now Appears On The Box and deliver a creative interview with Shakespearean flourishes, it's time to nip things in the bud and reiterate that I am not Ollie the Ox.
The real Ollie the Ox is an extremely nice man by the name of Nick Penfold - who recently had a two week holiday in Cuba - and might be available for interview if you contact the club directly. You may be stunned to hear that Nick didn't take the El Torro suit with him to Cuba. And he certainly wouldn't be downing pints before a match - the man's a professional for goodness sake!
No comments:
Post a Comment