THE charity football match starring Tommy Steele was one of number featuring a showbiz team in Oxford.

As we recalled (Memory Lane, January 9), the star of the recent production of Scrooge at the New Theatre played in a game in aid of the British Empire Cancer Campaign against Pressed Steel at Cowley in 1963.

Two years earlier, 5,000 people packed Botley Road recreation ground to see another Showbiz XI, including entertainer Dave King, beat a team representing Oxford speedway 5-3.

The Oxford Mail reported: “Once the game had got under way and the TV team had bowed to the spectators in the best continental manner, the task of identifying who was who began.

“Bearded actor Larry Taylor was easily identified, and so too was the familiar grin of singer Jess Conrad.

“The tall chap in the forward line was not, as a woman craning her neck from the back of the crowd thought, comedian Bernard Bresslaw, but singer Michael Cox.

“Dave King was soon identified, as was Norman Rossington, one of the few who didn’t take the game too seriously.

“But who was that big fellow at centre forward? ‘I haven’t seen him on the telly,’ muttered someone.

“It was Dick Richardson, the European heavyweight boxing champion.”

Many spectators also had difficulty recognising the speedway team, but sports fans were quick to spot Danny Dunton and Jim Tebby.

Song writer Jimmy Keen scored four of the Showbiz goals while Ray Castle added the other.

The speedway team’s scorers were Tebby, Dunton and Viv Horwood.

Organisers were unable to charge to enter the ground, but hoped spectators would buy a 2s 6d programme to boost funds.

Many didn’t bother – only 2,000 programmes were sold but it was hoped there would still be enough in the kitty to give a handsome donation to the Hospitals’ Broadcasting Fund.