More Fashions Of The Indoor League

We're back at The Queens Hotel, Leeds, 1973, for the second episode of 'Indoor League'. The fashions are our focus, and what a lot of fashions there are: the green, the brown, and the ugly.

This is Keith Naylor from Scunthorpe. He's 26 (!), married, but his wife hates darts. The red shirt is a bold statement, and I believe that the top button must be done up at all times lest his huge collar and large ears catch a draft and carry him off balance.

Interesting ensemble on the Robert de Niro / Bobby Darin hybrid: the cardigan is a shade of chocolate perhaps best described as 'coffee enema', yet his aqua marine shirt and yellow tie show some dash. His trousers appear to be pulled up extraordinarily high. His friend seems to like this. The gentlemen with the hair is either mentally undressing someone or adding them to his shit list. It's a real list, written in shit.

This is Malcolm Rider, but I think he looks more like a 'Ted' or a 'Dick'. Everything about Malcolm is careful, including his Bar Billiards playing. Neat but nondescript jacket, matching shirt, and even a vaguely paisley tie in a mouldy green. His hair is immaculate. Strange, then, that he should have forgotten to put his teeth in. He must have known he was going to be on the telly.

I could probably write 5,000 words on this shot alone, a study in concentration. 4,500 words would be about the couple on the right. I think that they're engaged, but they haven't done it yet. This one does look like a Malcolm, the sort of man who sees a rust coloured jumper and thinks 'I'll get that, it will go under my itchy jacket'. His fiancee (she looks like a Brenda) is a knitter, and her torquoise cardy is a tribute to her art. They're saving up to get married, but they'll have to live with Brenda's Mum for a while until they can get on the housing list. I expect they're still together, and that this remains one of the highlights of their relationship.

Then, as now, students make for perfect TV audience members: they're easily entertained, have nothing else to do, and will travel enormous distances for a free buffet. This lot (all in their late teens / early twenties, remember) are pretty atypical 'Indoor League'-ers: they're quite attractive, for a start, and they're all dressed differently to each other. There's something slightly subversive and dangerous about them: the Baader-Meinhoff Gang watching a shove ha'penny tournament.

More soon, but for now - 'Ah'll see'thee'.