Mystery footballer autograph challenge!

[Harpo]

Jimbo, are you sure it's not the scrawl of a Mr Ron, first name 'Big'?

[LeeS]

Roy of the Rovers

[Jimbo]

Put a "The" at the start of this thread's title and it would seem like something from the Channel Four programme Banzai.

Betting Ends.

Indeed it would - maybe that's because I've recently returned from the land of vending machines and costumed schoolgirls that I'm speaking/writing like that. Just don't shake my hand, because you'll be there all day...

Harpo - it couldn't possibly be Lord Ron of Big, from the county of Fat. I'd still have the casually bandied cusswords ringing in my ears. I'd remember such a meeting like an encounter with a leopard - albeit a big fat one.

I'm coming round to the Bossie/ale-induced-brain-damage theory. Even in my current befuddlement, I'd remember BFR, but Bossie might easily slip through the pickled grey matter like an invisible scab through a sleeping picket line.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

To me it looks like the signature of Michael Jackson's beloved best bed buddy and big baboon bum, Bubbles.
Or Bosnich.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I can't see anything?

[Jimbo]

You should buy a ticket for the Papal visit, Phil. Be worth a try.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Judging by the design on the paper, I'd say it was more 70's than 80's/90's, Jimbo.

[Damo70]

My first thought was Bryan Robson but you'd have remembered him showing you his dick. Then I thought Bosnich who would have been cocky enough to just put Bosnich.

[Jimbo]

Mr Kelly, I'm pretty certain it's from the late '80s to the mid '90s, but I agree, it does have that cheesy '70s quality about it. Plus, the alliteration and use of the word 'soccer' is very '70s.

I wonder, was there a shop in town peddling low quality/bargain sports gear called Super Soccer, which died on its arse long before Sports Direct became every high street's chav magnet?

[adrenachrome]

I'm edging closer to the Bosnich camp. But why doesn't it stick in the memory?

Tell me, Jimbo. Did ya ever hear tell of the Birmingham Boys in Brown?

Terrible damage done to the livers and cerebral cortices in Hamburg and (cough) Digbeth.

What, you mean that motley assortment of blagards, ne'erdowells and late-night grouting inspectors, who leave in their wicked wake a trail of busted shopping trolleys, smashed Astra bottles and stretched patience, from the fair port of Kiel, to the old Bartons Arms? No, I didn't. And if I ever did, it was merely in the name of academic research. And drunkenness.     

Well then, good man yourself and more power to your elbow.

And fuck the begdrudgers.

And viva St. Pauli.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I think I've got it.. it's Bosko Balaban.

http://www.writestuffautographs.com/showprod_FOOTBALL672.htm

The 'B' has the same starting structure and it finishes with the same rounded, what looks like an 'n'. The crazy curve is more exaggerated in the link above but it's still there. Obviously on your autograph he only signed it 'Bosko'. It would also go some way to explaining the 70's paper - he probably brought his own. The only thing to add Jimbo, is it would probably be worth more had he not signed it.

[Jimbo]

Well, it could feasibly be Bosko, but that means I'd have caught him on one of the few days that he was actually in Birmingham, and not pissing his wages up the wall with a load of hookers in some bar in Zagreb. I mean, what were the chances of that happening?

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Maybe you met in Zagreb?

[Jimbo]

Maybe you met in Zagreb?

Which might explain the dodgy '70s 'East European' design.

And my 8-year-old, half-Croatian son.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Mystery solved.