Dazed and confused days of accident-prone hero Dabell

ByCharlie Mulqueen

The one-time radio operator with the Royal Navy has been particularly prominent in Ireland, where he worked for RTÉ Radio and the then Cork Examiner for a number of years.

These days he is mostly associated with BBC Radio 5 and a string of news agencies and British newspapers. It is largely because of the mountain of work he undertakes that Norman is constantly in a hurry and thus constantly in trouble.

He is known and liked by just about everybody the officials, the players, the courtesy drivers and the caddies. But Norman is unbelievably accident prone. Strange things happen to him so often he has written a thoroughly enjoyable book, Natural Hazard (Mainstream, stg£9.99), to describe his exploits.

It is delightfully self deprecatory, actually beginning with the words: "Accidents have always come easily to me."

From his earliest days in the Navy, things started to go wrong and his mishaps on the European Tour are known as Dabellisms.

His book recounts his misadventures with great humour and whether you know Norm and the scene he covers or not, I guarantee you many a good belly laugh.

For instance, There was the year a Spanish Open went to seven "tortuous" tie holes before Eduardo Romero defeated Seve Ballesteros.

By the time it ended and Dabell had covered all his various concerns, plane time was dangerously close and a couple of colleagues waiting in the taxi for the airport were becoming increasingly agitated. Eventually, Norm came racing down the steps, jumped into the car only to realise the traffic had built up so heavily there was no way out.

"This called for extreme measures," he writes. "I jumped out and directed traffic, waving cars aside, ordering catering wagons to pull over and nearly knocking a motorcyclist off his bike. With a path clear at last, I dived back into the car, yelling 'pronto, pronto, hombre, aeroporto, pronto'.

"When we got to the end of the avenue and the road looked clear, I gave a little sigh and turned around to draw encouragement and appreciation from my two colleagues, whom I thought had been admirably calm and quiet after the couple of minutes of turmoil. There was no one on the back seat.

Yes, you've guessed it, Norm was in the wrong car! His new driver was so petrified of his deranged passenger who was now shouting "mistakeo, mistakeo" he was prepared to bring "the maniac anywhere until he spotted the Guardia Civil or someone in a white coat. I looked back at the car behind. I could see [Tony] Adamson (of the BBC) had adopted the foetal position with hysterics. [Micky] Britten (a fellow and long suffering freelance) looked largely unruffled, his face showing total comprehension. Mr Bean had struck again."

That same year, the Golf World Cup took place in Rome and after a hard four or five days, our hero retired to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic: "No response. I often thought I could somehow become invisible when asking for drinks at bars. I still do. So I raise my voice slightly. Still no action. I was being ignored.

"Rather angrily I shouted, 'a gin and tonic, please!' At that point Michael Williams from the Telegraph, hardly able to contain himself, came over from my doubled up comrades to tell me that I was talking to a mirror, the barman's away serving a table. To rest my eyes, I had taken out my contact lenses and I was too vain to wear my standby glasses when I came down from my room to meet the boys. I had been getting upset at my own reflection".

There are countless other TRUE (I know 'cos I was there for many of them!) Dabellisms in "Natural Hazard", a very appropriate title for a publication designed to make you laugh heartily while at times affording an insight into the lifestyle of people prepared to make a living from covering the European Tour from its most menial occasions right up to the Open Championship itself. Great fun.