THE BASSETT FILES ... in celebration of everyone's favourite football motormouth!

Dave's gone for a new job. Here's a transcript of the start of his interview!

Interviewer: "So, name?"

DB: "The name's Bassett, that's two t's at the end, and interestingly enough it's a variant of "bastard" which is an old cockney name, guv, and did you know by the way that Bertie Bassett from the tv is my cousin, no I didn't think so, but anyway he is, and that Pierre van Hooijdonk, I don't know how he gets away with it, but in the grand scheme of things all we're doing is coming out to play football, and he thinks he's Roy of the bleedin Rovers, and he says he's going to take his ball home if he can't be number 9, but we earmarked Kevin Campbell for that role so Pierre really has to take it like a man, interesting term that you know, comes from the old anglo-saxon, but anyhow, we're happy with the start we've made, not doing badly are we, and I think the media men have to take us seriously because we've been solid and efficient and we've set out our stalls collectively and individually, and let's face it, when an individual does well for himself, he does well for the team, and I keep stressing that to my players, you know, it's important they realise that pride in their performance looks well on the team, even though someone can always put the boot in and say oh look at so-and-so he's being selfish, and this brings us back to van Hooijdonk, we don't care if he plays for himself, every goal he scores is a goal for the team, and every time he shaves his head, he streamlines our attack, which is of course all to the good these days, when there's competition in that department, and we have to live with the big boys now, we can't think we're playing Crewe every week any more, although we probably will be next year ..."

Interviewer: "SHUT UP"

DB: "Yes, that's exactly what I was saying to Alex the other day, that's Alex Ferguson, I said Alex sometimes you need to listen as well as talk, that's important in this game, and to be fair, I talked to him for a while and he seemed to be paying attention, didn't butt in or anything, and my point was obviously getting through, he was concentrating hard, he had his eyes closed at one point, I recall that very clearly, and incidentally, do you know there are exercises you can do to improve your memory, I was reading all about it while I was chatting on the phone the other morning, really excellent article it was, I recommended it to Steve Stone, but I don't think he remembered who I was, which was a pity as I was only saying the other day how much he had improved since his injury and that he had to be looking to force his way back into England contention.."

Interviewer: "SHUT UP. So, Dave, do you know the way to Bury?"

DB: "One would have to say that's not the first time I've been asked that question, but in retrospect and looking back, it seems prudent to say that yes I do know the way to Bury, lovely place, just up the motorway you know, and last year we got our bottoms spanked there, they didn't give us a chance, that big centre half Chris Lucketti did well for them, and actually I am trying to buy him, but apparently when I put in a bid of 750,000 they sent me back a picture of his left leg and said I could have that, and let's face it, if you want monkeys you pay peanuts, as my gran used to say, and I already have enough of those, which brings us back to Pierre, he's a lovely lad really but he's not got that burning ambition to play for a big club like Forest any more - you know he was talking about going to some backwater like Milan or Ajax, but I was on the phone to him the other night and while I was in my first sentence, maybe 30 minutes into the call, I casually asked about his ambition and he said that Forest was proving too successful, it's the Ravanelli syndrome or so these new fangled sociology people would have us believe, although I say call a spade a spade and let's see where that leads us."

Interviewer: "Dave, you seem to be suffering from what is generally known as 'verbal diahorrhea'. Are you aware of this?"

DB: "One would have to say that's an extremely rude question, and I have a good mind to end this right now, and if you don't mind me saying I've never met a man who wants to interrupt so much - you'd think I talked too much or something, which is exactly the comment I made to one of our ballboys on Saturday - he was holding the ball listening to me, and because of all the stoppage time, Southampton went and scored in the 99th minute, and all I said to him was that he was not being quick enough throwing the ball back to our players, and could he please hurry up or we'll end up conceding a goal i stoppage time, the little prat, and lo and behold, what happens? I did tell him, and you know, he was rude to me too, I'm starting to get a bit sick of it, and indeed I have had enough. I'm off!"

(Dave storms out)

Interviewer: "Thank goodness and good riddance!"

Just to show that this wasn't completely over the top, cousin Mousey has sent me a real transcript of Dave in action - enjoy!!!

Right, it´s Wolves v. Spurs FA Cup 1996 4th round replay (dunno the date) Alan Green and DB are commentating, and there´s a clash of heads or something and the ref gives a free kick. So they´re talking about aerial challenges.

AG: "It´s a physical game after all, for heaven´s sake"

DB: "That´s right. We musn´t take the physical element out of the game, that people can tackle or challenge in the air. What we don´t want is the elements where players are going to get injured by people being sort of....er.....a little bit.... er..... awkward in terms of what they are going to try and achieve in being a bit below the belt by injuring players by elbows and cynical stuff"

And if that wasn´t funny enough, Alan Green then said:

".......You mean dirty ?"