East Fife 4 Forfar 5! Eric Morecambe's legendary tongue-twister becomes a reality

Now a reality: East Fife 4, Forfar 5 was a favorite tongue-twisting fictional result of the late British comedian Eric Morecambe
Getty Images
Standard Sport23 July 2018

The result of a Scottish League Cup Group B match has become a case of life imitating art after Forfar Athletic beat East Fife in a penalty shootout.

It was 1-1 after normal time when penalties were required to determine a winner. And the shootout finished East Fife 4, Forfar 5 — a favorite tongue-twisting fictional result of the late British comedian Eric Morecambe.

Morecambe used to roll out the clunky scoreline whenever greeting friend and broadcaster James Alexander Gordon, who read the classified results for the BBC for nearly 40 years.

"Eric never called me James," Gordon recalled before his death in 2014. "Whenever I saw him over a 20-year period, he would say 'East Fife 4 Forfar 5'. I've got a tape of that."

The only time the result occurred was in the 1964 Scottish second division campaign, 10 years before Gordon began reading the results

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT