Andy Richardson: Fighting off the groupies is a first for me

“You seen this, mate?” he asked. “It’s for you.”

I was busy carrying large armchairs, impressing myself – if no one else – that at 47-years-young I’m still reasonably in good shape despite being out of the fitness game for far too long. World’s Strongest Man might be out of my reach, but when it comes to armchairs I’m the Arnold Schwarzenegger of dead lifts.

“What is it?” I asked.

The guard was chuckling merrily as an evening in Sale, near the BBC’s Media Village, took an unexpected turn. He said nothing and handed me the pieces of paper.

The first said this: “Andy would you DO us?” I can’t remember whether it said please, though given the nature of the enquiry, manners seemed irrelevant.

I looked at the security guard. The security guard looked at me. We laughed. Then he thrust the second piece of paper into my hand. It was a sequel to the first.

“Because we’d DO you. . .”

“They’re after you, mate,” said the security guard.

Blimey. Groupies. At 47. I’m a balding man who wears trainers with a hole in the toe and Fathers 4 Justice T-shirts that hint at domestic failure. I find more happiness driving a medium wheelbase Transit van than I do chasing, ahem, skirt.

The security man wasn’t finished.

“You do realise it’s plural,” he said. “That means there’s more than one of them. There’s, erm. . .”

He didn’t need to prove his Mensa credentials any further. I got the picture and put the armchair on the floor. I needed a sit down.

I’ve been around plenty of groupies over the years, though never before any for me.

Hanging out at gigs and spending too much time backstage and not enough time at home has introduced me to women and a few men who view dressing rooms as pick-up joints rather than a place to slip into stage clothes.

I think my favourites were a pair of stunning identical twins at a Washington DC stadium gig by a huge American grunge band.

After the show, the band were in their dressing room and the regular posse of workers – journalists, agents, crew – were hanging about outside. We were all dressed in regulation T-shirts and jeans, looking forward to our taxis home. Two people stood out. They were loitering beside the dressing room door and their Amazonian figures were offset by skin-tight jeans and white T-shirts so tight that they had probably been sprayed on. They both wore white baseball caps emblazoned with the word: Simple – and I’m not sure whether that was a reference to a skin product for women or a description of their intelligence. Either way, their intention was pretty obvious. Just like the girls in Sale on a balmy Friday evening in spring.

I ought to outline what I was doing there, I guess. And it’s the simplest of stories. On high days and holidays, when it fits in with work, I sit on a stage and ask performers questions – like a rubbish Michael Parkinson, from Tipton. The money squares off the debt incurred from a 10-month marriage to a Second Wife who presumably got bored of me hanging out in dressing rooms, rather than being at home. Or something. Like a third rate Chris Rock or John Cleese, I hit the road to settle the alimony. But, far more importantly, it’s fun. And on a strange night in Sale, a couple of members of the audience were more interested in the host than the turn. There’s no accounting for taste.

“What are you going to do about it?” asked the security guard.

I’m not sure what reply he expected. I think he’d gone too far down Fantasy Mile and imagined I’d engage in a Mancunian ménage à trios rather than get on with the more important business of carrying armchairs to a Transit van and filling plastic boxes with electric cabling.

“They’ll be over there,” he said, pointing to a bar where a couple of ladies were presumably waiting to be swept away by a balding 47-year-old man with a brilliant white Transit. Ahhh. Classy.

I picked up the armchair, muscles bulging beneath my green Fathers 4 Justice T-shirt. “I’m too busy for that,” I deadpanned. “I’m loading the van.”

“What are you going to do with their letter?” he asked.

I thought the word ‘letter’ was garlanding their enquiry with unnecessary high praise. ‘Letter’ suggests thought and intelligence. It’s redolent of emotional engagement in a way that asking for a cheeky bunk-up in Manchester isn’t. I shook my head and walked towards the van.

“Nah.”

“You could always put it in the shed as a reminder,” he said, laughing some more.

“You’re alright,” I answered. And I slowly drove home.