TV funnyman Mark Lawrenson has become embroiled in a bizarre familial dispute with slapstick gods the Chuckle Brothers.
The Brothers, chucklesome, allege that the BBC co-commentator is their estranged brother and has been doing his level best to hide it, but that as the years passed the chuckle grew stronger within him.
As much has been evidenced during coverage of this summer’s Confederations Cup, in which Lawrenson’s comedy has really come to the fore.
Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, Paul and Barry Chuckle accused Lawrenson of:
- Shaving his moustache to avoid detection
- Deliberately never riding around in a golf buggy
- Other stuff
Barry Chuckle roared: “He thought no one would take him seriously if they knew he was a Chuckle Brother.
“As a Chuckle Brother myself, I felt that stance to be an affront. We held a dignified silence until now but there’s no hiding it now – Mark is one of us, and even though he’s hurt our feelings we still want him to know that we love and miss him.
“The door to our Chuckle castle is always open if he ever wants to come round and help us lug a piano up a flight of stairs, or whatever.
“It’s like that song ‘Love is Blindness’, or that other song ‘With or Without You’.
“My favourite band? To me, U2.”
He added: “What’s so funny?”
A source close to Mark Lawrenson said that he reacted to news of the Chuckle Brothers’ outburst by muttering “oh dear, oh dear” over and over while looking discouraged.
‘Lawro’ quipped: “I was talking about Peter Oh-dear-wingie, of course!
“Wahey!”