Profile

Alex and Aston thought long and hard about how to pitch Simbo's new predster nomination:

On the downside:

• Questionable allegiance: He's a Hammers fan. One of those annoying ones who delights in telling you that West Ham won the World Cup in 1966. (His face, contorted with lament, during the Steven Gerrard Final, was a joy to behold.)
• Deception: He was, on drunken occasion through his long-haired university days, mistaken for Julia Roberts from behind. Nb. No-one ever made the same mistake from the front. Ever. More Julian Dicks than Julia Roberts.
• Prima-donna fakery: During a University of East Anglia five-a-side quarter-final, he made such a scene when lightly tackled that he got me (his team mate) sent off, when I vociferously took up his cause and - perhaps ill-advisedly - called the referee a c***. We went on to lose the game.
• Managers before mates: Unthinkable I hear you cry. But true. When a disgruntled Aston wanted Simbo to share Neil Warnock's phone number so that Aston could verbally berate him, Simbo claimed "professionalism" (he works as a football reporter for the Press Association) and withheld the number. Warnock had to rely on (many) other vehicles to receive the verbal abuse he had coming.

On the plus side:

• He once interviewed John Barnes.
• He will take his responsibilities as a Predster way too seriously and will expect to quickly hunt down Messrs Aston and Trickett and rise to the very top of the pile. He will underestimate how difficult this will be to do, which will be a great source of merriment for at least two other Predsters.

Despite the two lists being overwhelmingly unbalanced to Simbo's detriment, he was welcomed into the Preds family in 2019.