CHARACTER PROFILE:
Franklin P. Eltham
(a.k.a. “Frank”)
Pen Name: Frank
Full Name: Franklin Percival Eltham
Background: Born in Kensington, educated at Eton and somewhere in Oxford (he refuses to say where — “If you must know, the real intellects never boast about it”), Frank is a self-proclaimed football purist and Spurs sufferer. He describes himself as a “postmodern romantic trapped in a loop of perpetual disappointment, occasionally punctuated by hope — or as some call it, a Tottenham fan.”
He’s sarcastic like Basil Fawlty, awkwardly self-important like David Brent, narcissistic in the Lord Sugar sense (“I could run this club better blindfolded and mildly concussed”), and as brutally opinionated as Clarkson on a bottle of claret.
Frank is a footballing snob in the worst (and most entertaining) sense: he believes he knows more than the manager, the players, and certainly the fans in the South Stand who “think pressing high is something you do to a cravat.”