I have a face that throughout my life seems to have lent itself to looking like well known people. These have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Of course, as we live our lives and get older our appearance changes, and in line with this, the fame of people we are likened to comes and goes.
At school, amongst the more printable nicknames I had was "Brezhnev", named after the Soviet Union leader at the time Leonid Brezhnev. My eyebrows were (and still are to an extent, although I discovered male grooming products some years ago) of a naturally rather bushy nature and Brezhnev was one of the most powerful men in the world in the 1970s and possessed the most powerful eyebrows known to mankind.
Upon leaving school, my next major lookalike, apparently, was Ian Marshall, the former Oldham Athletic footballer. He owned the finest mullet of the late 80s/early 90s. He was also known as NOT being the most handsome of fellows so this comparison greatly perturbed me. This was followed by Statto from the football show The Fantasy Football League, another chap who failed his male model interview. There then followed the lookalike that stuck around the longest and, at one stage, threatened to get out of hand.
In the mid 1990s a German striker joined my beloved Manchester City FC named Uwe Rosler. He was little known outside Germany at the time but the City fans took to him immediately as he scored regularly in a struggling City side and his goals saved City from relegation in his first season. I was a regular visitor to Maine Road at this time and after about 2 or 3 of his games, a mate turned to me and said "You look a bit like Uwe you know". I scoffed at this remark but inwardly was rather pleased as this was the first person I had been likened to who wasn't pug ugly!
I never thought much more about it but then in the workplace a few others latched on to this and started calling me "Uwe" (pronounced "oo-vay"). This reached it's peak after an away FA Cup replay against Newcastle on a freezing midweek night. I traveled to the match at St James' Park with a few mates and City overturned the odds and won the match 2-1. Rosler was superb that night and was man of the match by some distance. The following day at work when I walked in there was a chant of "Uwe! Uwe! Uwe!". I loved it.
A few weeks later I was returning home from work when a kid in the street where I lived approached me as I got out of my car and said "Eh, you look dead like that Uwe Rosler what plays for City". Just for a laugh I said "What do you mean lad, I am Uwe Rosler". He looked gobsmacked and speechless, then ran off down the street. A couple of days later, as I ventured to the local shop, a group of lads including the aforementioned kid were having a kick-about in the street. As I passed them one said "Eh look! It's Rosler, I told you he lived in our street"! They then launched into the City chant of the day "UUUUWWWEEE, UWE ROS-ER-LER ! UUUUWWWEEE, UWE ROS-ER-LER!" etc etc. This was becoming ridiculous. I lived in a post code not even remotely like an area a Premier league footballer would be living in. My innocent jape with an impressionable child had clearly backfired.
There followed many more excitable sightings of me by the local children, despite me apologising to them and saying I wasn't actually Uwe Rosler. Eventually, one day as I was passing a group of them again in the street, a couple approached me and one said "My dad said you aren't Uwe Rosler". I told them I wasn't several times before but they now finally believed me. After this, they pretty much ignored me except for one final time when one of them said "Eh there's that man who THINKS he's Uwe Rosler". The cheeky little scamp!
In more recent years I have been likened to Frank Skinner, James Anderson (cricketer) and even that I have the "mannerisms" of Simon Gregson (Steve MacDonald in Coronation Street). As I get older I dread to think who will be next.
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