Hi °C | Lo °C Former television girl Adrienne Catherwood doesn't realise it - but she caused football star Norman Whiteside no little distress when he was a small boy growing up in north Belfast.
You see, the young Adrienne - mother of television reporter Andrea Catherwood - was the hostess in the 60s on UTV's daily children's show Romper Room during which she held up a mirror and read out the names of children she could see (supposedly) in her magic looking glass.
But the young Whiteside never once got a mention, reveals the Manchester United idol in his autobiography Determined, published recently both in hardback and paperback by Headline.
"I was tormented by the otherwise saintly Miss Adrienne," he confesses now.
The Northern Ireland caps, the goals for Manchester United and the adulation of the fans are all very well, but Norman to this day is disappointed that he never got his name called out on Romper Room.
In fact the memory is still so painful with Whiteside, now in his 40s, that he takes time out to talk about Adrienne in his book, copies of which he will be signing in Easons of Donegall Place, Belfast, on Friday, August 31, at noon.
He recalls in Determined how the omission of his Christian name by the Romper Room hostess prompted him to fly into a rage - and earn him a slap from mum as he cried tears of indignation at the injustice.
"I'd have my dinner, then race to sit in front of the set every afternoon, confident that today would be the day she would see me, but in all the years I watched she never once said 'Norman,'" he writes.
"The next day I'd be back in my spot full of hope.
"My poor ma told me she used to feel so sorry for me that each morning she would pray for Adrienne to say it, but her magic mirror remained a Norman-free zone and I was left to pound the floorboards and slam doors like a rowdy, tiny troll until I was old enough to go to school which I'm sure couldn't come quick enough for my mum."
You definitely get the impression that Norman, who is the youngest footballer ever to appear in the World Cup - at 17 years and 41 days - still hasn't forgiven Miss Adrienne in spite of all the footballing success he achieved.
