In one of their snippets of information, the Daily Mail reminds today that it has been 30 years since Bulls coach John Trewick left his mark on architectural reviews by passing comment on the Great Wall of China.
The BBC documentary World About Us, which Trewick maintains misrepresented his joke comment, is - fortunately - not repeated anywhere near as often as a certain Ronnie Radford moment by the BBC, but journalists continue to remember it. Daily Mirror reporter Mike Walters, in his Olympic Blog titled The Great Wally Of China, is the latest to reminisce:
Three decades have passed since Ron Atkinson led West Bromwich Albion on a pioneering end-of-season trip to China and their hosts organised a photo opportunity for the squad which has become part of tourist folklore.
As we all know, footballers can be a dull lot by nature, but although the trip was optional, Big Ron thought his players would jump at the chance to enjoy a spot of culture at one of the seven wonders of the world.
Surprisingly, however, midfielder John Trewick decided to stay behind, even though such works outings were a rare treat for western tourists in a country hermetically sealed to outsiders by Communist rulers who operated under the maxim that if you open the windows, you let in the flies.
Now, Trewick was a tidy passer with an eye for goal, and his worthy career included winning the League Cup with Oxford 23 years ago, while Hereford have won two promotions under his tutelage as coach.
But his trite reason for giving the Great Wall of China a miss remains one of the classic one-liners of his era: "Once you've seen one wall, you've seen them all."
Go to the back of the class, John, and see me after school. So the Kremlin wall, the Wailing Wall, the walls of Jericho and the Great Wall of China all deserve to be bracketed with Walls ice cream, do they?
Trewick's incomparable comment sprang readily to mind on Sunday, when I ventured into the hills north-west of Beijing to watch Nicole Cooke claim Britain's first gold medal at the Olympics in the women's cycling road race.
In teeming rain of biblical proportions, Cooke took the chequered flag with a gutsy sprint uphill over the last 400 metres along the Badaling section of the Great Wall - one of the most exotic venues imaginable for any Olympic race.
And repeatedly the same thought ran through my head: How can anyone in their right mind spurn the chance to take in one of the GREAT attractions and grab snapshots a cut above your average photo album?
Even when it was raining stair-rods, and Cooke was going for gold in conditions better-suited to canoeing, the walkway snaking over mountain tops and into the clouds was a truly breathtaking sight.
In Britain, we perform cartwheels about Jubilee Line extensions and pedestrian bridges across the Thames, but this was a feat of engineering - more than 1,000 years old - to make a bricklayer's eyes water.
Upon West Brom's return from the far east, an eager radio reporter asked Big Ron if he had managed to see the Great Wall of China on his travels.
Quick as a flash, Atkinson - never slow with a quip from the Bob Monkhouse school of comedy - replied: "See it? Did we SEE the Great Wall of China? Mate, we practised bending free-kicks around it."
Cooke will be back at the scene of her golden triumph on Wednesday for the women's time trial. West Brom fans, meanwhile, will hope Arsenal's defences will be easier to crack than the Great Wall on the opening day of the Premier League season this weekend.
If anyone from the BBC is reading, and has access to the archive, Youtube is missing the classic clip.
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