ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Does anyone remember a drama about an alcoholic football player who is offered redemption by a young manager who idolised him?

QUESTION: Does anyone remember a drama about an alcoholic football player who is offered redemption by a young manager who idolised him?

This was Yesterday’s Hero (1979), a kitchen-sink drama starring Ian McShane of Lovejoy and John Wick fame, Suzanne Somers, Paul Nicholas and Adam Faith. The plot revolves around a washed-up soccer player, Rod Turner (McShane), struggling with alcoholism and the decline of his career.

The film finds Turner living in obscurity, playing for a minor league team. 

His fortunes take a turn when he gets an unexpected opportunity to join a struggling third-tier club owned by Clint Simon (Nicholas), who hopes Rod can bring some star power and lead the team to victory in a miraculous FA Cup run.

While McShane is characteristically excellent, the film itself is mostly pretty cheesy.

George Simms, London E7

Yesterday’s Hero (1979), a kitchen-sink drama starring Ian McShane as Rod Turner

QUESTION: What is the origin of the phrase ‘conked out’?

Conked out became slang for ‘knocked out’ and was later used for an engine, be it in a plane or a car, breaking down.

Conk was recorded as a ‘nose’ in James Hardy Vaux’s list of ‘flash’ words in 1812. It is speculated that this idea came from its resemblance to a shell. 

In fact, the spongy bones inside the nose are known in Latin as the conchae.

Soon after, conk was substituted for ‘head’ in Bell’s Life In London (1831): ‘For a farden I’d break your precious conk!’ 

This may have been onomatopoeic, from the sound associated with a blow to the head.

In this context, ‘conk out’ would imply a loss of consciousness as in Boxiana III (1821): ‘Spring however conked his opponent, when they closed.’

By the First World War, ‘conked out’ had come to refer to engine failure.

Soldier And Sailor Words And Phrases (1925) has: ‘Konked (Konked Out): An Air Force term used of an aeroplane engine stopped working […] a general expression meaning ‘knocked out’, dead.’

O. S. Smith, Lancaster

The spongy bones inside the nose are known in Latin as the conchae (Stock image)

QUESTION: What are novels by great authors that are considered to be terrible?

Further to the earlier answer, after the excitement of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, The Silmarillion, his pre-history of Middle-earth, is incredibly boring. Read the Icelandic sagas instead.

J. S. Lewis, Slough, Berkshire