Bob Champion had Grand National success with Aldaniti a film starring john Hurst was made about him, and now honoured for his charity work.

Champion fought cancer to win the world's most famous steeplechase at Aintree on his injury-plagued horse in 1981, and has been a non stop fundraiser ever since.

He has won the Helen Rollason Award for outstanding achievement in the face of adversity at the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards presented 22 /12/11.

"It's absolutely amazing, a great honour. I was shocked when I heard about it," the 63-year-old very laid back  former Jockey said.

It goes without saying we are delighted to be an agent for Bob and we toast the acknowledgement the BBC has made to this great man. also at the awards supporting Bob,  Derek Thomson & Frank Bruno

One of the many bookers who have booked Frank, usually 9 time out of 10 comes back to discuss how they can use Frank again for the following year. One such company, wanted some unusual auction prizes to include an experience with Frank. Together we put together a concept of where the first which is happening in May a small group of people will be able to have some time with Frank in the Gym and then use the facilities at a health club in the Midlands. If this is something that you would like to consider, why not give us a call, we can pass the clients details on to you or maybe if you are a charity or a fund raiser and feel that this is something that you could sell to your audiences for you next fund raising occasion, then drop us a line.

Over the last few years quite a number of people have put together the concept of having Frank in conversation with some of his opponents. This has included Mike Tyson, & Joe Bugner. However, in Autumn 2011 it was the first time that Frank and Tim Witherspoon had been together for an speaking dinner event. Tim spends quite an amount of time, now in the UK and is looking to do some events. Although he had beaten Frank in the boxing ring he told a story for which Frank received a standing ovation, where although he had beaten Frank, Frank phoned him the next day after their fight and congratulated him on his win. Something that Tim Witherspoon said no other boxer had done at any point of his career. For a different event with 2 Heavy weight champions give us a call.

We have all seen BBC Question of Sport on the television, but for the road shows this year to join Robbie Savage, Sue Baker, Phil Tuffnell etc etc, quite a number of other names were needed around the county and we were delighted to supply various members of our clients. Two highlights being Archie Gemmill who covered the Scotland events and Gary Pallister, who covered Manchester and the Newcastle Area. This was a chance for audiences up and down the country to go and see a live show.

When looking at sporting celebrities very much at the moment, cost is the deciding factor and quite often people forget that dart players all of which have been headline sportsman, with much National TV and media coverage over the years and provide very good value for money.  A particular client wanted a darts player to play darts against their customers, so we supplied a  compare and darts legend John Lowe. John was able to meet and greet the customers, was photographed with them and of course score as many “altogether now” 180’s as possible at the event. With darts once again becoming more and more popular, just look at the viewing figures on TV to discover how much this is attracting new audiences watched by millions every week on TV and thousands in audiences at events every week, this is certainly something worth considering for your venue.

When a Scottish promoter contacted us for Frank to do some DJaying at their venue, Frank was delighted to take on the role. Frank loves music, although as he quite openly says quite a lot of the time he cannot always remember the verses to a number of the songs he loves, he can sing many a chorus! The night  in Glasgow had a sellout audience. This was very much different from a normal After Dinner, as in between the songs and music he gave his own style of humour, stories, comic lines to the audience, as well as attending a VIP reception.  

One of the advantages if you have a good crowd that perhaps like to carry on the event after the event! Frank is ideal for this and will regale many stories unto early hours of the morning if there is some liquid refreshment available. 

As a legend of West Ham, Celtic and Scotland and again one of the real characters of football, he has some wonderful entertaining stories, which certainly equal those of George Best and many other playboys of football. In his day he was a great player doubling up with Tony Cottee what they did on the football pitch they now can do for events--- playing off each other!

One of the Icons of 1970’s football and certainly a controversial media pundit, Rodney Marsh flew in for a few weeks at the back end of September to fill a number of dates for us at various different functions up and down the country. Where there was some gaps in his dates, we were delighted to offer some real last minute bargains.A couple of sporting dinner organisers couldn’t believe it where they had been previously quoted by other agents 3 to 4 thousand pounds more that we actually quoted for Rodney to come down and do their event, and were delighted to have Rodney who’s name still sells tickets. He will be back in 2012 please register your interest with us asap.

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To save embarrassment for some of the organizers concerned, we will stay away from some of the particular details of the cricket club in question. However its a fact a lot of cricket and rugby clubs try to use their own network of connections and "we may know somebody that knows somebody". Quite often and more and more we are finding that people are being let down last minute and so we were delighted to supply Graham Fowler for one such cricket club, who amused and entertained the audience for their Black Club Dinner. Graham is a great servant of cricket, perhaps not so well known on the speaking circuit and great value for money for your after dinner event.

Sadly this year due to Tottenham commitments and Harry’s recent hospitalization and illness, Harry hasn’t been able to do as many appearances as our customers would have liked. However, it is looking as if the European club calendar will not be so full for 2012. We hope that Harry will be able to undertake some appearances, particularly in and around the M25 region and the South of England. However, due to football commitments, obviously all bookings must be at fairly short notice. Who knows you could be booking the next England Manager!??? We are looking forward to enquires for Euro 2012

Bryan has done various jobs for us over the years, sadly we were only able to give him work when his football commitments allowed. He has now been given the all clear concerning the cancer scare and we are trying to book available dates working around his ambassadorial role with Manchester United. We were delighted that he was able to attend some functions for us in the Caribbean, where the client was delighted with not only a dinner event but also a golf day, both of which were highly praised and enjoyed both by Bryan and the audience. 

So although we are based in the UK, where ever you are in the world we will be pleased to furnish you with some of our legends.

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We mentioned earlier in the year where we organized Jimmy Greaves to attend a birthday event. We were delighted this year for a certain gentlemen’s 50^th birthday to organize his boyhood hero Trevor Frances to join him at a private dinner in Birmingham. The birthday boy, who I understand to be very chatty was actually dumb struck and wrote to us later, saying he acted just like a little boy drooling over his hero. Trevor managed to fine a replica of one of the shirts that he wore in his playing days which he presented to the birthday boy.

If you have a member of your family or a friend where you are struggling thinking about a present, why not a number of you get together all put in some money and then get the birthday person’s idol to come and visit and make the particular persons lunch/birthday celebration an event to be remembered for the rest of their lives. 

December 2011 Now with the super league hitting our TV screens Rugby League is growing a bigger and bigger audience across the UK not just up north! We were delighted recently to supply Danny McGuire, Lee Smith, Jamie Peacock and Rob Burrow for a recent opening of some shops in the North of the Country. These guys are super heroes to Rugby League fans remarkably and great value for money, considering their status in English Rugby League.

We cannot believe that this end of year has come round so quickly. It has not been an easy year in our business. However, having been in business since 1980 we are delighted to say that with a lot of our competition are either disappearing from the face of the earth or having to join forces with other organizations to survive, we are delighted to say that it has been a very good year for us this year, not the best certainly not the worst but we are grateful as always for us customers and clients, both new and old who has supported us in the last 12 months. As we look forward to 2012 the Euro Championships and also the Olympics, we are confident of a bumper year next year with your help lets help each other! Thank you to those people who have just wondered on to our website to see what we are all about. Why not find our why our sport celebrity clients like working with us. This year more and more celebrities have asked us to work on their behalf including a number of Olympians.

We are always pleased to welcome additions to work with our agency and two to note – John Hartson, former Arsenal, Celtic, Wales and West Ham player, he recently had a serious bout of cancer and has an amazing inspirational story. He talks about not only his cancer and how he has managed to contain the dreaded decease, but also some of his entertaining stories from his days playing football. He is now seen regularly on BBC and sky as a pundit and in Wales with lots of media.

Nicky Summerbee – very rare that we get a modern day player who is willing to talk about their experiences. Nicky Summerbee the son of the Manchester City and England Mike Summerbee has been on the speaking circuit now for a number of months and has asked us now to obtain some work for him. He is very sensibly priced and will certainly add some fresh stories talking about some of the players who are currently playing football to-day and his experiences with them.

When St Ives Football Club needed a legend of sport to open their new pavilion in St Ives. It had been named after a service man who sadly had prematurely passed on, Sir Geoff was the perfect person to use for the very moving ceremony. He talk at the opening of the ceremony at the unveiling, with some poignant and thought provoking words, which left the many hundreds that turned out to see the event touched and with total reverence the fallen solder who was duly honoured. Sir Geoff later went on to Falmouth, to provide an entertaining after dinner speech. For those people who have seen his after dinner speech before, he has added new sections into his speech, just to give it a bit of freshness. It is worth considering Sir Geoff for your next event. Even if you have had him previously.

When ITV 1 need sports people for Ant and Decs "Push the Button", TOBN came to the rescue. The game on the show was to beat the goal keeper and we supplied Neville Southall the following week referee Dermott O'Gallagher, refereed a penalty competition which was held on the pitch half time at the Birmingham v Arsenal League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.

When the British Freight Association wanted somebody to keep in order their conference, Graham Poll was the ideal person to host this and we were delighted to supply him for the day. He added his own brand of humour to the proceedings. The report from the client was that they were absolutely delighted with what he did and this shows now that Graham now is a very entertaining after dinner speaker and perfect host for an event as well.

When the Channel Islands sports personality of the year comes round, despite the fact that a number of agencies are asked to pitch in their ideas and quotations, each year we manage to fight off the opposition and this year we had a boxer to help us. Joe pulled no punches as he talked honestly about his determination to succeed and presented awards to the many successful sports people on the Channel Islands. Our Company was also asked to organize special contributions from both Tim Henman and Andy Murray. It was a bonus for all the guests as Joe took as his guest Brian Fortuna, the Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer. The women were particularly delighted that Brian chose to join Joe for this event.

With Frank we quite frequently get some unusual requests. It was quite interesting when a Rock Band called Chicken Hawk, wanted to meet their all time sporting hero and invite him to try and sing one of their Rock Songs. Did we say sing? Think we meant scream their rock songs.

The results for this were quite interesting to say the least, why not have a look at the video on the net.

We were delighted to organize Frank Bruno to fly to Gibraltar for the opening of 'Bruno's' a bar named after

Our World Champion boxer. This was due to be opened earlier last year, but with the Ash cloud and Frank being fairly busy, we managed to get the date together to finally get out there to officially open the bar.

Although we had to keep it a secret for quite a while, we were delighted to supply Peter for the BBC TV show Strictly Come Dancing. Peter Shilton survived 3 weeks of eliminations on the show. It opened up a whole new aspect of the agency where we were dealing with Spray Tans, Styling and the ways of dancers!

With viewing figures of just of 10 million viewers per show, it has been a record series and it is just a shame that Peter couldn’t last longer. However, the viewing public preferred Ann Widdecombe’s flight through the air and Gavin Hastings Pecks, although we received wonderful coverage for Peter and he is now available with his dancing partner Erin to appear at any dance workshops or events that require not only a sports talk but also a demonstration and workshop on dancing. Erin Boag Peter’s dancing partner has been in all 8 series of Strictly Come Dancing and her professional dancing partner is Anton Du Beke whose celebrity partner is Ann Widdecombe.

Through Strictly Come Dancing we were able to generate lots of media interest and TV’s that went all over the world.

As we look at the end of another year, although a lots of celebrities have been moaning about the down turn with appearance requests, we can honest say that it has been a wonderful year for Frank Bruno, not only with appearances relating to boxing but also mental health conferences, motivational mental health events, voiceovers for various advertising campaigns, meet and greet and mix and mingles. With the recent David Hayes and Audley Harrison fight, people now tell us how that showed good a World Champion Frank actually was. He is still a character that even though he has hung up his gloves is still very much in demand. Already next year is looking healthy with bookings.

Following hosting of their respective lounges at Fulham and Tottenham, George and Martin have added West Ham to their Match day diaries. The Hammers have introduced a 1966 lounge to their portfolio of match day venues and both George and Martin are alternatively (subject to their Fulham and Tottenham commitments) hosting this lounge to meet and greet customers and talk about the West Ham home fixture of the day the opponent and all and everything English football and 1966. As it has not been a particularly good season for West Ham’s loyal fans thus far this sometime helps lighten the customer’s spirits and makes the match day experience all the more enjoyable.

We have been delighted to be working with Chris from his early days at Sky, he is now a regular TV fixture with his own TV show on Sky and is proving to be a very entertaining after dinner speaker and we are delighted to be supplying him for a number of events.
If you have the facilities of an overhead projector, Chris usages as part of his speech some funny humorous examples from Sky television. It is certainly worth the expense of hiring this extra equipment, as it is a wonderful complement to his already entertaining speech.

We are always getting telephone calls where the man in the street wants to meet their hero’s without having to book for a dinner or an event. A number of our clients including members of the 1966 team, Archie Gemmill, members of the 1971 Arsenal Team. The 1971 Chelsea Cup Winners Cup Team, Jimmy White, Steven Hendrey etc. etc. appear at memorabilia shows where people have the opportunity to meet their heroes and get their autographs and photographs with the celebrity. It is worth keeping an eye out for these events and an ideal opportunity to get autographs. If you cannot make one of these events and are looking for autographs why not visit www.soccerbid.co.uk.

One of our clients in their revamps or opening of new betting shops, have generally booked off us a variety of people Sir Geoff Hurst, Derek Thompson, John Francome, Harry Redknapp, Peter Shilton etc. etc.
However, they have decided to change things around a little bit recently in the Anfield branch, when they wanted someone with a Liverpool connection that wasn’t either Liverpool or Everton only associated. Stan Boardman was the ideal person for this and the punters loved the funnies to cheer them up if their bet did not win. Another one of their branches they were very much darts enthusiasts and so we organized Dennis Priestley, with his Dart Board and Road show and so take on some of the punters as they went to place their morning Saturday bet. To cap it all for the launch of Strictly Come dancing we organized Peter Shilton with his dancing partner Erin Boag to glide their way into a Canary wharf shop-betting shop. Just to show how strong and dominant the female professional dancers have to be, Erin picked up Willie Carson the former jockey for a photo shoot!

We were contacted by a firm of lawyers asking to book Harry Redknapp for one of their associates and a client social event. We were a little concerned it was a wind up, but Harry delighted the audience, some of which freely admitted they did not follow football.
The booker who has had a number of speakers over the last ten years said it was the best and most entertaining speaker they had ever had.
Unfortunately Harry cannot do as many events as he would like to do at the moment, due to the pressures trying to keep Tottenham near the top of the Premier league and also now moving onto the knockout stages of the Champions League.

With the whole of the country under snow, lots of the media struggled to get celebrities out to comment on the World Cup 2018 bid. However, once again TOBN came to the rescue supplying Martin Peters for the Sky’s sport live coverage. BBC News, Radio 5 we even had him on standby for the One Show.
For a quick fast turn around there is no other choice for the media than to come to our company, we don’t sit on the fence we get on with the job and organize your celebrity for you whatever the weather!

TOBN once again are in a league of their own, see our clients on the Sky 1 weekly programme. When the researchers for “a league of their own” were looking for people to join John Bishop, Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp for the guest celebrities there was only one place to look and we were delighted to supply Dennis Taylor, Frank Bruno, Peter Shilton, Harry Redknapp and John Virgo, all of which you will see on the shows in the next few weeks. Look out for the Christmas special!

Maybe not on the pitch but for our company its been an amazing 3 months even when the disputed goal did not go in against Germany we were “doing a deal” with The Sun newspaper on an exclusive. Our company and clients have been involved in campaigns for Mars, Kit Kat, Marks and Spencer, Carlsberg, the Royal Mint, Blue Square.com, MacDonald’s, Coca Cola, Nationwide, Bostik, EA Sports, Indesit, Last minute.com, Typhoo, Corals, Microsoft, Bookers, etc etc our media department was starting at 7am and finishing at midnight some days a Big thank you to all our clients.

This was a call we were receiving most days of June for work both in the UK and South Africa we were delighted to have helped nearly all the requests we got and we almost wanted to say to each panicking and stressed booker “why did you not come to us first”? The only good thing is that our phone number is now on their I phone and blackberries for next time!

When ITV wanted a selection of names for the 10 million viewing World cup live show there was only one place to go to and we were delighted to supply Jimmy Greaves, Gordon Banks, Peter Shilton, Terry Butcher, Sir Geoff Hurst, etc etc

When the England team performed as they did the media centre at TOBN went into overdrive with all our clients both in the UK and South Africa we now have some great relationships with the media which will be good for them, our celebrity clients, and our business clients in years to come. 

When the directory service 192.com wanted a celebrity face to head up their campaign using the theme of the World cup and how about making connections with people who went to the game in 1966. George Cohen was the ideal candidate to front this campaign for them. This included quite a number of media interviews followed by radio interviews. So much so that 192.com were so delighted with the initial response using George for their campaign they extended the contract. George one of the lesser known members of the 66 team is a great communicator and the media love him. He is ideal for fronting a campaign such as this. 

Quite a number of promoters and organizers this year used many of our former stars on the road in lunch time and dinner functions. These included Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters, George Cohen, Peter Shilton, Frank Bruno, Harry Redknapp in fact most of our list worked around the country for numerous events. Most events based around the World cup or just an excuse to have an event. The famous London St Georges day lunch this year was attended by Frank Bruno, Phil Taylor and Steve Davies. This is becoming a bigger event every year with our company who is delighted to offer the best of English entertainment for this wonderful event. It seems more and more people are jumping on the St Georges day band wagon so maybe start looking for who to consider for next year? 

When forward planning an event having to work round the football time table its always a nightmare and a Chinese restaurant in Rochester, Kent caught a cold when 98% of their clients decided that as good as an entertainer as Tony is going to see Dagenham and Redbridge in one of their promotion fighting games was just too much of a conflict of interests. There was discussion whether we were going to move the night or not due to Tony’s heavy diary commitments no dates could be found so Tony went along and did the job for 8 people. Those who know Tony will know Sky pundit former footballer is entertaining whether 8 or 800 people and he said it was an unusual experience with only 8 people sitting around the table. 

As a company we get hundreds of charity requests, but we were particularly appealed by the Brainwave charity that works with children that have brain damage. Peter and Sir Geoff were happy to get associated with this charity event at Stamford Bridge and as an additional fundraiser Peter went in goal and a number of guests paid great money to the charity for an opportunity to take a penalty against England’s most capped player. 

When the Evening Standard and Wells and Young’s brewers needed to put together the perfect night in a pub tobn.co.uk had the answers for them supplying a range of celebrities for competition winners across June and July. We are delighted to have supplied Alex Stewart, Martin Peters, and Sir Geoff Hurst for some evenings where competition winners from the Evening Standard were able to sample some real ales and be entertained by the celebrities in a controlled nice not to full environment. A night at the pub is becoming more entertaining! 

When we were approached by Titan bet to organize a football celebrity for a penalty shootout between two buildings in Paddington, we did think it was a bit of a joke; however Graham Le Saux and Peter Shilton both wearing harnesses did a penalty shootout to launch the Titan bet world cup big prize gambling campaign. Peter said it was a little scary and the former players had to have a harness on so they didn’t fall off the top of the building. Pete said “I am a little scared of heights and was certainly one of the most unusual jobs I have done in my life” however the image created media awareness across the world and did exactly what the client wanted it to do. Peter even had a go at taking some penalties himself.

When DANONE wanted to put together an exciting day for their staff they decided on a football championship and the ideal person to help and advise teams was England’s most capped player Peter Shilton who later went in goal and penalty shootout was organized with the winners of the teams. At 50 something years old Peter is still very agile and dives around as if he is a young goal keeper and you can see in his time how he was the world’s best goal keeper. 

When Amscan one of the leading party products suppliers needed to launch their World Cup product range we were approached and supplied Gordon Banks who did a PR day with their staff and had photographs with a lot of the products. Next time you see one of those flags on the back of a car or some of the world cup banners seen at pubs and clubs up and down the country this was all instigated through a tobn marketed event! Gordon Banks was able to demonstrate more than just an awareness for the campaign but also how much customers can SAVE (excuse the pun) with this leading party supplier.

The catchphrase obviously borrowed from the Carlsberg advert and we were delighted to be able to assist not only in some special celebration glasses for the World cup which say “They think its all over it is now” but also quite a lot of work was done on our behalf concerning celebrities for the Carlsberg advert which in the end featured Phil the Taylor Power, Sir Steven Redgrave, Sir Ian Botham, Dame Kelly Holmes, Nigel Benn etc. 

Sadly the Irish couldn’t make it to South Africa this year; however when the World Cup visited Northern Ireland for the first time ever an Irish legend was needed and we supplied Pat Jennings who worked on behalf Coca Cola when they bought the World cup over. 

As part of Fifa’s ruling only people who have won a World Cup are allowed to touch the World Cup, so we were delighted to supply George Cohen and Martin Peters for various events on behalf of Coca Cola when the World cup visited England.

As we look at the end of another year, although a lots of celebrities have been moaning about the down turn with appearance requests, we can honest say that it has been a wonderful year for Frank Bruno, not only with appearances relating to boxing but also mental health conferences, motivational mental health events, voiceovers for various advertising campaigns, meet and greet and mix and mingles. With the recent David Hayes and Audley Harrison fight, people now tell us how that showed good a World Champion Frank actually was. He is still a character that even though he has hung up his gloves is still very much in demand. Already next year is looking healthy with bookings.

Although we had to keep it a secret for quite a while, we were delighted to supply Peter for the BBC TV show Strictly Come Dancing. Peter Shilton survived 3 weeks of eliminations on the show. It opened up a whole new aspect of the agency where we were dealing with Spray Tans, Styling and the ways of dancers!

With viewing figures of just of 10 million viewers per show, it has been a record series and it is just a shame that Peter couldn’t last longer. However, the viewing public preferred Ann Widdecombe’s flight through the air and Gavin Hastings Pecks, although we received wonderful coverage for Peter and he is now available with his dancing partner Erin to appear at any dance workshops or events that require not only a sports talk but also a demonstration and workshop on dancing. Erin Boag Peter’s dancing partner has been in all 8 series of Strictly Come Dancing and her professional dancing partner is Anton Du Beke whose celebrity partner is Ann Widdecombe.

Through Strictly Come Dancing we were able to generate lots of media interest and TV’s that went all over the world.