The magic of Merson for Raith Rovers Hall of Fame

Merson, now a well-respected pundit on Sky Sports, has been confirmed as the first of two VIP guest at the sold out event which will take place on November 7.

Alistair Cameron of the organising committee said he was “delighted” that Merson will appear and is looking forward to seeing him on stage.

“To say the least he’s had a very interesting and chequered career!

“If anyone was at the Hall of Fame last year and heard Harry Redknapp’s stories, most of then revolving around Paul, they would know how funny they were. So this gives Paul the right of reply!”

Though he played for a number of clubs including Middlesborough and Aston Villa, Merson is best known for his 12 years at Arsenal where he won two league titles, and FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup winners medals. In total he played 289 times for the Gunners scoring 78 goals.

He also played 21 times for England scoring three times and appeared at the finals of Euro 1992 and the 1998 World Cup.

Alistair said the committee worked hard to secure one of the biggest names in UK football.

“One of the reasons we’ve had to leave it so late to announce our VIPs for this year was because the Scotland-England game is on the Friday after the Hall of Fame, so a lot of the guys we were looking at are booked up to work that week.

“We needed to make sure that whoever we get is committed to coming up, so that why we left it until now to really start looking, but Paul, especially after last year, was on our list right the way along and we are now talking to one or two other people to be our second VIP guest.”

Outwith his sometimes controversial activities off the field, on it Merson had a glittering career.

Alistair said: “He played in one of the best Arsenal teams there’s ever been so he’ll have loads of stories about that. He played with Tony Adams and David Seaman and the three of them were real stalwarts of that fantastic Arsenal side.

“Our host Bill Leckie is really looking forward to the interview. He thinks that he’ll be really interesting to talk which is always a good sign, but you only have to watch him on Sky Sports to see that he’s got those quirky one-liners and is not slow on offering his opinion, so he’s really watchable.

“We’re really chuffed to get him and he’s really looking forward to coming up and we’ll be announcing more guests over the next few weeks.”