Crimestoppers UK and learnt about the Crimestoppers scheme, he saw it as a good opportunity to get the community involved in crime-fighting. Other areas around the UK also learned of Crimestoppers and took it up around this time but there was no national, co-ordinated approach. In 1985, PC Keith Blakelock was murdered during the riots at the Broadwater Farm Estate in London and the police appealed for information, stating that people knew who had been responsible but were frightened of coming forward. Michael Ashcroft (now Lord Ashcroft, KCMG and Chairman of the Trustees of Crimestoppers), a businessman, offered to provide the police
What It Was, Was Football from the "Totally MAD" CD-ROM collection of the magazine's run. In 1987, Andy Griffith made an appearance on "The Tonight Show" promoting his series, "Matlock," in which he acted out the attorney Benjamin Layton Matlock, one of whose heroes was, presumably, Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason. During the interview, guest host Bill Cosby told Griffith that he had purchased Griffith's recording of "What It Was, Was Football." Cosby then told Griffith that he had performed it at school and received an A for his grade, much to Griffith's surprise and delight. In 1997, the monologue was made into a short