Henry Cooper’s nephew’s performance brings a tremor to Balham VE Day party

It’s enough to bring a tear to the glass eye of a football fan old enough to remember Italia 90.

A performance of Puccini’s Nessun Dorma by the real deal.

Neal Cooper was in the traditional tails and white bow tie.

Below, that, though, were his motorcycle leathers.

He had arrived on his 1,000cc BMW bike, resplendent in evening suit and vintage goggles and helmet.

Neal had been scheduled to sing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in front of 2,200 jewel-jangling fans.

Instead, he was performing at a street party for VE Day on Friday in front of a decent smattering of well-spaced residents of Fieldhouse Road, Balham. 

There were sniffles – it’s hard to tell whether that was the sheer emotion of the performance, or for loved ones lost during the Second World War. He was accompanied by a short burst from a crying baby (obviously).

But one or two in the audience will have harked back to the World Cup in 1990, when Nessun Dorma blared out of every TV programme or upstairs window, and to Paul Gascoign’s tears or Stuart Pearce’s saved penalty, which sent West Germany through to the World Cup final against Argentina.

The petrol-heads then gathered around to admire Neal’s gleaming machine before he sped off to his next gig, which might have been, but was not, a kiddies’ tea party in Kidbrooke. The dads would have kicked off another blub-fest big-time.

South London-born Neal, as his name implies, is related to another national treasure from South London, boxer Henry Cooper – the late British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight champ was his uncle. 

Neal has performed at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan in New York and the Paris Opera. Stages don’t come much bigger than that. They might not have knocked down Muhammed Ali. But kids brought up on the Hyde Farm Estate will forever remember VE Day 2020 in lockdown, and especially that jacket and trousers combo.