History, Fitba, Politics And Scotland's Place In The World - A Rant

WHEN I was growing-up, Television was in its infancy. It didn't even arrive in Scotland until late in 1952, and only really took off for the Queen's Coronation, in June, 1953. I do recall watching a couple of Children's TV programmes before then – the Cisco Kid, a terrible American cowboy show – but the first TV programme I can recall watching was the 1953 FA Cup Final – the “Stanley Matthews Cup Final”.

Stanley Matthews goes past Bolton's Malcolm Barrass in the 1953 FA Cup Final

TV didn't really effect my generation – the Baby Boomers – we were maybe the last lot to have real childhoods. We went off and built dens in the wood behind our houses, we played Cowboys and Indians, we would dam the local burn – that's where we swam, no flashy leisure centres for us at first. To jump off the parapet of the local road bridge into the deepest part of the burn, that was a rite of passage, oh, and we played sport.

Mainly we played fitba – there would be a 30-to-50-aside game in the big field every weekend, at night we played among our smaller groups; ten of us played every night on the big hoose drying green behind the kirk. Two pine trees at one end was one goal, two clothes poles at the other end, the opposite goal, while a wire fence and the back road into the big hoose were natural touchlines.

If we got bored of football, we would occasionally, in the summer, play cricket, while Wimbledon brought out the tennis rackets, but, generally, we played fitba. None of us got past Junior level, although, I am convinced to this day, if wee Jimmy McConnell, who was a couple of years younger than us, had not moved away, he would have made it. Having to play against bigger, stronger boys, he developed into a midfielder who tackled like Dave Mackay. He had a spell with Largs Thistle, but, to me, he was a natural Talbot player.

Politics back then was a simpler affair too. No wall-to-wall TV analysis and comment. At election time, the candidates had to get out there on the stump and actually talk to the electorate, face-to-face, at well-attended local hustings. They could not get away with glib or evasive answers to a paid TV journalists who knew, when he or she asked the question, no direct answer would there be.

Emrys Hughes MP

But, Emrys Hughes, our much-loved left-wing Labour MP, and Keir Hardie's son-in-law, knew, if Big Tam, who hewed coal all week down Whitehill Pit asked a direct question – he wanted a direct answer and would not be satisfied until he got one. In our constituency, they didn't count the Labour vote – they weighed it. Today, we've got a Tory MP, albeit a guy who worked down the pit for a wee while.

My old man was one of only two self-confessed Tories locally. Although, he wasn't “A Tory”, he supported the Scottish Unionist Party, but, in his defence,he was probably one of that party's few members who didn't wear his father's sash.

Fitba, like politics then, was simpler. You supported Scotland and your village football team if you had a senior team, it was either Kilmarnock, or one or other of the bigot brothers, dependant on what school you went to. There would be the odd exotic, like my best pal Richard, who supported (as he still does), Partick Thistle, because his uncle played for them.

Today, as a 70-year-old, I shake my head in bafflement at what the worlds of football and politics have come to. We now see kids running about wearing Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona or Real Madrid replica strips, as often as we see them in Kilmarnock, Rangers of Celtic ones. Away from the local paper, there is more coverage in the Scottish media of English football than there is of the 30-non-Premiership Scottish teams.

It is almost as if the corporate media has decided, Scotland is too-wee, too-poor and too-stupid to matter – and where have I heard that before. For Fuck Sake, our national football team is tonight playing an absolutely-crucial World Cup qualifier, and what can we watch free to air? England our neighbours, playing, because – in today's corporate media world, they are more important than Scotland.

Jim Sillars

Jim Sillars, the man who succeeded Emrys Hughes as my MP, famously suggested that, many Scots were: “90 minute patriots”. They will be right behind Scotland tonight, but, when it comes to the important matters, like politics, they will vote for English-based and led parties who don't give a shit about Scotland and the Scots. So long as they can come up here to shoot our grouse and deer; so long as we continue to distil their whisky and, very-important this, so long as England gets to decide what the tax revenues from Scotland's food, drink and oil exports are spent on – and as long as we don't vote SNP, but send lobby fodder for the English majority parties to Westminster as our MPs – the English will put up with our quaint Scottish ways.

I watched that train crash of a speech by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Manchester yesterday. I watched from morbid fascination. It was cringe-inducing in its awfulness. If that woman had been a football team manager, making that speech in defence of her record as boss, at a football club annual meeting, she'd have been laughed out of office, she was having to defend the indefensible.

 Mrs May during her train crash speech

Football managers have been sacked for doing better than she has. But, I suppose, Theresa May has now to be seen as the Pedro Caixinha of politics. A dead person walking, because, everyone knows, it will get worse before it will get better, and nobody wants the job anyway, because it is such a poisoned chalice – and, in any case, her team isn't good enough for the job it is supposed to be doing.

In contrast, wee Nicola and wee Gordon are doing wonders with what they have, and are offering us hope for the future. And, that's why my Scottish patriotism lasts a lot longer than 90-minutes, like 70-years and still growing.

I am hopeful for tonight, and for next week, but. I am even more-hopeful for Scotland's wider, longer-term future. RANT OVER.