FEW of have yet noticed, but, pre-season matches, the lead-up to the big kick-off of season 2012-13 have started. I must admit, I am not very keen on pre-season matches, from a professional point of view - too-much work, for too-little reward.
The Sports Desk of your paper will allocate a game to you, depending on the date, they might only have room for a couple of hundred words, plus teams; now that is the killer. We all know these are warm-up games, dress rehearsals, so the managers will take every opportunity to muck about with their line-ups.
The game may kick-off with what you and tha managers presume will be the line-up for the first real game, all good and well; but, depending on how things go in the first half, they will, from half-time on, start tinkering. This may take the form of (my favourite) fielding a totally-different line-up in the second half, or it could be a case of a couple of rafts of changes, which, so-long as the second one isn't done during the final ten minutes, isn't too-bad.
There is nothing worse than having your report of, perhaps an insipid, boring non-event 0-0 draw written, ready to press the "send" button on your lap top right on the final whistle - when the manager suddenly, in the 81st minute, decides to blood three of his apprentices, at least two of whom are wearing jerseys handed over by previously replaced players.
This means a rush along the press box to the local fanatic, usually the guy who writes the club's website, and who hasn't missed a game for 15 years. This font of all knowledge is supposed to be able to identify every player. And, if he cannot, you're in trouble - particularly if the one youngster you haven't been able to aidentify, should score a 9snd minute match winner.
Worse is if the opposition is a lower league English team. You may be able to identify their thirtysomething token Scot, who won one international cap, as a substitute, in the Berti Vogts era, but, him apart, you haven't a clue who they are, and, to make it worse, the English team's local paper hasn't sent North a reporter who could help you out. Panic stations every one.
Then, there is the presence of some new signing, from Eastern Europe or sub-Saharan Africa, whose name is worth 250 points at Scrabble and the spelling of whose name cannot be guaranteed.
I always liked the way Archie McPherson, if he wasn't sure how to pronounce a foreign name, could get away with: "the big goalkeeper", or "the tall midfielder" - trouble is, you cannot do this in a report for a newspaper, you need a name.
Mind you, I remember once, whilst covering a Kilmarnock v Hearts game at Rugby Park, receiving a telephone call from my London sports desk; the sub-editor on the other end of the line wanted to know the correct spelling of Alexei Mikhailitchenko, and the advice from further down the desk was: "Telephone old Socrates - he'll know". You should have seen the looks I got from the rest of the press pack.
Mind you, that was nothing to the day, while covering an Ayr United cup tie at Somerset Park, I also had to do a "runner" for one of the old Saturday night "pink 'uns" on the game up the road at Rugby Park. The guy who was supposed to be covering it had had a crash on the way there and I was asked, at extremely short notice, to help out.
This was in the days before lap tops - when reports had to be dictated down the telephone line to a copy taker. Two of my daughters had been trained to help me out by dictating the reports, allowing me to concentrate on writing them - so I sent one of them to Rugby Park, took the other one to Somerset Park and when anything happened at Kilmarnock, that daughter called me and told me something like: "Goal to Kilmarnock in 15 minutes - so-and-so, header from a corner by such-and-such".
With some judicious padding, we got away with it, but the looks I was getting from some of the Ayr fans, who over-heard me describing a Kilmarnock goal, were of the: "What bloody game is he at?" variety.
So you see, covering football matches isn't that straight-forward. Mind you, it's a lot easier than trying to make sense of the politics and machinations within the corridors of power which have so-enthralled us this close-season.
But, ICBINR are now in SFL3, Dundee are in the SPL and until: the Crown Office, the Procurator Fiscal's Department, Strathclyde Police, the Judiciary Tribunals Service, BDO either together, or individually, give us something else to worry about - we can now complete our pre-season training and be ready to go.
Competitive football kicks off in less than two weeks - these will pass very quickly. Let's hope, after this close season, we get a real season to enjoy.
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