EARLIER this week I waxed lyrical about my old boss Harry Reid's look at the state of Scottish Football in "the Noughties" - 'Final Whistle'. Reading this is a work-in-progress, progress coming at the rate of a chapter per night - read last thing at night.
Last night's segment had me chortling quietly, as I recalled the glory days of the Sunday Standard, between 1981 and 1983. I was part of that bold, but ultimately failed experiment and still look back with pride at what we produced.
Of course, it helped that we were a good team on the Sports Desk - Harry laid the foundations, on which Ian "Dan" Archer and Doug Gillon built splendidly. I was part of a freelance writing team which worked almost exclusively for the paper and included such stellar names as Ian St John, Hughie Taylor, Innes Ireland and the wonderful Norman Mair, and one or two lesser lights such as yours truly.
In his book Harry makes the point that, around that time, Dan Archer was beginning to feel he was "written out" as far as covering football was concerned. Of course, when roused, Dan could still write the rest of us off the page.
I remember once, travelling back to the Herald building in Albion Street to write-up and file my my report of a fairly straight-forward Celtic win at Parkhead, to see Dan - who had covered that day's Morton v Rangers match at Cappielow from the Directors' Box and who had clearly supped not wisely, if perhaps too-well.
"He'll never write a coherent report", I wondered, as I worked away further down the desk, but, next morning, it was a joy to read Dan's witty report of the match. I could see events unfurling as I wrote - which is the sign of a class act, showing its class.
If that was a man who was "written out", there was no hope for the rest of us.
A wee diversion here - back then, in the early 1980s, lap tops still hadn't made it as far as the press boxes of Scotland, no internet back then. So, we troops in the front-line had to - if too-far from the office - rely on dictating our match report over the telephone to the copy takers back at base.
Some of these, particularly in the Herald, were so good, they could correct bad grammar and harden-up slip-shod dictation, before the subs got to work on it. But, we had to have a cogent thread in place as we began dictating, and we had to come in on the word count.
So, the stress levels were always high at full time, as we dictated. However, I soon noticed, nobody filed copy - if they were sharing the box with him - when big Doug Baillie of the Sunday Post, was on the line to the Post's Glasgow office. To eavesdrop on Baillie's home-spun dictation style was a joy.
"Onion bags, custodians, pivots, wingers, thumping tackles, Greig's Grenadiers, McNeill's Militia, Fergie's Fusiliers, the spheroid, whistlers", there wasn't a cliche left unused when Doug put the 'phone down; but, how we youngsters marvelled at his ability to have a suitably individual take on the game.
Doug, of course, had had a guid Scottish education at Lanark Grammar School, Dan was an Old Rugbeian, surely the only Thistle fanatic who ever listed Denis Amiss as his favourite sportsman. So, Doug, was maybe less likely to ever be written out.
My favourite Baillie moment came one afternoon as we gazed out at the thousands of empty seats in the pre-Souness Ibrox. The latest big thing at Ibrox sprinted up the wing, then tripped over the ball, Baillie snorted: "See that yin, he'll still be a promisin' boay when he's 30."
Right enough, said would-be superstar was soon back in the juniors, where he belonged.
Any way, if football writers can burn-out, maybe, as with managers, we have a shelf life; we can only comment for so-long, before our public stops reading or listening.
With Dan in charge of the Standard sports desk, there was no pecking order, such as there still across the Scottish titles - we all got our turn to cover the Old Firm, we each had to travel up to Aberdeen for Dons'home games. There might have been an A team, who covered nothing but the Old Firm and Scotland, but while Dan was, naturally in it - the rest of us got our turn at the game of the day, that wasn't an A Team preserve on our title.
Thus, we stayed fresh and we got to know people. Before I switched back to rugby a few years ago, I used to get annoyed, when the Scottish Cup threw-up an SPL v First or Second Division tie, and one of the A Team had to lower himself to leave the Ibrox - Parkhead - Hampden Glasgow Triangle. We lesser beings who were on the provincial circuit had to spend half the game bringing them up to speed on who was who on the park and these precious creatures were clearly out of their comfort zones, not having to pay court to Walter, or Martin.
Maybe, if our alleged top talents in present-day sports writing had to get out of their rut, and if the papers realised not everyone is besotted with the Old Firm - then our coverage of the game in Scotland might be better, and, just maybe, a mainstream media, keen on more than extending the status quo, could lead the way in the revival we all know is long-overdue in Scottish football.
And amybe, if they were to become aware of howmuch talent there is in Scotland, in sports other than football, it would be better for everyone in this wee, crabbit nation.
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