I APPRECIATE, when it comes to 21st century politicians, we are dealing with a fairly rum bunch, particularly in the United Kingdom. We've got the worst Prime Minister in living memory – arguably ever; a Leader of the Opposition who only got the job because his predecessor was too left wing for the powers-that-be in the party of the left, and the guy who now has the job was seen as the least-worst of a poor lot. We need not bother ourselves with the Liberal Party and when it comes to Holyrood – jings, crivvens, help ma Boab – to coin a phrase.
We've got a First Minster, supposedly from a pro-Independence party who is less-willing to mention Independence than Basil Fawlty would mention the War in front of German guests. The Scottish Tories are led by a linesman, Scottish Labour by a total chancer, the Liberals by a hauf-wit, who took over from a quarter-wit, while the Greens, led by cauld kail personified. Aye, we're in a raw state.
But, last week a leading Scottish politician, John Swinney, plumbed new depths, when he called on Scottish football fans to not go to games to prevent the further spread of Covid.
Brave call John, but, you're mainly dealing with Celtic fans here, and they have a complete mind of their own – they barely ever listen to their own club's high heid yins, with whom they are mostly at war.
Mind you, I think Swinney only still has a job, because he knows where the bodies are buried, could probably do for Sturgeon in her efforts to get rid of Alex Salmond, and keeping a big job, rather than any talent, is his price for staying.
To my mind, there is no question, but that Scottish football needs root and branch reform, would be better for a winter shut-down, and, while I will readily concede, the Scottish Government has handled Covid a Hell of a lot better than that bunch of hooks, crooks and comic singers down in that there London, I would like to think they could have done better.
Instead of relying on a better nature which those he was addressing do not possess, I think if Swinney wants to get involved in Scottish fitba, he should start by telling the time-servers along the sixth floor corridor to sort things out – or no more government assistance or funding. That might get them working.
WHEN I WAS “on the tools” covering football as my main sports-writing interest, I dubbed myself: “the only neutral in Ayrshire,” since I covered Kilmarnock one week – Ayr United the next. I had my own 'phone lines and regular press box seats at both grounds – although very-occasionally one of the Glasgow A team would have to be decanted when sent out to “the sticks.”
These were good days, and I made some very-good friends among the staff and regulars at both grounds. So, while my Kilmarnock bromance goes back to the 1950s and Andy Kerr, Bertie Black & Co, I have fond memories too of the days of Ally MacLeod and the likes of Templeton, Walker and Sludden at Somerset Park.
Therefore, it gars me greet to see both clubs looking for new managers at this time of year. The Honest Men are flirting with the Scottish Championship relegation zone, and while KIllie are three places higher, and 14 points better off in the same division – that's not where I and the rest of the Kilmarnock Army want our side to be.
Both boards therefore have big decisions to make, choices which they need to get right, before hopeful pushes for higher and better things in the New Year.
IT'S A RUNNING joke in Scottish football at the moment – that referees have been , in the event of a match being goalless, told to keep playing until Celtic score. At least with Rangers, the old certainties still accrue – we keep playing till Rangers get a penalty.
I gather the referee at Paisley the other night is in deep doo-dah, since he only played six minutes over time. Of course, if football was run properly, and the playing field was indeed level, we would have 90 minutes “ball in play.” The clock would stop every time the ball went out of play, or the referee blew his whistle. Time keeping would be out of the hands of the referee, there would be a highly-visible game clock in every ground, and there would be no arguments.
Well, there still would be, this is Scotland after all.
THE GUARDIAN this week published their list of the 100 top footballers in the world – 11 of them were English.
So, if they're that good, how come they couldn't beat Scotland, a nation which didn't have a single player nominated? Yes, you read that right, the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool and Jack Grealish of Aston Villa are in there, but, their superior team mates, Scots Andrew Robertson and John McGinn don't get a mention.
TARBOLTON, or Tarbouton in the local lingo is one of these strange Ayrshire mining villages of legend. It used to fit Donald Finlay QC's description of his own birthplace in Fife: “eight thousand of a population – four surnames.”
Tarbolton is a bit more cosmopolitan these days. It also has its share of sporting icons: Tommy Gemmell 1, the under-capped, cultured St Mirren inside forward of the 1950s was from the village, as was former European boxing champion Evan Armstrong, and the great former Scotland rugby captain and British Lions icon Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLauchlan.
Today's top trumps in Tarbolton sporting icons is Kris Boyd, who its perhaps fair to say, causes Celtic more bother from his press seat than he ever did when scoring goals for Kilmarnock, Rangers and Scotland.
Boydie's every utterance seems to drive a large section of the Celtic Family to a frenzy. He regularly gives Chris Sutton lessons in the gentle art of the wind-up. I can see Boydie having a long and lucrative media career.
FINALLY, Ayrshire Junior Football, and in particular Cumnock Juniors lost a legend just before Christmas, with the death of Jim 'Buller' Reid, from the effects of Covid. Coming as it did, hard on the heels of the death of Billy 'Bongo” Smith, this was a very-rough double blow to a club which is not having a stellar season.
While Bongo worked his magic on the park, then off it as a brilliant coach, Buller was never more than a fan, a committed one at that. He was also one of life's natural comedians, a talent he put to good use around the working men's clubs of Ayrshire and beyond.
If your club was financially-stretched, or if you wished to raise some money for a good cause, all you had to do was have a word with Buller, and he would put together a show, with his gang of fellow entertainers: Buller and Friends, and a good turn-out and a healthy financial return was assured.
He graduated to the after-dinner-speaking circuit, and it was well-known in Ayrshire, that if Buller was speaking at the likes of a Sportsman's Dinner, one or two of the supposed big-names from Glasgow would excuse themselves – they didn't like to be shown up by a guy, whose day job was as janitor of a primary school.
Some of Buller's best one-liners were honed, off the cuff, watching his beloved Cumnock. Allan Crow, long-serving Editor of The Fife Free Press and one of the leading writers on ice hockey, still gets red-faced when reminded how, as a young tyro with the Cumnock Chronicle, as he walked to his spot at Townhead Park, he was greeted by Buller calling: “Oh look, it's Lord Affleck,” a reference to what Buller viewed as a pro-Talbot slant to Mr Crow's football reports.
Buller and I went back to pre-primary school days, when he and his parents lived in “The Dandy Raw” in Lugar. This gave Buller the right to be highly-critical of my writings, a right he pursued with gusto. The Reids were re-located to Cumnock, where he fell-in with a bad crowd at Townhead Park.
Buller was never President of Cumnock, he should have been, but, back then Cumnock went further than the other Ayrshire clubs. Every one elected the Village Idiot to the committee, but, as I repeatedly told Buller, only Cumnock would elect the VI President, so, as one of the sharpest minds around the club, he was never going to get the job.
Worse public speakers and entertainers have been awarded MBEs. OBEs. CBEs and yes knighthoods, without ever raising the sums of money for good causes, and entertaining the public as well as Buller did.
He was a truly great guy, who will be sadly missed in Ayrshire and beyond. My sympathies are with his family at this terrible time.
In a recent blog post, I referred to Ally McCoist as “A National Treasure,” well, by the same measurement. Jim Reid was an East Ayrshire Treasure, we should cherish his memory.
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