Firsts

My first cassette single:

My first cassette album:

My first CD single (two of the people on the cover are now dead, one has had a stroke):

My first CD album:

Rangers

I grew up a Rangers fan but I stopped going to Rangers games regularly when the SPL was formed and it became glaringly obvious that TV money and the influx of rubbish foreigners had ruined it as a sport.

Up until then, there was a faint belief that other clubs could challenge for titles – in the nine-in-a-row years, Celtic only finished second twice. But when it descended into “who can beat Dunfermline by the biggest margin?”, I rapidly lost interest. (That period also coincided with me starting university, so I had the women, gigs and pubs of Edinburgh to think about instead.)

I’ve heard others say that they just got sick of all the FTP/IRA crap, and didn’t want to take their kids into that kind of atmosphere. It’s something I’d be thinking seriously about over the next few years as well. £50 plus travel, food, programmes and all that gubbins to take my daughter to Ibrox, then have to explain who Bobby Sands was?

Or take her to Montrose on a free season ticket from her school and explain that while I don’t advocate her using the term “Smokey bastards” we do indeed hate Arbroath and she’s never to spend any time with boys from that tinky wee fishing village?

There will be some who have already turned their back on Rangers as this shitstorm has escalated, and while I don’t want to see Rangers die, it would do Scottish football good if some of the busloads of folk from all over Scotland just walked down the road to their local ground.

Right now I’m hoping that:

• Rangers are demoted to Division Three. Celtic fans can bleat on about it not being the same club, that the titles are revoked, whatever. It’ll always be the same club to me, and the titles I saw them win when I was a boy were won legally (so far as anyone knows). Rangers spent far more than the other clubs, but that’s no different to what Chelsea, Man City and PSG are doing elsewhere.
• If the SFA wants punishments to carry over to the new club, so be it. Take everything that is coming. If it’s 30-point deductions, transfer bans, whatever. Suck it up. You cheat, you run the risk of getting caught, you pay the price. Suck it up, do the time, come back with a clear conscience and build a good reputation.
• Rangers fans stop worrying about what Celtic are doing. They’ll win the league for the next 10 or 20 years. Bully for them. Their fans can whoop it up all they like, but surely they’ll all realise how hollow the victories are.
• The TV deal collapses. Good. Scottish football existed before TV, before live football on TV, before Sky. It’ll still exist if Sky walks away. If it means 11 young Scots booting fuck out of each other on the park because they want to play for the jersey, I’m all for it. I’ve got a Sky subscription, and I hardly ever watch Scottish football on it, because the quality is so poor and there’s clearly no real passion.

The SFA/SPL/SFL has been handed a once in a generation chance to fix Scottish football. The onus now is on them not to fuck it up.

Justice

Gary Cahill now has more European Cup winner's medals than Pele, Maradona, Bergkamp, Cantona, Batistuta, Gascoigne, Romario, Baggio and Ronaldo combined.

If anything is evidence that there's no such thing as a fair and loving God, surely that's it.

I Want This Sitting Room...

The Groanin' Jock Montrose FC Player of the Year Award 2011/2012

It's that time of the year again when I look back at the season just finished (for Montrose at least) and determine who is the Groanin' Jock Player of the Year.

It's a systematic process - whoever has been my man of the match most often this season scoops the prize.*

So without any further ado (actually, I don't think there's any ado at all), here are the results:

Martin Boyle 3
Terry Masson 3
Steven McPhee 2
Dougie Cameron 2
Jamie Winter 2
Saaaaaandy Wood 1
Sean Pierce 1
Scott Johnston 1
Garry Wood 1
Michael Andrews 1
Paul Lunan 1

For the second consecutive year, we have a tie, and for the second consecutive year Martin Boyle is in joint first place, this time with Terry Masson.

It would be tough to pick between the two. Up until the last game of the season, Masson would have had my vote as player of the year, with a cracking season in the middle of the park, doing more than his fair share of the donkey work while Jamie Winter fired in the goals. Masson also chipped in with a few goals himself, and they were typically zingers.

But then Martin Boyle went and grabbed a last day hat-trick, securing the Ginger Boot in the process. He's already a cracking wee goalscorer, and frighteningly he still misses more chances than he scores. If he continues to develop as quickly as he has done in a Montrose shirt, he'll be live on Sky every weekend before too long.

It's genuinely a tough call, but as it's probably the last time I'll have the opportunity, Martin Boyle is once again the Groanin' Jock Montrose FC Player of the Year.

Notable absentees from the list above? Stephen McNally was probably Montrose's best player last year, but has suffered a terrible dip in form this time around, partly through being played at right back for most of the campaign. He's much better driving the team forward from midfield, and hopefully we can see him back to his best next season.

Less of a shock is the absence of Jonathan "Pob" Beckenbauer Smart. In his own head he's light years ahead of his peers, but four red cards, three of them before the end of August, only hint at the disastrous time he's had at Links Park.

(According to his Twitter account, it's the plastic pitch that's at fault, not him.)

I can't imagine too many of the Montrose faithful will shed a tear at his departure. Farewell Pob.

I've never been convinced by Jonathan Crawford either, and he has a lot of work to do to convince me that he's the answer to any of Montrose's problems. There are no positions in which Montrose don't already have someone better, but as a jack of all trades, I suppose he's decent backup.

And finally, I can't end the season without noting that Dougie "Kneeheid" Cameron was my man of the match twice in the space of three matches. On his day, Dougie has the potential to be Montrose's best player. But he needs to be more disciplined in his positioning, as he has a tendency to go walkabout in the last 20 minutes of a match.

With that, I'll sign off for another season, looking forward to next year's post-Boyle campaign under Stuart Garden/Ralph Brand/Ally McCoist/Andre Villas Boas.

*There is no prize

Whiskers On Kittens

A few more of my favourite things.

The bridge/coda from Razorlight's "In The Morning" (from about 3:05 in the video below)

The smell of newly-cut grass on a hot, still, summer's day.

John Frusciante's backing vocals on "Can't Stop":

Baby Girl's giggle

The rumble from my surround sound system at the start of an action movie.

Extra large hoodies.

Season 2011/2012: Match 22: Montrose 5 Clyde 0 (Irn-Bru Division Three)

This is The End...beautiful friend, The End...

(I'm writing this through a semi-hungover fog, so apologies for inconsistencies, errors, poor spelling, lack of grammar and general shitness).

Last season I made it to 21 matches, this season it was 22, thanks in part to work trips to the big smoke.

At least this season it ended on a high, unlike last year when a few hardy souls watched several Montrose players end their careers in a 4-0 Hampden hiding.

One year on, a few Montrose players, and possibly the manager, called time on their Links Park days with a resounding stroll in the sunshine against a woeful Clyde side.

Martin Boyle blasted his way to the Ginger Boot with a hat-trick, Terry Masson grabbed a goal with a cracking drive and even Alan Campbell got on the scoresheet with a header.

The strangest thing about the match wasn't the centre back getting on the scoresheet then managing to reach his own half in time for the restart, but the choice of pre-match music, which seemed to be a dance compilation from 1993. Brilliantly, it included Technohead's "I Want To Be A Hippy" (I want to be a hippy and I want to get stoned on mari - marijuana).

The local football club advocating the use of Class C drugs? It might take the edge off the performances of Messrs Smart and Cameron anyway...

...except Jonathan Smart didn't even make the team, relegated to the bench alongside Scott Johnston, with Jamie Winter missing out through injury.

The substitutes took part in an impromptu penalty shoot-out at half time, Johnston demonstrating a decent ability between the sticks. And if the players had shown as much effort in the preceding 35 matches of the season as they did during that kick-about, maybe yesterday's match wouldn't have been a chase for eighth place in the league...

Frustratingly, Montrose saved their best performance of the season for the last day of the season, absolutely ripping Clyde to pieces. All of the players selected played well, and there was a drive, hunger and most notably, an assurance that has been missing all too often this season.

Hopefully the core of the side sticks together for next season's push further up the table. I'd definitely like to see Winter, Boyle, Masson, McNally, Young, Lunan, Johnston and both Woods hang around, not to mention Dougie Cameron and Alan Campbell if they can play like they did yesterday more often.

From bottom of the table last season to eighth this year - Montrose are on the up...

If Ray Farningham, as expected, does leave to return to Dundee as assistant manager, I'd be keen to see Stuart Garden move into the hotseat. Otherwise, maybe Ralph Brand would be worth a punt?

Man of the Match: Inevitably, on the day he made sure of the top goalscorer award and scooped six trophies at the end of season bash, Martin Boyle is man of the match. A tremendous hat-trick, including a rare header, if yesterday proves to be Boyler's last match in a Montrose shirt, he went out on a high. He was the first among equals though, with the whole side deserving of praise, particularly Stephen McNally, Lloyd Young and Terry Masson.

"A Good Product Which Does What It Says"

A colleague forwarded this link to me, and I've spent the last 20 minutes crying with laughter at my desk, much to the alarm of those sitting near me.

The reviews on this Amazon product page are comedy gold.

Speccy Bastard

Apparently the ZX Spectrum is 30 years old.

That makes me feel very old. I think the Spectrum was the third computer/games console I laid fingers on. The first was a BBC Microcomputer at primary school, and the second was an Atari 2600 (I think) owned by a friend. That was also the first time I played a game involving the Super Mario Brothers.

The same friend and his older brother also had a ZX Spectrum, and I remember watching them in 1987, sitting for what seemed like hours programming in a BASIC game. It was distinctly underwhelming.

It's almost strange that in today's modern society you can take computer classes for programming now.

But by 1988/89, I was desperate for a computer of my own, and Mither and Faither (or Santa Claus anyway) very generously bought Baby Brother and I a ZX Spectrum +3. Not only did the +3 boast 128k of RAM, but it had a built-in floppy disk drive, which was a revelation in the tape-dominated home computer market.

I actually broke our first Spectrum on Xmas Day, jamming the power cable into the back of the computer upside down and bending all the pins.

But we got a replacement, complete with a disk of six games that I still love to this day:

• Gift From The Gods - based on Greek mythology, you float around a sprawling underground maze attempting to find stones that will unlock a gate.

• NOMAD  - An armoured droid (NOMAD stands for something something Mobile Attack Droid) batters around a spaceship shooting stuff.

•  Mailstrom - You play a postman in a post-apocalyptic England. Deliver the letters and futuristic violence. Dark humor persists.

•  Daley Thomson's SuperTest - Follow up to Daley Thomson's Decathlon, the sports were more obscure, but the button-bashing was just as fun.

Those games would comfortably run on a modern mobile phone. But at the time, they were cutting-edge. Games on the Spectrum generally had very high playability - they had to, as the graphics and sound were so weak.

Days spent playing Chucky Egg, Dizzy, Footballer of the Year, the games above and hundreds of others are amongst the happiest memories from my childhood.

And now I've found all of the games above on an emulator site. That's my weekend sorted...

Dances In The Sand

In a week's time, I'll be here...

Not that I'm excited or anything...

Almax

In the six or so years I've been blogging, I've "met" some interesting characters.

It was incredibly saddening to hear today that my favourite blogger - indeed, one of my favourite writers in any medium - known to many as Almax, and to readers of seminal football fanzine The Absolute Game by his real name of Alastair McSporran (which he memorably described as having been invented by a Sunday Post sub-editor), died on Tuesday after a long illness.

Alastair's knowledge of music, conveyed through his blog, was an entry point for me into a whole world of previously unexplored music. Through him I discovered The Incredible String Band, Bunny Wailer, Ornette Coleman, Poco and many, many more.

I also enjoyed the debates he led on football, particularly the fortunes or otherwise of the Old Firm. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of 35 private members of the blog when public access was revoked a few years back, and the community that Alastair created felt at all times like the world's best, most selective, private members club. No topic was off limits, and it became a safe haven of sorts to engage in occasionally heated discussion.

No words I write here can possibly do Alastair's talent justice. If a professional writer had left behind a body of work so varied, so forthright, so honest and so tear-inducingly hilarious, they would be feted for decades. That his blog was the work of a supposed amateur makes it all the more impressive.

While the main blog that bears his name remains behind closed doors, I recommend everyone visit this collection of Alastair's The Absolute Game writings for some of the best analysis of Scottish football you'll ever read.

Farewell Alastair - I'm listening to Blood On The Tracks in your honour.

If Only It Were Real...

Friday Ten: Ten Great Album Tracks

Ten great songs that were never released as singles.

1: Hey Bulldog by The Beatles


2: Champagne Supernova by Oasis


3: Driving South by The Stone Roses


4: The Width of a Circle by David Bowie


5: Mardy Bum by Arctic Monkeys


6: When The Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin


7: On A Plain by Nirvana


8: Optimistic by Radiohead


9: Exterminator by Primal Scream


10: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

Season 2011/2012: Match 21: Leyton Orient 1 Huddersfield Town 3 (nPower League One)

Once again I find myself in London for work, and yet again my visit to the capital coincides with some live football.

Having seen Europa League, Carling Cup and Championship football on my two previous visits, this time I was lower down the pyramid, watching Leyton Orient attempt to drag themselves away from the League One relegation zone and Huddersfield aiming for promotion to the Championship.

I've long had a soft spot for Huddersfield, for a very odd reason - during my uni years, I spent a rather large portion of my life managing them in Championship Manager 1997/98 - 20 years in charge, missing out on promotion to the Premier League via the playoffs on TWELVE occasions.

If it's something you're interested in, there are several colleges that offer degrees in sports management.

Anyway, I digress.

On the tube map and London A-Z, Leyton's Brisbane Road stadium looks as though it's a long way from central London, but I found it a lot easier and quicker to get to than White Hart Lane or Upton Park.

The first thing I saw when I alighted from Leyton underground station was the new Olympic Stadium, which Orient have their eyes on as potential post-games tenants.

Which seems a little odd given that they were nowhere near filling Brisbane Road tonight. Only 3,674 hardy souls braved the heavy east London rain for the match, although that may be understandable given the weather, Orient's league position and form, Huddersfield's league position and form, and the fact that Barcelona and Milan were squaring up in the Champions League quarter final live on TV.

Brisbane Road is a weird little ground - a comparatively enormous main stand (the one in the picture above) with three wee ones completing the set-up. The stand I was in is made of wood, giving it an old-fashioned vibe that even Links Park can't match.

Weirder still, the four corners of the ground are filled with blocks of flats looking out onto the pitch, and many of the balconies were occupied by fans watching the match.

There was the potential for quite a Caledonian connection in the match, with Orient's squad including Scott Cuthbert and Marc Laird, while Huddersfield have Gary Naysmith, Scott Arfield and Jordan Rhodes, as well as former Dundee United striker Danny Cadamarteri and ex-Hibs keeper Nick Colgan.

Only Laird and Rhodes started the match, with Cadamarteri and Arfield coming off the Huddersfield bench.

Orient started the match brightly, and took a deserved lead with a sweet goal from Matthew Spring, the midfielder firing home from the edge of the box with quarter of an hour gone.

But Huddersfield levelled immediately, Orient's Jimmy Smith getting the final touch on Rhodes' back heel, although the Scottish striker did his best to claim the goal as his own.

Rhodes. who now has 36 or 37 goals this season depending on whether the first was his or not, was by far the best player on the park, finishing with a hat-trick (if we give him the opener).

He was a constant danger to a lacklustre Orient team, who looked beaten the moment their visitors scored. They looked devoid of ideas, made fundamental passing errors and struggled to get the ball into dangerous areas. As we can often see, a team down on its luck may struggle even to complete the basics, and too often they passed the ball straight to Huddersfield's players when under no pressure. Midfielder Dean Cox in particular seemed incapable of completing even a simple pass.

That is to take nothing away from Huddersfield, who were combative, first to every ball and quick to get the ball forward towards Rhodes. His was a real striker's performance, slamming home from close range for his side's second and coolly slotting into the net to complete his hat-trick in the last minute.

Arfield also looked good when he came on, and maybe his status as one of the lost talents of the Scottish game is premature, particularly if Huddersfield can push on up to the Championship. Rhodes, it is clear, is destined for greater things, not least a place in the Scotland squad once he's established at a higher level.

A good game, and one I'm glad I picked over a gig - if it had been a 0-0 draw I'd have been raging.

Man of the Match: Only one contender - Jordan Rhodes. A striker of genuine quality, combing pace and power with a finisher's instinct. Definitely a player to keep an eye on over the next few years.

Season 2011/2012: Match 20: Montrose 0 Alloa Athletic 2 (Irn-Bru Division Three)

Over the past few weeks/months/years, Neil Lennon:

has developed quite a reputation for being an ungracious loser, convinced that there's a conspiracy whereby referees are out to deny his club "their" treble.

It's all bollocks of course, and part of the greater Celtic persecution complex whereby the SFA, UEFA, FIFA, the UK government, pro-Israeli governments, Andy Goram, HMRC, the Feudal System, potato blight, diving Portuguese midfielders, Kyle Lafferty, Alex Salmond, the English, the Masons and Ally McCoist are all geared towards denying Celtic their rightful place at the summit of Scottish, European and world football.

If the snaggle-toothed ginger wants to see what it's like living with week upon week of woeful refereeing, he should start following Montrose.

Today, Montrose were 10 minutes from a share of the points with Division Three champions elect Alloa. The visitors had Ryan Harding sent off after 18 minutes, the centre back misjudging the flight of a long ball from Dougie Cameron, getting caught the wrong side of Martin Boyle and deciding that his only option was to take the striker out.

But Mat Northcroft apparently decided to redress the balance in the 80th minute, awarding a penalty to Alloa and dismissing Alan Campbell for a professional foul. Which would have been perfectly fine had Campbell not clearly taken the ball before making contact with Stevie May.

Campbell walked, Ryan McCord stepped up to take the penalty, and Alloa never looked back.

Alloa doubled their lead two minutes later, McCord reacting fastest when Darren Young's 35-yard shot smacked off both posts before dropping in front of goal.

It's easy enough to say that the sending off cost Montrose the match, but the truth is that they played against 10 men for 72 minutes. Instead of keeping possession and passing the ball, they resorted to their tried and tested aimless and useless tactic of launching the ball as far up the park as possible at every opportunity.

It seems that Paul Lunan - a man with four contrasting haircuts competing for attention on his oblong head - and Dougie Cameron just want to get the ball as far away from themselves as possible - every time they're in possession, an aimless punt follows.

In a moment of sun-inspired pre-match jollity I composed a song in Dougie's honour. To the tune of "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands":

He's got a patella for a head

He's got a patella for a head

He's got a patella for a head

He's got a knee where his heid should be

I look forward to a rousing rendition at the next Montrose match.

Aside from the late Alloa flurry, Northcroft's unexplainable mental breakdown and Montrose's desire to play American Football rather than the proper type, there was little to note in today's match.

Except for one thing. It seems that Heath Ledger:

didn't die while filming The Dark Knight - he's alive and well and playing up front for Alloa under the alias Stevie May:

It's all a conspiracy...

Man of the Match: All in all, today was largely forgettable for Montrose. I barely remember them being in the Alloa box, despite having an extra man for three quarters of the match. If push comes to shove, I'd probably go for Paul Lunan, who looked solid at the back when not trying to launch the ball non-stop to Brechin.

Friday Ten: Ten Songs For A Sunny Day

I'm steadfastly ignoring all claims to include Dodgy...

1. Going Out - Supergrass

2. Daytripper - The Beatles

3. Dry The Rain - The Beta Band

4. ABC - The Jackson 5

5. Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

6. The Circle - Ocean Colour Scene

7. Whatever - Oasis

8. I Get Around - The Beach Boys

9. Time Of The Season - The Zombies

10. One Love - The Stone Roses

Public Service Announcement

The last reason is good enough in itself.

As sent to me by Big Rab

The Force Wasn't So Strong

Maybe the Force wasn't as strong in young Anakin Skywalker/Jake Lloyd as we were led to believe...

As seen here

Newbies

On the way home from visiting friends outside Perth yesterday, Mrs Wife, the Jockling and I stopped in Dundee so that I could pick up some new tenants for the Dungroanin' aquarium.

This weekend's additions were three Otocinclus, or Ottos for short, that I have named Optimus, Rodimus and Bumblebee. The photograph above shows Optimus getting straight down to the business of eating brown algae, which was the reason for acquiring them in the first place.

They join an eclectic group that includes seven harlequin rasbora (Quinzel, Cobblepot, Nigma, Bane, Dent, Fries and Joker), three mollies (Laudrup, Gascoigne and Walters) and a guppy (Firestar), as well as five Malaysian trumpet snails (Davis, Gillespie, Armstrong, Flea and Moore).

Laudrup (bottom middle), Gascoigne (upper right) and Walters (upper left) say hello to the camera, while one of the harlequins pops into the frame in the top right.

And The Living's Easy

Large McDonald's strawberry milkshake.

Paul Simon's Graceland on the headphones.

Sun in the sky and barely a breeze.

I love summertime...

....Even when it arrives in March...