I KNOW exactly when it happened.
It was the night I watched Strictly in preference to El Classico, a watershed moment for a football fan of more than 60 years' standing and, latterly, sitting. Not being a glory hunter, I had stuck with my local team through thick and mostly thin. But, over the years, disenchantment set in.
I came to realise that one-club men like Miller, McLeish and McNeil are as much part of history as black football boots. Their replacements, often third-rate foreign mercenaries, are as insubstantial and transient as Banquo's ghost. Our game had been stolen and corrupted by influence and money, too often of doubtful provenance. My season ticket, once a bond of trust between club and ordinary fan, was devalued as 3pm Saturday kick-offs became an endangered species.
Television and corporate hospitality call the shots, leaving ordinary fans on the outside, noses pressed to the executive box glass.
My initial reaction was to walk away. But why should we be driven from the game we love? I have had an epiphany, the revelation being that football, as I knew it, still exists beyond overpaid and pampered galacticos.
Attending matches in the third, fourth and fifth tiers has rekindled my enthusiasm. Games are characterised by endeavour and not a little skill.
Terraces largely devoid of sectarianism and obscenity are populated, albeit sparsely, by real fans of genuine wit. At a cup-tie at Inverurie, an Aberdeenshire loon with perfect timing chided the blushing linesman: "Aye laddie, ye took lang enough to mak' up yer mind, and ye still got it wrang." As a free-kick sailed out of the ground he laconically observed, "Say fit ye like, but he aye manages to get it oe'r the wa'."
With two kindred spirits I recently made the journey to the time capsule that is Albion Rovers's Cliftonhill. For a fiver we were transported to a bygone age when ordinary fans were valued. We felt the programme seller and gateman meant it when they invited us to enjoy the game.
Despite collective ages nearing the double century, we enjoyed being addressed as "son" by the lady dispensing half-time teas and coffees. When one of us bought a Rovers mug, the enthusiast behind the counter enquired: "Are there not enough out there on the pitch for you, son?"
The match ended in a narrow win for the Rovers. But, as the 425 of us exited contentedly into the Coatbridge night, the result was irrelevant. The game was the winner.
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