IT considerably pleased the Diary to see that one of our favourite clubs, Albion Rovers, will face Celtic in the next round of the Scottish Cup.
There is not a football writer in the country who while learning the trade was not sent at least once to Cliftonhill, known by the locals as the Coatbridge San Siro, and there is something eternally romantic and lovely that the Wee Rovers (is there a Big Rovers?) keep going when just about everything is against them.
Back when the great Tommy Gemmell was manager, he would invite the press pack, all two of them, in to his office after the game for a drink. If you didn’t like warm cans of lager or whisky and vodka, both optics seemed nailed to the wall in a tin room, then you were struggling.
They have tried a few things over the years to entice more people to a game, such as offering a warm welcome to the local community of Polish immigrants which did inspire one lifelong fan to muse; “Have these people not suffered enough?”
Alas, the game with Celtic won’t be played at Cliftonthill; instead Rovers are going to take the game to a larger ground in Lanarkshire so they can make some much-needed money.
The Diary highly recommends “More than just a football club,” a photo journal of Albion Rovers by Iain McLean. There are easier things to be than an Albion Rovers fan, but they are a hardy lot worth of our admiration.
And pity.
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Nico Rosberg stunned the world of Formula One by quitting the sport a week after becoming world champion.
The reason for this, as we understand it, is that he worked out that jetting around the world, staying in five-star hotels, drinking the finest wines and having more sex than he could eat, would be more interesting than sitting at a post-race press conference talking about the vital importance of tyre pressure.
Strange man.
As someone formerly of this parish said of this pastime: “It’s not sport, it’s transport.”
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Story of the week goes to Matt Bendoris of The Sun for finding Rodrigo Dorado Gil, who works as a fast food delivery driver, who fulfilled his role in life for a punter at a Partick Thistle game.
The hungry fan ordered a burger and fries, which surely are for sale at Firhill but there you go, and Rodrigo had a problem getting to the ground from Shamela’s in Maryhill, and so the match had started by the time he shipped up.
“The turnstile staff said I’d have to buy a ticket to go in, but they’d give me my money back if I came straight back out,” said the Brazilian. “I found the customer after a couple of minutes — he couldn’t believe it when I turned up.”
The Sun reports that our man has been nominated for Delivery Driver of the Year at the Just Eat British Takeaway Awards. He’s surely a shoe-in.
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Quote of the week goes to Zinedine Zidane and we do hope the translation was right as he spoke to the press ahead of today’s El Clasico.
"We'll be going to Camp Nou with a tight ringpiece..."
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It’s not been a great week for Eric Bristow. To be fair, it’s been a while since he had a good one.
Even in these right wing, illiberal, Jeremy Clarkson times, criticising the victims of child abuse in football, as the former darts player did on Twitter, in the wake of their bravery in coming forward to talk about the crimes is still seen as a no-no.
Sky immediately sacked the Crafty Cockney for his insensitivity but more bad news was on the way when it became clear via social media that there would be a boycott on his gravy as well.
Bristow volunteered to give an interview to the BBC in which he would explain himself for a fee of £5000. Not even the Beeb would pay money to a man who had a go at sex-abuse children just so he could clumsily try to get out his pickle.
At least not any more.
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Now the Diary did not see this itself; however, we have been told that a certain Celtic player who shall remain nameless was spotted on a flight to London on Monday morning.
This was less than 24 hours after the League Cup was won and this footballer could be seen pouring over the marks out of ten in a variety of newspapers. Our eyewitness got the impression he didn’t like the fact that some of the Scottish lads got higher marks.
C’est n’importe quoi…. As they say.
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Raymond Jacobs, the former Herald golf correspondent who has sadly passed away, remained steadfastly old school. The prospect of working on a computer, for instance, appalled him. For Raymond, the pen was mightier than the laptop.
Technology may have changed down the years but one thing that did not was that pesky inconvenience of many a golf writer; the unheralded late finisher with a good score at a tournament just as minds are drifting to the prospect of a large libation and a leaf through the a la carte menu.
As his friend and former colleague, Ian Paul, recounted in a tribute he penned on the occasion of Raymond’s retirement back in 1996 - “In his latter years, Raymond has occasionally espoused a kind of crotchety cynicism, manifested in an early round of the Open when the press tent chaps were soldiering long into the evening. “Oh, oh,” he said as he scanned the late finishers, “here comes the nobody who will spoil your supper.”
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