MY ideal sporting Saturday these days would be getting back in time to hit the
red button and get Final Score on the BBC, just as all the games were coming to an end. I’m that easily pleased.
I used to watch Sky Sports with Jeff Stelling, before they took it off free view.
I don’t always think that made for the best viewing, especially at the time when it would pop up that Henrik Larsson had scored twice in the last 30 seconds to secure another win. Time to take the dog for a walk and usually, take a text from Phil (Differ). He loved that.
The dog was also taken for a walk back in May after the Scottish Cup Final. As soon as the final whistle went, me and the dug were away. It was only when I came back about an hour later that my son Jack said, casually, “oh, some fans came on the pitch…”
For me, sport is football. I’m not really a Ryder Cup or British Lions person. I love football, good players, good teams going for it. Obviously, I’ve not been seeing much of that lately.
My first memories of fitba on telly was when I was growing up around St Georges Cross, at the junction of Great Western Road and Maryhill Road, and watching
Sam Leitch’s Football Preview – way before Football Focus - on BBC at lunchtime.
He was a rather stout Scotsman, who
pieced together all the goals and action.
Avid viewing for a young football fan.
That location made it easy for me to attend my first ever game, Partick Thistle against Dundee United, who I was supporting that day because they’d just signed Davie Wilson from Rangers, who’d been my favourite player at Ibrox. Believe it or not the Jags won 4-1 and Andy Roxburgh scored a hat-trick. I’ve reminded him of that a few times. In fact, he carried me around as a witness for a while to prove he’d scored a hat-trick.
I saw Scotland and Brazil at Hampden before the World Cup in ’66, when Stevie Chalmers scored and Billy Bremner kicked Pele all game then asked for his jersey!
But I also got to see Garrincha as well, and that was special.
Who I really wanted to see was Eusebio, my favourite player at the time, but I didn’t get to see Portugal at Hampden.
But in terms of Rangers – and I’ve done well to wait this long before mentioning them - my first game was the Cup-Winners-Cup semi-final against Slavia Sofia, which my dad took me to see, with wee Willie Henderson scoring the only goal. The start of a love affair.
It’s amazing what you remember.
Roger Hynd played up front for Rangers
and he, believe it or not played in the same brass band as my cousin. That was a BRASS band . . .
Live football meant going to games, not sitting about flicking a remote control, and
I was up for that. And that got me my first TV appearance, as a 14-year-old on Scotsport, just after Glen Michael’s Cartoon Cavalcade. I wisnae presenting, just spotting my red jersey at the front of the crowd at Muirton Park, watching St Johnstone against Rangers.
So it has always been football for me, although lately, I’ve been enjoying skiing which I was introduced to by Jack. Right now, I spend a lot of time checking weather forecasts and ski reports for Glencoe.
And I enjoy it.
Jack didn’t grasp initially that when I was a boy, there just wasn’t the variety of sports out there that you could participate in.
If you had any ambitions of going skiing, first thing you needed was a mask . . . handy because you had to rob a bank in order to fund the skiing! It just was never something you’d consider.
Tennis was a bit like that as well.
Who played tennis? The only time I went anywhere near a tennis club was when they were holding a dance. In fact, that was also my first venture in to skiing, or more accurately, to Bearsden Ski Club.
Me and a pal got a bus out there because
a couple of lassies had said there was a dance on. But we got knocked back at the door. It would have been easier getting in
to a bank.
Maybe we didn’t look quite ski-set enough, in our platform shoes. Good job they proved really practical and comfortable as we hiked back in to the toon . . .
Jonathan Watson is an actor, comedian
and writer who stars in BBC Scotland’s
Only an Excuse? and Two Doors Down
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