HERE’S an idea for a television show.
It’s called “Footballers say the stupidest things because they have memories like confused goldfish.” That would be make bloody good telly, take it from me.
You see, one of the perils of being a football hack is that many of those you interview couldn’t say for certain what they did yesterday, never mind recollect with any clarity a match which took place say, oh, a fortnight ago.
Ask a player, be they present of past, about a game in which they participated in, of which there is pictorial evidence, and chances are they will stare blankly at you as if you asked them to recite the Ancient Mariner.
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Alternatively, they will volunteer a memory of that time big Tam scored a last minute winner at Hampden, only when returning to the office a quick Google search shows that there was no last minute winner, he’d actually never played at Hampden and big Tam might have been wee Stevie.
Some examples? Well, only last season Ian Durrant spoke before a Celtic v Rangers game and recalled his Old Firm debut at 17 which took place in front of 70,000 folk at Parkhead.
In fact, the crowd was one of the smallest for any derby because it was the end of the season and Aberdeen had won the league. He also got the score wrong.
Of course this is not a crime. We all forget stuff. Just like Mark McGhee who told us that his first task as manager of Reading was to release a certain Brendan Rodgers. Except the Celtic manager actually had to quit two years later while still at Reading.
One of the best of all time came a year ago when yours truly sat down with Jordan Moore. Now for those who don’t know the former Dundee United player, he was diagnosed with cancer at just 20 and two years down the line those who met him that day believed we were going to get a good news story about a young lad who got the all-clear, which he had, and what he was going to do next.
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One of our group had actually done a little research and asked him about his time recently spent in Limerick.
Completely without prompting, young Moore spoke with sincerity about horses tied to lampposts, being threatened by the IRA if he broke a running machine, a dead nun haunting him, getting paid from the proceeds of the club’s burger van and, best of all, that cornflakes cost 10 euros over there.
“Limerick is known as Stab City,” he solemnly informed us. “I stayed in a village called Bruff, about 30km from the city, and on every second lamppost there is a horse tied up. There must be 20 horses in every street you walk down. But if you tried to cut the horses loose they would kill you – supposedly.
“One day the police came and moved all the horses away. The next day it turned out the guys who owned the horses had smashed up every shop and put all their cows in the actual shops and the schools as well. This is true. It was crazy.”
The slight problem was that the good people of Limerick claimed this tio be a lot of nonsense and, indeed, tweeted myself pictures of lampposts minus any horse, which in itself was unintentionally hilarious.
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But last week came the the numero uno when wee Joe Miller claimed that during his Aberdeen days played Linfield at Windsor Park where “there were red dots on us for the whole 90 minutes” which is something so mental you’d imagine it would be a fairly strong memory.
Miller went on to talk about how he and some team-mates were carrying balls to the ground outside of a pub – okay then – when some locals recognised them and were less than friendly. Here is what Miller had to say when his stories were challenged.
“During an interview last week with several members of the Scottish press I recounted an event but I got the grounds mixed up. I realise that now. I mistakenly thought it was Windsor Park but it wasn’t.
“This event occurred over 25 years ago and my memory has let me down.”
You know something, I actually believe him. This is footballers for you. It’s not malicious, it’s just they they can’t be bothered retaining any information. And we will continue to lap up these tall tales because they do tend to be far more entertaining than the truth.
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