Lorne Jackson

SHHHH. Don’t let this get around. Let’s make it our little secret. Just me, you and a few thousand other readers currently perusing page 19 of The Herald.

The confidence I’m divulging is that I like to play around. I’m promiscuous. A philanderer.

Just when I seem to have settled down, there I go again, eyeing the available talent. Thirsty for thrills. Hungry for what’s hot and not mine.

I’m talking about football, of course.

The golden rule is that you pick a footy team in your youth, and that’s you for life, much like taking Victorian marriage vows.

You follow your guys through delight and sorrow, feast and famine, skill and scuff-the-ball. Who cares if the relationship between you and the chaps on the field is as rational as a Dali dreamscape? Love has its own logic, which is no logic at all.

At least that’s how it is for everyone… except me.

I started out supporting Hearts; just a kid who didn’t know any better. Besides, they were almost the local heroes when I was growing up in Livingston, a new town close to Edinburgh which didn’t at the time host its own top-level team.

And what was not to like? Hearts topped the league, several newspapers informed me. (I never went to a game.) And they wore those fetching plum-coloured outfits, or football strips, or whatever they were called.

Best of all, when I was walking home with my mates after school, I now had something to yack about once we had exhausted the topics of TV shows (The Young Ones versus Monty Python) and girls (Julie in a short skirt versus Tricia in tight denims).

Things changed when I moved to Glasgow. In my new school there was a youth who held court at break-time like Henry the Eighth, only slightly more omnipotent. His humour was dangerous and wounding, and he had it in his power to isolate any member of the gang who didn’t share his views.

One of his views was that Rangers rocked. I readily agreed. Anything for a quiet life. It appeared that I was now a Gers fan.

And so I stayed.

Until uni, when I befriended a Celtic fan. I was understandably intrigued by his allegiance as I’d never supported athletes wearing stripey T-shirts before. And the green in their kit gave them a sort of minty-freshness which was most appealing.

I was sold. Even went to a match! Paid cash to bask in the body odour of a few thousand other blokes. Enjoyed a perfect view of the back of those other blokes’ heads.

Since then I’ve broadened my scope to support Manchester United, Liverpool, the LA Lakers (though they might be a basketball team; I’ll have to do some research) and Motherwell (definitely not basketball, though perhaps not football in its truest sense, either).

Now I face a major problem. Who to support when fans return to stadiums? Perhaps I’ll opt for Aberdeen Hotspur. After all, the Granite City could do with a diehard aficionado of the beautiful game like me.

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