LIGHTS, camera, action. Rather like a couple of Diplodocus embarking on the mating process, football scenes in film and television have traditionally been hugely awkward affairs.
Let’s face it, a person letting a player score a scripted goal while pretending to stop them scoring a goal but, at the same time, trying not to look like they’re trying to stop them scoring a goal just about brings the Actors’ Guild out on strike. The picture of the bold Ally McCoist, resplendent in an all-orange kit, producing a diving header in a Rangers Legends match last weekend may have looked more like a giant cheesy Wotsit falling off a shelf but it reminded the diarist of the roon ba’ game captured on celluloid.
McCoist, of course, starred alongside Oscar-winning Godfaither, Robert Duvall, in A Shot at Glory when he turned out for a fictional team, Kilnockie. Or was it the new Rangers? Earlier this week, meanwhile, Scottish heart throb, Big Eck McLeish, admitted how he wished he’d starred in Escape to Victory, that cherished prisoner of war caper in which John Wark demonstrated his acting prowess with a remarkable portrayal of a piece of oak.
Football films have always been something of a head-scratcher for directors with the actors who can’t play/footballers who can’t act quandary. McLeish can probably sympathise. As Scotland manager, he’s trying to cajole a few blockbusting performances out of a variety of wooden objects.
HOWZAT! This cheating palaver will have poor old Wisden spinning under the crease. The one thing that has disturbed the diarist the most about this grisly, cricketing cause celebre has been the relentless close-ups, pictures and zoom-ins of one or two Australian blokes rummaging in their nether regions. If I’d wanted to see the Antipodes I would have bought a return flight down under with Qantas. The fact that the world’s most famous blue pill, Viagra, has been celebrating its 20th anniversary this week is all rather appropriate. The diarist has had his fill of the phrase ball-tampering, though.
APPARENTLY, Scotland can become unofficial football world champions if they beat Peru in Lima this summer. The Peruvians have held that particular title since last August while the Scots have been unofficial, er, kings of the world 86 times. You can’t spell unofficial without the word official, though. Clutching at desperate straws? We’ll, we’re the undisputed world champions at that.
GET me to the church on tee-time. According to the UK Wedding Report, some 28 per cent of newlyweds decided to host the glass-clinking celebrations of their special day at a golf course. In other surveys, apparently some 62 per cent of men who spent too much time playing golf found out they were getting a divorce halfway up the fifth fairway. Most of them are more interested in saving their par anyway.
IT’S all pretty tumultuous at Tannadice these days and the current woes engulfing Dundee United got the diarist thinking of the Tayside team’s calamitous tour to Nigeria back in the 1970s. After a series of largely wretched performances, the local onlookers were not particularly amused. No change there, then. The upshot of all of this was that in parts of Nigeria where the Yoruba language is spoken, the term ‘Dundee United’ actually means ‘idiot’ to this day. We can only wonder what the phrase ‘Csaba Laszlo’ means in the Lagos tongue. In the howffs of Lochee, meanwhile, we have a pretty good idea …
ON this March date in 1916, the American gowfer and legendary club thrower Tommy Bolt was born. With the explosive disposition of Vesuvius and a habit of surrendering to his, shall we say, intestinal urges it was not surprising that Tommy was known as Thunder Bolt. His regular eruptions led to plenty of run-ins with officialdom as the high heid yins dished out unprecedented fines in regular abundance. On one tee-box, Bolt’s robust flatulence alerted the attentions of such an official. “Do that again Bolt and I’m going to have to fine you,” he said. “That’s the trouble with you guys,” Bolt responded. “You’re taking all the colour out of the game.”
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