As my years of travelling all over the land for games of fitba rapidly came to an end, it was rather fitting that I found myself in a town that I truly loved & adored for the penultimate match. Birthplace of both the Deep Fried Mars Bar and ‘The Celebrated Pedestrian’ Robert Barclay Allardice, the […]

In Ian Fleming’s penultimate 007 novel, James Bond famously composed a haiku with the opening line of “You only live twice” and when it comes to this afternoon’s hosts Nithsdale Wanderers no statement could be so completely correct. Founded during 1897, the club would close its doors sixty seven years later, only to live again […]

“A mighty long bridge to such a mighty little old town.” On September 1st 1877 Ulysses S. Grant, a renowned alky as well as America’s 18th president, looked across the Firth of Tay from Tayport and upon seeing the nearly completed rail bridge (then the longest ever constructed) made the rather disparaging remark quoted above. […]

“This is the outermost edge of Buchan. Inland the sea birds range, The tree’s leaf has salt upon it,  The tree turns to the low stone wall.” The above quote was by poet & herring curing magnate’s son George Bruce, coming from his poem Kinnaird Head that accurately described his native Fraserburgh. Also famously known […]

Heading to see South Shields in action was a journey into the unknown for me and upon delving into the history of the club’s home town I was fascinated to find one woman’s exploits appearing repeatedly. That lady was Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Peel, who was born in 1772 and remains a local heroine to this very […]

As I turned twelve there still wasn’t much live fitba to watch for us folk stuck with just cooncil telly, yet in November of that year we were given a game on free TV which eclipsed that season’s one sided Champion’s League Final and almost every tie from the decent, but Scotland free, World Cup […]

“There was a Scottish man, an uplandish fellow, spared not to steal children and to kill women, on whose flesh he fed, as if he had been a wolf.” I’ve always associated Perth with one thing and that’s guid eatin’. Whether it’s fine French dining at Café Tabou, traditional Scottish fayre at The Bothy or […]

“Muse, sing of Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia, lord of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks, the luck-bringingmessenger of the immortals” Most regular readers will know that I’m a sucker for whimsically monikered fitba teams. Therefore what could possibly have more whimsy than a club named after one of the twelve major Olympian […]

Two of my most recent adventures have focused on teams that briefly flirted with footballing royalty, but this afternoon I arrived at a club whose year long relationship with a veritable King of the Beautiful Game makes Arbroath Victoria & Troon’s regal ‘one night stands’ seem pretty insignificant. This most majestic man was perhaps the […]

“All I’m out for is a good time – all the rest is propaganda” Eight months ago, when my mate and I decided that our annual ‘Jolly Boys Outing’ was to be a long weekend in Nottingham, I had dreams of visiting Forest as they played in a massive Premier League clash. Alas the season’s […]