by Ken Smith
WE asked for your amateur fitba’ tales, and a reader in London tells us: “I worked with a colleague who told me about playing against a real nutter in his pub team league. After having the ball taken off him on several occasions the guy lost his rag and told my colleague, ‘Do that again and I’m going to my car after the game and getting a gun.’
“‘I’ve seen your shooting today,’ my colleague replied, ‘so I’ll take my chances.’”
FORMER Celtic player Chris Sutton is making a name for himself as a controversial football commentator on the telly. He is accused, however, of always having a go at Rangers. A supporter of the Ibrox club contacted Chris on social media and asked: “Is there a football agenda you can talk about without dragging Rangers into it? You’re obsessed.”
Chris merely replied: “Champions League?”
TOO much snow even for the keenest of golfers. Over in Australia, though, Gordon Gosnold tells us about a friendly foursome which ended with one frustrated player taking three shots to get out of a greenside bunker. After raking the bunker, as you do, he picked up his bag of clubs and threw it into the lake beside the green before trudging towards the clubhouse.
Says Gordon: “Not sure how to proceed, the other three are pleased to see their comrade stop, turn round, and wade into the water and retrieve the bag, which he dragged to the side. He then unzipped the side pocket, retrieved his wallet and keys – and tossed the bag back in.”
A GOLFER in Ayrshire was telling fellow members in the clubhouse that his five-year-old grandson asked him if he could caddy for him. Continued the golfer: “I told him that he had to be able to count, as he would have to keep my score, so I asked him what six and five were. He said nine, so I told him he’s definitely got the job.”
A SCOTTISH newspaper wondered if seagulls are the latest threat to Scottish football after one of them dropped the carcass of a dead pigeon in the goalmouth at the Queens Park match the other night. It follows on from claims that the raucous seagulls at Aberdeen are becoming louder and more belligerent. One person who might agree is Diary reader Bill Lothian, who once told us about his referee pal recounting that junior football fans at an Ayrshire ground began pelting the opposition goalkeeper with bread. The ref thought that was odd until minutes later when a squabble of seagulls swooped down for the bread, distracting the keeper as he tried to deal with a dangerous cross into his box.
BILL Lothian was playing in a seniors golf tournament at Dunbar which was a “shotgun foursomes” where 18 groups start off on different tees at the one time, signalled in the past by firing a shotgun that everyone could hear.
Says Bill: “Organisers said it would be launched by the sound of a horn, then explained in the pre-competition instructions, ‘We have tried launching a rocket to let everybody know when to start in the past, but unfortunately this led to the Dunbar lifeboat being wrongly called out.’”
WE are trying to be magnanimous about England’s results so far in the World Cup but the gushing triumphalism of the commentators is hard to take. So we pass on the observation of the late John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, who declared on social media: “Who will win the World Cup? A child who believes in a peaceful world.” We recommend you pass on her observation to the next England supporter.
And Sarah Simmer observed: “If you think asking a Scottish person, ‘How are Scotland doing in the World Cup?’ will shake them in any way, you have fundamentally misunderstood the collective character of Scottish people, who have long ago transcended any hopes of ‘victory’ in any aspect of life. We’re past that.”
TALKING of golf courses, congratulations to Jane McDonald becoming the first female captain of Kilmacolm Golf Club.
We remember years ago when then Celtic chief executive Terry Cassidy won the Captain's Plate at Kilmacolm, and Rangers fan Andy Cameron, presenting the prizes, joked that it was the only silverware Cassidy would have seen for a while. Changed days, eh.
And was it not Kilmacolm Golf Club where so many ageing members had gone through hip and knee replacements that the joke was there was more titanium in the members than there was in their golf bags?
