Oh Motherwell is Wonderful... 21 Days

I figured that since I'm debating on whether to go through to the football tonight, that this would make a good blog post. Not the debating part, but the football itself.

I might as well get this out of the way first for the non-UK readers, Football is a game played predominantly with the foot, and involves much kicking of the ball. In fact, not kicking the ball is generally frowned upon, and you're in the shit if you touch it with your hand. Not to be confused with American Football, which seems to only involve the use of the foot when all other avenues have been exhausted and some loser has to come in and kick the ball away. I never have, and never will, call football "soccer".

Football is no doubt the national sport in the UK. Although Rugby, Cricket, and Golf are widely participated in and enjoy a reasonable level of coverage, football is miles ahead. I think the reason for this is the sheer simplicity of the game, all you need is a ball. You don't need sticks, clubs, bats, or pads, and you don't even need friends because you can practice on your own, which makes sense since most football players are dicks. As with most sports, despite inventing the game we've ended up pretty shit at it.



yum

Anyway, before the days of the big-money TV deals all games were on Saturdays at 3pm, and attending a football match was a rite of passage for boys. Most stadia didn't have seating, so kids tended to be let in for free, usually via being lifted over the turnstyles by an adult. You could then walk around the stadium to find a standing spot with a good view, and ideally somewhere were you could avoid people pissing on you.  

Inside the ground was the only place you could indulge in the consumption of pie (that would be a mutton pie, which usually had it's own little reservoir of grease which had to be removed via biting some of the pastry off and pouring the grease away, leaving hundreds of grease puddles on the terraces), and Bovril - a meat based drink. Because eating meat wasn't enough, we had to wash it down with meat as well.

Back in the day there was very little live football on TV, other than international games and cup-finals, and the only league football you were exposed to was Match of the Day and Sportscene, with the latter being the Scottish version of the former really. Without the option to view the Manchester United's, Barcelona's and Real Madrid's of the world, the pinnacle of football excellence was your local team, and in my case Mecca was Fir Park, home of Motherwell FC. OK, I did start out life as a Rangers supporter, but I think even racehorses are allowed one false start before they get shot.

My first ever game was as a Rangers fan, in about 1989. It was at Fir Park though, and I'm sure Motherwell won 2-1. So although I was technically on the losing side, my first Motherwell game was a win against the mighty Rangers. My brother, who was about 6 years old at the time, also experienced his first game, although he enjoyed it a tad more since he really is a lifelong Motherwell fan.

I can remember absolutely nothing about the game other than it was really busy, someone hit the post with a header, and Stuart was decked from top to bottom in claret and amber, standing in the away supporters section. I would love to say I caught the bug there and then. But I didn't, mainly because it wasn't affordable for us at the time, and there was also a lack of someone to take us to games.



Legend, and left footed. Coincidence?

 It must have been pretty soon after this that I switched my allegiances to Motherwell, which may have been down to the recruitment of my hero, Davie Cooper. Another left-footed genius. I also remember a big kickup about Rangers signing a Catholic, Mo Johnston (now a manager in MLS), which kind of soured me on the whole Rangers thing since I was trying to distance myself from the sectarian side of things.

So, without actually going to games at this stage, "being" a Motherwell supported consisted of wearing their colours, telling everyone else their team was shite, and "going" a Motherwell player when playing world-cuppy. This was a game which took place with one set of goals (two jumpers), one goalkeeper, and an infinite amount of outfield players. It was every man for themselves, and the object was to score a goal to get into the next round with the amount of goals required increasing each round. Games of 20 rounds weren't uncommon.

See that red stuff, it hurts like fuck.

Whilst on the subject of playing, I have always believed that playing any sport is a more valuable use of my time than watching, and I totally believe that kids should be encouraged to play as much sport as possible. Back in the day when I were a lad, we'd fit a game of football into any spare minute we could find, and sometimes we didn't even have a ball. In fact, some of my most glorious performances were with a burst tennis ball. We were also encouraged to play for our school teams, where I played left back. My only memories of school football (other than being shite at it) were regular scorelines of 16-0, running around in the pissing freezing cold rain with my boot laces slapping against my legs, getting smacked in the legs repeatedly with the unforgiving mouldmaster (a bit like a basket ball, but with sandpaper on it), and getting to take a penalty kick into Davie Cooper, who was wearing slippers.

Anyway, even losing half of the skin off my arse from a mouldy, or spending hours picking bits of blaes out of my elbows was infinitely better than watching TV or playing video games. Of course, we didn't have video games and only 4 channels of TV, so when Nintendo and cable arrived priorities changed.

It wasn't until the early 1991 that I started going to games again, and it was a 4-2 win over Falkirk in the Scottish cup that got things going. I remember Stevie Kirk scoring about ten goals (one really), and Davie Cooper toying with the Falkirk players with his skill. The next round of the cup was at home to Morton, but this didn't really live up to the standards set in the previous round, but we got through in the replay. We then headed to the national stadium, Hampden, to take on the other half of the evil twins, Celtic. My dad decided at the last minute to take me and Stuart to the game, and I couldn't believe I was going to see Hampden. However, the match was another 0-0 and I was starting to feel like I'd been conned a few weeks earlier.

This match went to a replay, and this time I had to settle with watching the game live on Sky Sports, a rather new phenomenon at the time. I watched this at my cousin's house (in exchange for stickers of course) and it was absolutelyfuckingamazing, we beat Celtic 4-2 with Psycho O'Neil scoring a screamer. Wins against Celtic don't come easy. It's not so much David v Goliath, as a one-armed David vs Goliath with armour and guns. This was also the first time I'd ever saw the Simpsons (an ad for the episode with Ringo Starr). Oh, that was the semi-final, so we were heading for the cup final. My cousin and I spent the next few months singing Motherwell songs (mainly the ones with swearing) wherever we went.

A fine selection of these songs can be found here. My favourite has to be:

"Well I've been a muff diver for many a year,

I've spent all my money on muff divin' gear,
From goggles to flippers and oxygen tank,
If I can't have a muff dive I'll just have a w*nk,
And it's Motherwell, Motherwell F.C.,
Is by far the greatest team the World has ever seen..."

May couldn't come quickly enough, and when it did the atmosphere around the town was amazing. The town has a population of 30,000 and the attendance at the actual match was 57,000, so it's fair to say that most of the town was buzzing. I was slightly disappointed that I had to go to the match with my gran, not that I didn't like her or anything, I loved her to bits, but there were certain aspects of going to the game that I wouldn't be able to partake in with my gran next to me (mainly shouting abuse at the opposition fans and players and the referee, using words which had only recently became known to me). However, getting my face painted and listening to some drunk adults sing the aforementioned songs on the bus made up for it.

Our cup, that is.

The game itself was a blur. We won 4-3 after being forced to play extra time. I have of course watched it a bazillion times since then, but I cant remember many moments from actually being there, other than the celebrations and seeing some opposition fans cry. The win was such a big deal in the town that most pubs reduced their prices to 1952 prices (the last time we won the cup), and there was an open topped bus parade the next day.

Anyway, it's not common for a non old-firm fan to experience a cup-win as their initiation into the world of football, so I count myself pretty lucky for that, and 20 years of relative shitness since helps me appreciate it.

Unfortunately I was no sooner bitten by the football bug that I was whisked off to Blackpool on the first of many relocations. So the best I could do to keep up with the game was to read the scores in Shoot magazine. It wasn't until my return to Scotland in 1995 that the habit well and truly formed, and I became a season ticket holder. For the best part of the next ten years I rarely missed a game, and if I did it felt like someone had ripped my soul out and borrowed it for the day.

Then there was the away games. Most of these I can’t remember, mainly due to the interventions of the East of Scotland Motherwell Supporters Club, or my drinking teachers for short. I used to tag along on the away days when I was 17/18 and I’d try my best to keep up with the drinking, and failed miserably. We’d get the train or a mini bus to games, and have a carry out on the way up. We’d usually get to the “away” pub by 11:30/12:00 and get through a few pints. Normally we’d start talking about football, then the grown ups would talk about more grown-up things.

As 2:30pm approached we’d get in one last pint (usually about the 4^th/5^th) before getting a quick half (whisky) in to see us to the ground. If we timed it right we’d get in just before kickoff. Sometimes if a pub was close enough we could get a pint in at half time, but this was rare, and then after the match it was straight to the pub for another couple before heading to the off-licence to get the carry-out for the train.

The train drink was usually the last straw for me, and my last away game with the East guys was a visit to Dundee which ended in my drinking Buckfast on the train, and redistributing said Buckfast, on the train. Since then I have always started about 1pm just to keep me right.

Over the space of those years I'd witnessed the highs of us finishing 2nd and 3rd in the league (as good as it gets with Rangers and Celtic there), ruining a Rangers title party by winning 2-0 at Ibrox, and then watching Mitchel Van Der Gaag save us from relegation the following week with a thunderous free kick, and the lows of the club almost going out of business in 2002 and countless losses against apparent minnows in cup competitions. I'd happily travel up to Aberdeen to watch a 0-0 in the freezing cold, or make my way to the shiteholes of Ibrox and Parkhead for a likely thrashing against the big two.

But then priorities change and there's just not enough time and money to dedicate to the game, and the biggest moment of my grown up Motherwell supporting life came just one week after the biggest moment of my life so far, the birth of my son. It was the CIS cup semi-final, and after we toasted the new arrival with some tequilla, my brother and I witnessed the most exciting and nerve wracking game of football ever. We were 2-0 up thanks to Craigan and Foran, but the Hearts wankers managed to pull it back level late in the game, forcing extra time. We were all deflated after throwing away a lead, and after 20odd minutes of extra time penalty kicks seemed inevitable. Then Marc Fitzpatrick happened, lashing a low shot into the net to win the game at the last minute. I don't think my voice has ever fully recovered from 2005. We lost in the final to the blue scum, but it was a fun day any way. I had seriously considered taking a 6-week old Davie to the final, as I figured he may never get to see us in a final otherwise. I saw sense and he was spared the humiliating.


Legend....and left footed..hmmm

The ultimate low came in 2007 when the entire game was put into perspective when club hero (and 1991 cup final player) Phil O'Donnell died on the pitch during a match against Dundee Utd. The silence around the stadium the moment he collapsed was haunting and that feeling with stay with me for the rest of my life, as will the moment my mum called me to say that he'd died in hospital 30 minutes later. It's easy to look back on Phil with rose tinted glasses, but in this last match the enduring image most Motherwell fans have of Phil was the visible pride he had in the way his team played that day, particularly his nephew, David Clarkson. 

Since then I've only managed a handful of games each year, although we get four or five televised games a year as well. the price of tickets has now got to the stage where very few people can attend regularly, and the game seems to have abandoned its working class roots. I did manage to take Davie to his first couple of games before he moved, a 3-0 win against Gretna and an 8-1 European win against Flamurtari. Not a bad record for the wee guy!

Once I move I will still be able to view live games or watch highlights, but even though I've not been a regular of late, at least I've had the option of the last minute decision to make my way through to Fir Park. Watching on TV just isn't the same. The smell of bovril and pie grease will be missed (even though I've been vegetarian for over 8 years), along with inquests on the train home as to why we were so shite, the celebratory pint of Budwieser in the Jack Daniels Bar, hugging Stuart and any stranger in the vicinity when we score, staring at the floor when the opposition scores, reminding the referee he's a fucking cheating cunt, reminding the opposition players that they're junkies/gypsies/poofs/fannies/paedophiles/wankers/, not bearing to look when we're taking a penalty, waving cheerio to the opposition fans when their team's getting humped, throwing my scarf away after an embarrassing defeat, retrieving said scarf, and putting down my lava-esque coffee in anticipation of a goal to no avail. Recreating these at home would probably result in me being taken away by the white coat folk, especially if I started pissing behind the sofa.

I guess it's off to the MFC v Dundee Utd game tonight!

So in typical soppy football fan fashion, although I'll be moving away, part of me will always be here

boo hoo :-)