Playing "Fur The Toon" - That Is Pressure

BILL McLAREN used to tell a story of how things were done in the early post-war years of the 1940s when he was playing wing forward for Hawick. Back then, and indeed still today, the Hawick team for a Saturday is posted-up in a glass-fronted notice board in the High Street, no social media announcements back then.The players really are playing for the toon.

Bill knew the pressure that came with representing "the toon."

He also told of, walking home from training one night with a couple of team mates, after Hawick had lost, to be told, by anonymous voice from a dark close: “You three were shite on Saturday.” That was the price you paid for playing: “fur the toon,” you were fair game for every critic.

When the likes of Bill, Hughie McLeod, Jake Hegarty, Geordie Stevenson and the other legends who built-up the legend of “The Green Machine” were in their pomp, they truly were representing Hawick. Pulling-on that jaggy green jersey meant they were living the dream.

As too did Hughie McLeod

Similar scenarios were played-out in Galashiels, in Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso, Langholm and Selkirk. It was rare to find an incomer in their ranks, the XVs which went out on a Saturday were doing battle for the glory of their wee towns, and, if they were able to beat a city side such as Heriot's, Watsonians, Edinburgh or Glasgow Accies, or Glasgw High School FP, so much the better.

This is a sporting system similar to the one I grew-up with in Ayrshire. THE football team against which I measure all others is: Jock Fraser, Davie Love, Charlie Cathie; Andy McEwan, Jim Baird, Jim Donnelly; Alex Bingham, Jimmy Collins, Alex Sharpe, Hughie Neil and Eric Wilkie – the Lugar Boswell Thistle team which reached the Scottish Junior Cup final in 1956.

Now Lugar, that year, was being pulled down. The houses “Up the Brae,” the “Front,” “Brick” and “Dandy” Rows of two-apartment miners' cottages were being demolished and the population moved en masse, a mile up the hill to the new Logan Toll housing scheme. There were less than 500 of us left in the village.

But, of that XI, Fraser, Cathie, Baird and Neil were Lugar boys, the rest, apart from Wilkie – a “Weegie” down in Ayrshire doing football missionary work, were all Ayrshire boys. Collins went to Tottenham, Neil to Rangers, Bingham to Dumbarton and Sharpe to Hamilton, following in the footsteps of three other genuine Lugar boys – Andy Kerr, Bertie Black and John McTurk. They had played for “The Jaggy Bunnets” just two or three seasons previously, before going upstairs to Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock and St Mirren, where Kerr won full Scotland caps, Black played for the Scottish League and McTurk captained the British Army side.

So too did Andy Kerr in football

So yes, I know what it means to “play fur the toon.” Sadly, this is a rarity today. I have also come to recognise something to which “The Voice” obliquely referred – the pressure that came with playing “fur the toon.”

I put this to Billy Dodds, when the former Scotland striker was thinking of hanging-up his boots. “Are you not going to come back and finish with the Glen (Glenafton Athletic,)” I asked this proud son of New Cumnock.

“No chance – too much pressure,” was his answer. I got the same answer from Kris Boyd, who mother is a New Cumnock lassie and whose father, when playing for the Glen, was, I am assured – every bit as deadly a striker as Kris is. Boydie would not be averse to a season, scoring a lot of goals and getting well-paid, by Auchinleck Talbot, but, the added pressure of playing for the Glen is not for him. Here in New Cumnock, we live in hope of a change of mind, however.

No, it seems, today's promising young players want the world, and they want it yesterday. Of course, in rugby, if you are any good, you will be diverted onto the SRU's player pathway, and from there to either Edinburgh or Glasgow. Should you fail to make the cut to full-time professionalism, well the big-money city clubs, with a Super-6 franchise coming along, they can offer a better deal than playing “fur the toon” for expenses and the hero-worship of the young boys – and occasional unfair criticism from the adults.

It doesn't help that the economy of the Borders has been badly hit in recent years, with many of the mills closed, the work gone to the Far East. So, when, as I outlined in my piece about events in Galashiels, you find a couple of clubs fighting over a diminished talent pool in one town, you worry for the future of former power-houses of the game.

A friend of mine, with a Gala connection, got in touch, and he had this to say about the travails around Netherdale – which continued on Saturday with a defeat at lowly Kirkcaldy.

My friend had this to say:

“With faults on all sides, and long-standing enmities which tend to exist in small close communities with entrenched attitudes, there are really no winners, just losers in all of this, right across the board at all levels, in every sense.

Unless a relatively small community like Galashiels can pull all its assets together effectively, as in the past, for mutual good, in a way that recognises strengths and weaknesses, the future is bleak.

From personal experience and observation of events in recent years, it is obvious that Gala Rugby is a mismanaged basket case; the current and last two Presidents (one a personally ambitious self-promoting former policeman with no prior experience of rugby, business or of running a sports club; the other an equally ambitious controlling, opinionated yet generous long-term sponsor; again with no rugby background, whose son was until recently head coach, and whose brother is now V-P / Acting Secretary) have demonstrated they are completely out of their depth, heading deeply flawed administrations.

A previous DoR had no experience and scant knowledge of rugby, and never accepted any advice; together with the two aforementioned Presidents, a close trio who simply pleased themselves.

No idea about the DoR, both former Presidents are still around, figuring prominently in the weekly blazer parade.. There have been numerous other "issues" - the botched dismissal of George Graham, massive financial losses due to profligate spending on players eradicating reserves prudently acquired over many years, sanction reprimands heavy fine for deliberate breach of incoming player registration rules, etc, etc.... No wonder many of Gala's best players are figuring elsewhere; despite the recent addition of Marcus di Rollo and Rob Moffat to support the marvellous Opeta Palepoi and his coaching team, they, the departed players may well be the lucky ones!

Peter Dods - still at Gala as Team Manager

My pals Peter Dods (Team Manager) has no real executive input or clout, but is very well-meaning as is new DoR, former skipper and District prop Gary Isaac, good committed blokes, both.... but possibly with fixed “aye-been” notions.

That's about it, apart from a point about the excellent Netherdale facilities having reached the stage of requiring extensive / costly maintenance, upgrading & renovation - potentially crippling. Last I knew the undersoil heating system, once a major asset, was fucked due to lack of use & proper maintenance.....

At least we all had a laugh recently at the imbecile Inspector Clouseau's bumbling self-important foray into the realms of candidacy for high office at the SRU - but that rather tragic comedy show is indicative of what has been and is currently at the wheel of the once-great Gala Rugby.”

You know, the examples I have used here are probably typical of Scotland. “Him, Ah kent his faither,” is a typically Scottish response when someone suggests or tries something new. Perhaps Scotland, the nation which resolutely refuses to grant power to the Conservatives, is the most-conservative part of the UK.

The current ructions around Netherdale are worrying. But, I have had a thought. Down here in Ayrshire Junior Football, there is a tradition – the “Village Idiot” always gets a spot on the fitba team's committee – except in Cumnock, where they think American and make him President. Maybe Galashiels is the Borders' equivalent of Cumnock.

Now that is worrying.