Notes for Expats on Scottish bands touring internationally and features on Scottish music, sport, film and the life written by and for Scots around the world. More →
Two adult Scotsmen from Renfrew, on a pristine lawn, in the sunshine. One on his hands and knees being dry-humped, doggy-style, by the other. Behind them, valiantly ignoring this advert for the perils of alcohol, a choir of virginal schoolchildren. In a bar up the road, an empty litre-and-a-half bottle of Imperial vodka.
It’s that time of year again: nicer weather, Cadbury’s Cream Eggs, and the Old Firm Decider. This Sunday, Celtic visit Ibrox for the third time since August – the two teams matching off for a record seventh time in one season. If familiarity breeds contempt, then referee Craig Thomson had better get his arm ready [...]
I’m not a lawyer, but in the last few months I’ve learned a few things about defamation. Paul McBride IS a lawyer, and a good one at that, but he should ask for a copy of my lecture notes before he opens his mouth again and further libels the SFA.
It was back to the eighties at Fir Park, Motherwell, last Saturday. No, it wasn’t a retro disco night featuring Kajagoogoo, shoulder pads, and men with snoods wearing too much eyeshadow. Aberdeen manager Craig Brown and Motherwell chairman John Boyle recreated a classic 80s hooligan scene: the top boys from Aberdeen’s Soccer Crew and Motherwell’s [...]
The Tartan Army are still the world’s fluffiest football fans, thanks to the Sun newspaper. The blowhard tabloid rag proudly declared itself the saviour of the Tartan Army after it produced a photograph showing the banana thrown on to the pitch after Brazil’s second goal came from an area populated by Brazil fans.
If anyone ever asked me who my hero is, I would answer: Tank Man. He is the anonymous person who stood in front of a column of Chinese Army tanks on Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue on June 5, 1989 – the morning after the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square. No-one knows his real name.
This Sunday sees the sixth meeting of the Old Firm this season, and the first that will directly result in silverware – the League Cup. This tournament came into being in 1947. I’m not entirely sure why – presumably to throw a few more games into the calendar and thus bring a few more pounds [...]
I’ve watched Rangers games in many strange places. I listened to the 1994 New Year’s Old Firm in a flat in Dakar on a short wave radio; I watched Paul Le Guen’s first game in 2006 in a hotel in Bombay; and in January this year I sat in a ski lodge in Japan while [...]
Billy is still on his travels this week, although he probably found somewhere to watch Rangers get gubbed by Celtic for the second time in as many weeks. To cheer him up here is a ‘classic’ article where Billy looks at some memorable games in Scottish football history that all ended 4-1.
