I often tell people one of the benefits of being a Rangers fan is that you get two occasions every week to be happy: Rangers winning and Celtic losing.  Celtic’s defeat to Sporting Braga in the first round of the Champions League qualifier gave Rangers fans even further satisfaction – not only did Celtic lose […]

James Curran Baxter was born in 1939 in Hill of Beath, Fife.  He played 381 games for Raith Rovers, Rangers, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, and Scotland, scoring 38 goals, including both in the 1963 win at Wembley – the stadium where, four years later, he played “keepie uppie” against the newly-crowned world champions.  Baxter retired from […]

Back in the mid-90s, before Mrs Williamson was a snowboarder, we’d often spend the Martin Luther King long weekend (mid-January) flying down to Miami and hanging out in South Beach.  It was a fine break from the freezing New York winters and allowed me to transform my pasty white skin into a marginally less pasty […]

My tournament began in the conference room of a fund management company on George Street in Edinburgh: I had travelled through from Glasgow for the day to visit a friend who had invited me to watch South Africa-Mexico on an extremely large flat screen TV in his office.  A month later, I staggered out of […]

As regular readers will know, Dear Scotland has published some terrible puns in the past. We’ve had articles about Mogwai punsmith Stuart Braithwaite, Scottish football autobiography puns and the story about the return of Dunfermline’s greatest 70s rockers “Jesus! It’s Nazareth“. But this is a Joachim Löw.

This is the first in an occasional series where we will take a match result and look at memorable games in Scottish history with that result.  This week: games that ended 4-1: 1882 Scottish Cup Final: Queen’s Park 4 Dumbarton 1 (after 2-2 draw)

“You have to write your column tonight,” said Mrs Williamson.  “Do you know what you’re going to do yet?” “Yes,” I replied, “I’m going to write about Scotland’s World Cup songs.” Mrs W: “Have there been many?” Me: “Oh yes.” Enjoy.

The first person who blows a vuvuzela in a Scottish football ground should be taken to the centre spot immediately to have the thing shoved up – RIGHT UP – his or her hairy ginger arse.  Sideways.  That is my view, I will stick to it, and I will not mention the vuvuzela again.  Well […]

People who know I’m a football fan and know there’s a World Cup on, but apart from those two facts don’t know much about football, have been asking me: “Are you going to South Africa?” I politely answer no, and then explain it’s because Scotland didn’t qualify.  What I’m really thinking is, “Why the fuck […]