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Date: 8th September 2024
Mr. English in search of a barrel…
A local hack, that’s what he got called. And often, not just behind his back, but he didn’t mind, most of the time…
But now and again the litany of weddings and funerals of local celebrities were something that by a Friday night were beginning to grate and make him feel that he had not “achieved” as a newspaper man.
That Friday night loneliness, where a half and a half pint were not enough for this Irishman called English making his way in Scotland as a journo where melancholy was his singular friend.
Now he was staring at his usual companions but feeling slightly different…
It was, after all, a Monday afternoon…
Picture the scene…
A saloon bar, not too far from the Hump Den where Mr. English is sitting alone with a half of Guinness – what else – a malt and his fedora laid out along the bar. His phone in his hand he has been reading and re reading an email sent by his editor that very morning. A dishevelled figure, Mr. English has a wry look upon his face, a leave me alone vibe and the air of a man who has suddenly found success in the most unlikely of places.
Somebody even said they saw him smile on the way into the pub.
The pub itself is a relic of a bygone scrap. The type of place where Pacino’s Taxi Driver could have alighted upon and then left thinking it was far too dangerous even for him. The smell wafted and drafted – wafted out and drafted people in who found it homely in through its sticky doors. The sight of the stools, half of them with the scars of having been thrown halfway across the bar in anger – those thrown the whole way across never survived – are wooden and stained. Stained with the prejudice and the pain of generations of drinkers who have “seen it all” and will “tell you a thing or too” about life and are only “being honest with you” when they insult you directly to your face.
There is no music. Long ago disputes over whether or not it should be stacked with Blur or Oasis or songs that were “pretty decent” but none of that “Beatles shite” meant that a juke box was in the cellar with its own scars. This is a pub so filled with poverty that Ticketmaster is not a topic of conversation, price hiking relates to their daily bread and going to concerts is reduced to hoping that Pete from down the road will not get up for the karaoke on a Tuesday. The pool table long ago was also binned whilst the only sound you can hear is of “the puggy”. Dolling out winnings of less than a fortnightly sanctioned Universal Credit payment it attracts few customers, but it rings with hope regularly.
In the midst of a Monday afternoon, Mr. English is there.
In the room are Irish Tom, Govan Garry and Pistol Patricia. Mr. English, despite the curiosity of a journalist, has no idea how they got their nicknames and to be fair to each of them they probably have forgotten too. All three, regulars at 11am each morning who, by the end of a day are trying to remember how they put one foot in front of the other on the way in so they can successfully navigate their way out.
But Mr. English is not of their ilk. Though old school, he could easily find himself in that place, with that reputation as he is a drinker. Solitary it may be, but he likes a pint.
Today he is not there because he wants to get drunk but because he is reading praise and that is something he feels rarely. It is an unusual feeling, and he wanted to find a way of capturing it.
On Thursday night he had been interviewing Mr. Clarke at Hump Den. He had always got on reasonably well with him and this was an opportunity to chew the fat, perhaps even put some things right after a tumultuous summer for Mr. Clarke.
Though having been in the area for some years, Mr. English had always been that reporter seen but not often heard. Under the radar he had been, but now he was beginning to get a bit of a reputation for himself for being a bit insightful. Mr. English was unsure if he liked that.
Mr. English had been unsure of how things would go for Mr. Clarke in Germany, been full of praise for how Mr. Clarke had got them all excited and up for the summer and had even been, according to his editor, “even handed” in the analysis of what had then gone wrong.
Mr. English should have seen the warning signs.
His editor had made him the go to guy for getting more out of Mr. Clarke and Thursday night, late in the day had been part of the editor’s planned assault on Hump Den. Send in the charm offensive whilst he sharpened the knives and then wait for the right time to knock Mr. English to one side and plunge the daggers right up to the hilt.
Mr. English was unaware of the strategy. But now he was beginning to wonder.
Once more he read the email and then his article which talked of “scraping bottom of barrel of optimism,” and people making errors as they looked like they were “like a car sliding in the snow, its driver desperate to avoid another vehicle but unable to help himself.” The praise, that had been poured onto him, made him uncomfortable. He reread the email from his editor again. Something was not right, but he was unsure what that might be. He made a pact with himself, however, to watch out what was happening. He mused, perhaps this was his big chance; an opportunity to get onto a national?
Just then the door opened of this salubrious saloon and in walked the tall, dark and lanky stranger who had been hanging about all week. Mr. English had seen him, recognised him as someone who used to be someone in Hump Den but had left under a cloud. Why was he here again? What was going on? Was he the key to the uneasy feeling he felt?
The stranger to these here parts pulled up the stool next to him, threw down his train ticket and Mr. English noticed it was a one-way ticket from Perth. A desperate ploy to get out of that town? A hopeful trip with a singular thought in mind? A promise that brought him that is waiting to be fulfilled?
Mr. English decided it was time to find out and offered to buy the tall, dark, lanky one a drink…
Whilst the author asserts his right to this as an original piece of work there is no evidence that Tom English has ever been drinking the clichéd half pint of Guinness on a Monday afternoon, unless you know differently, so, this is clearly a piece of fiction.
The fact is that Tom English, following the game against Poland wrote a pretty even handed yet critical piece on the BBC website which mentioned the following, “Scots scraping bottom of barrel of optimism – A point would have been a reasonable return, but in the dizziness of those moments at 2-2, three points looked more likely. And then Poland went on the attack. You could see it happening, Hanley moving towards Nicola Zalewski like a car sliding in the snow, its driver desperate to avoid another vehicle but unable to help himself. Hanley had no need to make a tackle, no need to do it with his wrong foot, no need to clatter into Zalewski, who was going nowhere at the time. There was no danger until the Norwich City defender decided to inject peril into a passive moment. Why? He won’t know. Had you asked Hanley his name he might have needed to phone a friend. Naturally, Zalewski scored. Gunn came close, but he rarely comes close enough. All of Scotland’s good work was undone and the inquest began in the aftermath.” And so, the inquest begins prior to facing Portugal with fear and trepidation, given we could not manage a win at home against the Poles. They never said it would be easy…
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Tags: Football, oor Donald, SFA, SPFL, tom english bbc