14. Remembering History

Tiny was chomping on a particularly resistant lump of gristle of Peking Duck when the text message arrived. His latest assignment was non-league he was delighted to learn, a junket to northern England to referee the always refreshing encounter between Bradford City representing York and Preston North End representing Lancaster. This inter regional clash had pedigree dating all the way back to the War of the Roses. Sponsorship of the twenty first century version had been appropriated by an English winery which saw fit to traverse the wide Atlantic to hire a Madison Avenue ad agency to market the game. The result was that fans across Britain now awaited each year the War of the Rosés, with a one time white and red wine distilled annually in honour of the warring sides. Live streaming and pay-per-view brought in copious revenues which more than warranted the extra fixture on an already choc full football calendar. Tiny contentedly finished his piece (I know, I know, Scottish word for sandwich don’t you know?), selected a big chunk of his wife’s expensive mouldy Dutch cheese and washed it down with a Tennents. He followed many of the rules of etiquette in so doing. Disclaimer; The fact that all the beers named in these accounts are Tennents has nothing to do with the reprehensible practice of product placement and the reader should be aware that no untoward revenues accrue to the author.

 

A month later Tiny found himself trundling south down the M74 to Preston. As he left Glasgow and progressed up the Clyde Valley it warmed the cockles of his heart to see the floodlights at Fir Park illuminating mankind from on high. Another torrid match at Wellwishers was in progress. Let the harvest be bountiful he thought. Past Gretna, Tiny took note of the situation at the border. A large billboard proclaimed “Scotland remembers history, England tries hard to forget it” and this was particularly poignant given the pending independence referendum. For the moment the border with the Auld Enemy was still porous but there were workmanlike signs it was about to become a hard border. A frontier with customs no less. Was he one of the last travellers post-Brexit to cross hassle free? He made a mental note to dig out his passport next time home to check on its expiry date. He had last had it stamped at Malaga in Andalusia when he and Maureen had dipped their tootsies in the soothing, azure waters of the Mediterranean.

 

Preston is not quite as alluring to a visitor as the Costa del Sol. If one sneaks up on it from the east and then works one’s way to Deepdale in the North End then the visual shock is manageable. Deepdale itself has been home to the club since it was founded in 1880. The club’s crest features what appears to be a horse and the letters PP but the real meaning of these symbols has been lost in antiquity. Alan Ball Senior, yes father of the Alan Ball the high-scoring red-headed nemesis of Berti and Jinky and all the other Scots on the national team, was manager at Deepdale where he had been since the sixties. His charges at one time or another had participated in the FA Cup and that was the only honour to their credit. Their trophy case was a yawning empty space. But all of that could be rectified to-night if Preston could win the War of the Rosés. Tiny entered the plush official’s lounge a couple of hours before the clash. Seated amongst a cluster of jolly good fellows was Veronica whom Tiny recognized. They had officiated half a dozen matches to-gether over the years. Veronica had hit her head on the glass ceiling several times in her career and had never been more than a referee’s assistant. Ultimately she wished to become not just a referee but manager of an English Football Association big league outfit.  That all too real glass ceiling was going to have to be lowered for her cranium to smash through it were her ambitions to be realized.

 

Gregor too was in the lounge. He had come south from Dumfries to attend the game in his capacity as observer for the SFA. Like any Scot he was happy to watch a field full of Englishmen going at each other with full abandon, in much the same way an Englishman of the seventeenth century would have enjoyed Cromwell knocking Scottish castles and their occupants about a bit. Tiny meanwhile had taken a leaf (a maple leaf?) out of Canada’s former Prime Minister’s book and had gotten accustomed to gallantly pinning a well chosen boutonniere on his referee’s uniform. He went off to strip and get ready for the match. He had painstakingly chosen a floral arrangement that did not feature a rose nor a flower of a colour synonymous with one of the evening’s protagonists, nay antagonists. He had to be careful when jogging around the field not to get jabbed by the pin that held the boutonniere in place. In an awkward moment when refereeing the two Dundee sides the previous year he had indeed pricked himself and in pain inadvertently blown the whistle at an awkward time. To cover his embarrassment he had awarded a free kick to United when in fact they did not merit one. A resulting corner and score altered the result of the match, although like always he was the only person in the ground to have understood the reason for his decision.

 

Prior to the commencement of the game Skysports offered celebrations they had underwritten to please their tv audience and the numerous cut-outs who flocked in at the turnstiles. Many of the latter were so similar in appearance, decked out in identically designed team tops and scarves, they were deemed to be clones. A heraldic element of the entertainment was the presentation of a handful of Clydesdale horses in chain mail and mounted by knights in shining armour. These knights were expected to charge the length of the field with lances lowered in the event of a goal being scored somewhat akin to a charge at a medieval tournament. Little provision was made for the lumbering warhorses to stop at the far touchline which left the organizer whose brainchild it was a teenie weenie bit apprehensive. He presumably hoped for a goalless draw. The piano recital went over well, being a concerto of Rachmaninov’s in C minor, which Tiny thought to himself did not make the grade and indeed was below average. What is for sure, it was not the usual fare served up to football crowds more familiar with Black Sabbath and Marilyn Manson. Skysports were lauded in The Times the next day however for their obvious effort to bring high brow culture to plebs who care for football and little else. Tiny was surprised to find himself humming the melody to himself as he scooted up the motorway on his way home. Near Lockerbie he almost dozed off at the wheel but he inserted one of his Deacon Blue cd’s and that tided him over until he reached Bearsden.