In the absence of any new trips to report on, here’s one from the archives…

On 9th of November 2002  – so far back in the distant mists of time that a loaf of bread only cost 2d and you could get 6 pints, a new suit and a bag of chips and still have some change left from a pound note – fredmadison and I first set out on this grand tour around the footballing theatres of Scotland.  First game up was Forfar Athletic versus Brechin City at Station Park, Forfar.  Why we chose this as a starting point is still not quite clear even to me, but I suppose it was as good a place as any.  A reasonable road trip for us, an Angus derby, a chance to see lower league goal machine Roddy Grant before he hung up his boots…this was always going to be a good day out.  Here are some things we remember about the trip:

  • A long, long drive, or so it seemed, to Forfar in fredmadison’s little car (for, primitive though it seems to us now, back in those days people still used petroleum fuel and the internal combustion engine as a principal form of transport.  How barbaric!). 
  • Getting to Forfar and realising neither of us had done the necessary research to find out where the ground was.
  • Stopping in a local butchers shop to ask directions.  Feeling nauseous and declining politely when he (rubbing his bloody hands on his apron all the while) offered to sell us some pies for after the game.
  • Walking into Station Park and having an instant, overwhelming feeling that this was going to be a great day, that this ‘round the grounds’ thing was a brilliant idea and that all was right in the world.  Here’re some notes we made about the ground at the time:

“Classic, reasonably well maintained old school football ground.  Nice main stand on one side of the ground, with 3 banks of narrow terracing around the other sides.  The walls around the back of the terracing were just low enough for us to make out the hills in the distance and catch the last of the afternoon sun dying behind them.  Great crowd – really good numbers of away fans behind the goal where we were standing, all passing banter with the players and the home supporters walking past to get to the main stand.  Very, very weird toilets (weird here being a polite way of saying ‘horrid’).  There’s a little wall at an end of the ground – you simply turn around this and pee against the back of it.  Note to self – remember not to wear trainers if we go back.”

  • Decent game all round. Brechin City ended up that season being promoted as Division 2 Champions and you could see that they were the most accomplished side all round. They always looked like they had a plan (we like sides who look like they know what they’re doing. We like order. We despise chaos.) and stroked the ball around quite nicely. Having said that, Forfar went and won the game with two goals on the breakaway, so what do we know…

Other sundry recollections:

  • Roddy Grant (playing for Brechin at the time) being probably the fattest professional footballer we’ve ever seen, but having a great game and finding time for some brilliant banter with the crowd. The stuff that legends are made of.
  • Dick Campbell (Brechin manager at the time) having mad, mad eyes, the likes of which have to be seen to be believed and looking like the hardest man in the universe, bar none.
  • Seeing Neil Cooper (Forfar manager at the time) in the car park looking glum.
  • Driving back to Fife afterwards, almost ending up in Perth and having a lovely morroccan chick pea stew thing at Ms Tagomi’s mother’s place afterwards (and getting a bit scared by her dog, who was having one of it’s ‘mad’ days).

Vital Match Stats:

Saturday November 9th 2002

Station Park, Forfar

Scottish Football League Division 2

Forfar Athletic 2 (Bavidge: 15, 73) – Brechin City 1 (Templeman: 70)

Attendance: 868

Epilogue:

It was a couple of months after this game that Stevie Paterson embarked on his ill-fated reign as Aberdeen manager and took Neil Cooper with him as under-21 coach.  The early months of 2003 were filled with extremely disturbing (for dandy don fans, anyway) rumours linking Aberdeen with Forfar strikers Paul Tosh and Martin Bavidge.  I’d have rather had Roddy Grant, myself.

Here’s a match report(forfar.doc), by the way.  Stolen from ‘the courier’, i do believe.