No Excuse for giving tradition a real slagging

STEAK pie, reeking lums, first footing and feeling so fat the only thing you wish Santa had left under the tree the week before was his stretchy trousers.

You can’t beat a bit of tradition at this time of year, like bashing Only an Excuse. The only thing folk love more than watching Jonathan Watson’s annual poke at Scottish football is moaning about it.

Every year there’s the same old grumbles. It’s a past-it, laugh-free zone that should be put out to pasture. Come off it. No one really likes watching Ally Bain and Phil Cunningham either but we still need to see them for the Bells.

Only an Excuse is hardly cutting-edge comedy but it’s part of our culture – just like whingeing about it has become as well.

It wasn’t even particularly bad. There were a couple of decent gags to keep us occupied for half an hour before we all charged our glasses. There’s no need to take it so seriously.

The big problem the writers have is Scottish football reality is far more bonkers than anything they can come up with. We’ve got keepers getting injured by runaway cows, poo on the pitch, players dodging dead seagulls falling from the sky.

The teams of writers on Only an Excuse would need to be on LSD to come up with some of the stuff we deal with on a daily basis in the SPFL.

We’ve also got a tremendous cast list of managers who are not just top operators in the dugouts, they are firstclass wind-up merchants.

Watson could give Craig Levein a bell to join his backroom staff as the Jambos boss has come out with more one-liners of late than Jimmy Carr.

Brendan Rodgers, Steven Gerrard, Neil Lennon, Steve Clarke, Tommy Wright are all more than capable of delivering heavy-hitting opinions just as well as withering put-downs.

They’re not scared to have a pop, whether at their own players, rival bosses or the beaks.

Maybe that’s why some folk have got so frustrated by Only an Excuse. There’s such a depth of madness to mine, it should be easy to have a bit more fun with it. But it’s a hard job to be satirical when reality is far more fun than fiction.

It’s the same with politics. Shows like The Thick of It have no chance these days because there’s so many real-life Malcolm Tuckers kicking around.

Only An Excuse had its moments though. There

Problem is reality is far more bonkers than what they come up with

was Michael Stewart and Stephen Thompson’s tight clobber, Megan Markle’s staunch wedding and the usual Frank McAvennie “where’s the burdz” stuff.

It was much better than last year’s effort with less of the politics and more of the football.

Sure, the show could do with bringing in a few new faces, like Darren Farley, who nails Rodgers and Gerrard, and getting in touch with some of the superb young Scottish comedians.

Only an Excuse could do with promoting a few young guns from the academy.

But while it’s custom to put the boot in we’d all be sad to see it go as some traditions are worth holding on to.