FIELD OF BROKEN FOOTIE DREAMS

DREAMERS, the delusional and the utterly daft. Those are the creatures who all-too-often populate and run the world of Scottish football.

And of course, the club owners, chairmen are booted in the direction of insolvency.

That’s the theme of new footballbased comedy play by former Herald journalist David Belcher and insolvency practitioner Bryan Jackson.

And such is the appetite for the pie and Bovril game in Scotland, it seems certain The Pie Man Cometh will play to packed houses.

David, who had a previous football theatre play success with 1993’s Partick Thistle Football Crazy, explains why he came to look at the game from the perspective of the club on the brink.

“Large clubs such as Rangers and Hearts have come close to the edge,” says the writer.

“Smaller clubs such as Gretna have gone down. And the idea was to take this notion of the end of a small club to create a dramatic narrative for a comedy play.”

David’s central character in the play is an insolvency practitioner.

“The play is based on the real-life experiences of Bryan Jackson and the central character Alan Ledger is loosely based on Bryan.”

He adds: “I say ‘loosely’ because Bryan really knows what he is doing. In his time he has saved seven clubs from extinction including Dundee, Dunfermline, Motherwell, Clydebank and most recently, Hearts.”

Alan Ledger is parachuted in to save football club Dunweary FC, who play at Midden Park.

They are hours away from closure – unless Ledger can work his financial magic and make the club bosses face up to reality.”

David adds, grinning: “This may not seem the most likely basis for a comedy play, but it’s fair to say Bryan has come across some strange situations in his club-saving career.”

Bryan Jackson reveals how absurd the football world can be.

“You go in and try to save and club but come up against people who want to talk about the person who supplies the pies,” he says, with a wry smile.

“And this sums up the insanity of Scottish football.”

The comedy in the play emerges from drama.

And what could be more dramatic than a club with an immense tradition, being part of a community, about to have the air let out of its ball for good?

“Yes, that’s true,” says David, smiling.

“And when you add to that some of the characters who run the club you realise it’s a world all too often