Hey Jude not as big a hit as pal Reynolds

East Fife midfielder on life without the game

Birmingham cued ridicule last week when retiring Jude Bellingham’s shirt number after the 17-year- old left for Borussia Dortmund.

Bizarre, yes, but better than our keeper Brett Long deciding to retire his hands for certain games last term.

As a winger starting out, No.11 was what you craved.

But with numbers seeing who sits where in East Fife’s dressing room, being No.7 has its advantages. For one, Aaron Dunsmore’s big backside is nowhere near. Plus, with Craig Watson and Pat Slattery on either side, we’ve got our pre-match routine of doing the programme quiz.

While no fans would be a real shame, every cloud has a silver lining – namely hearing touchline tirades.

Frank Lampard was at it in midweek, however the Scottish insults game is on another level. If you hear Forfar boss Stuart Malcolm giving me it tight, then know it comes from a good place.

I was booked for a hard but fair tackle just before lockdown. Cue my old team-mate’s screams of ‘you animal’. Mics wouldn’t have picked up the smile I flashed him or the wink he returned.

And maybe we’ ll hear more from Arbroath physio Craig Reynolds, one of the weirdest yet funniest in football. Our first encounter was at Forfar – I was on the treatment table and he was massaging my hamstring.

Silence gave way to, ‘Daniel... I was reading this thing Sigmund Freud said that we all fancy our mums... Something to think about’.

He thrived on making people uncomfortable. I grew to love him. I think our then boss, Gary Bollan, did too after a rocky start.

Before Forfar, Craig was at Dundee United and played an odd legends’ match when they were short of bodies. Bollan would play but they didn’t know each other well.

That didn’t stop Craigie, according to the story he tells, jumping in Bobo’s butcher’s van and driving off when spotting it in Dundee one day. He saw the keys and thought it would be a funny story.

As he’s done so, Bobo has come out on to the street and started giving chase down a one-way road when the traffic lights turn red.

Craigie stops, applies the handbrake and does a runner before returning to apologise once he realises they’ll soon see each other at another legends game.

Said game arrives, Bollan sees Craig and wants a word. Craig fears he’s going to end up mince meat only to be offered a physio job.