STUART ON TAM
We’re not Morecambe & Wise. We don’t go to bed together
I first came across Tam lying in a crumpled heap in Glasgow Airport. Not Tam himself, but his newspaper column, which was a fanzine style commentary on the week in Scottish football.
It was smart, with good one-liners and I liked it. It was fresher than the rest of football coverage at that time.
I moved in trendier circles than Tam. I would be out at a Northern Soul all-nighter and he’d be living with his mum.
I felt there was something different in Tam, and the big thing between us was that we supported smaller teams, not Celtic or Rangers, and the consequence of that meant you had a focus for your satire and your jokes.
Tam has always had that feeling of being out of time, and it’s a very odd thing about him.
His musical taste is from his father’s generation, Perry Como, crooners and all that. If you were to ask Tam questions about the rave era, for example, he would look at you like you were mad.
When I started doing Off The Ball with him, I thought it was something I would maybe do once and move on. I never imagined I’d have 25 years of it. Sanjeev and Greg were virtually unknown in Scotland at that time, so there was no sense of replacing people who were famous.
Over the years we’ve deliberately exaggerated the differences between us. I’ve played up the pretentious language and pomposity, and he’s played up the world of being stuck in the past.
Like Jo Swinson I have an accent for every town, whereas Tam has a more settled sense that he’s speaking to west central Scotland.
I’ll use terms from political theatre and Freud or whatever and they’re intended to annoy Tam. He knows I’m doing it to provoke him.
Tam’s defining characteristic is resistance to change.
He’s very centred in his belief and demeanour. It takes him ages to change, whereas I’d change every week. He rages against new technology until he gets a new mobile or joins Instagram, then he obsesses about them. He goes to the same place on holiday. He’s a creature of habit.
We’ve been there for each other as friends on a few occasions. Tam saw me breaking down at my mum’s funeral doing the eulogy, and was very supportive.
I’ve always been very pro-women’s football, but when he was suspended after writing a parody column in a newspaper about women’s football, I felt uneasy about it, because he didn’t say those things on the show and it felt as if he was hung out to dry.
He was suspended by the BBC just before the show that day, and we met afterwards to talk as he’d left looking very defeated. But he said what he said and did what he did.
But we’re not Morecambe and Wise, we don’t go to bed together and, unlike a rock band on tour together day after day, we don’t have that same level of fury building up over personal ticks.