Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
I’ve found new love match
ORDINARY working-class Scottish folk are known for several pastimes.
Our consistent pessimism, forthright discourse and selfdeprecation among them – all of which are possibly best epitomised by the Rev IM Jolly – but let’s not overlook our fascination with football.
Despite the frankly dire quality of some of our teams by contrast to European giants in France, Germany, Holland and even our nearest neighbours in England, Scottish fans rank as the most committed weekly attendees of football in our Continent and by no slender margin either.
More locally, there has been great cause for celebration in Dundee this year, as the football team named after Scotland’s fourth city claimed a top-six finish in Scotland’s Premiership for the first time since 2014-15.
Their nearby neighbours Dundee United also returned to the top tier after a trying but ultimately successful year in the Scottish Championship.
However, over the last year, I have rediscovered a love for football in a most unusual place. What floundered to a smouldering wick has recovered its warmth.
Have you heard of Bonnyrigg Rose FC? Long before my adoption as a native of our fine city, I grew up near Bonnyrigg and became a lifelong supporter of Hearts.
After the Second World War, my grandparents settled in this wee town just south of Edinburgh, my parents went to Lasswade High and I spent many happy childhood days there.
Two years ago, Bonnyrigg
Rose were promoted to the semi-professional SPFL League Two, having had their goalkeeper in the 1950s, Sean Connery, as their greatest previous claim to fame.
The first time I walked into New Dundas Park, the home of Bonnyrigg Rose, was in the 1990s. My family attended a small church which met in an old library across from the ground. One evening, I walked through an open turnstile and around the empty terraces.
The next time I would do so would be three decades later – in 2023. It hadn’t changed. I was able to pay in cash, my son and daughter got in for free, the purchase of four drinks returned change from a fiver and local players performed as if their lives depended on it – I was instantly hooked. Supporting Bonnyrigg is often painful but occasionally euphoric and has taken me to every football ground in the fourth tier this season, from East Fife to Elgin and Stenhousemuir to Stranraer – the latter of which was a seven-hour round trip. On the odd occasion the supporters’ bus uses Dundee as a thoroughfare for somewhere like Peterhead, we jump on at the Jet Garage on Forfar Road with Midlothian’s finest, to whom I am fondly referred as “the Dundee contingent” or “the Dundee Taliban” on account of my big beard.
On Saturday, our season concluded by surviving relegation with a 4-0 demolition of Forfar Athletic and a Player of the Year award ceremony, which I attended with my son, father and my uncle. However, what I have discovered is an element of football I sorely missed – the ability to go to a match on a whim as fans used to, without planning six weeks in advance or purchasing a ticket via some awful digital matrix while worrying about “loyalty points”.
The lower leagues remind us that this is a working-class sport and, indeed, a beautiful game.