Leading up to May 19, I had spent time in Falkirk and disliked neither the place nor the people. Besides, in my Dad’s mind, Raith Rovers was the rivalry, not Falkirk. Developing a love for a club through a family bond does not necessarily equate to a deep-rooted dislike for another. I wrote previously in Nutmeg about my once-a-year trips to East End Park, and so with my Pars leanings in mind, match number eight of the 10 would be the only game of the trip in which I favoured one team over the other.įootball rivalry can be the oddest of constructs to the distant fan. I rejected the agony of potentially winning only one trophy a season and regularly playing in the Champions League which would ensue if I adopted my Mum’s team, and instead jumped aboard the bandwagon of success with Dunfermline. Having been advised that the game would sell out, I managed to buy my ticket over the phone in one of the Highlands’ most illuminating locations, the car park of Tesco in Dingwall.īoth of my parents are Scottish, so I adopted one of their clubs as my second team to my first love (the club nearest to where I grew up in England). Because of this victory, my options for the following Friday were either a plethora of Lowland League under-20s matches, a couple of amateur games, or the deciding encounter between Falkirk and Dundee United. The inaugural game of the trip was my second-ever visit to the city of Dundee, to see a 3-0 victory for Ray McKinnon’s side in which midfielder Wato Kuate morphed from muscular athlete with the passing skills of an anxious motorway driver to cult hero in the space of one spectacular goal which put the game beyond the team from Greenock. I wrote a part travel, part history, and part football book based on my ten-day voyage. I witnessed Celtic’s soon-to-be invincibles decimate Partick Thistle, watched a second-tier women’s game between Jeanfield Swifts and Glasgow Girls during which I was told the home team would soon be rebranded as the women’s team of St Johnstone, and also made my first ever visit to the Highlands to see an entertaining game between Ross County and Hamilton, unaware that 124 days later I would relocate to an area that I had instantly fallen for, with the Staggies being my local team. It was a drizzly Monday evening encounter in Perthshire between Luncarty and Kirriemuir Thistle which seemed close in style to the annual Atherstone ball game in which there is only one rule: opponents are not allowed to kill anyone. In what felt like a footballing rite of passage, I saw my first ever Junior match. It was only the second time I had ever seen them play, and I do not support the club.Ī week prior to this game, I had embarked upon a mini-trip around Scotland with the aim of watching ten football matches in ten days. At the final whistle, I punched my fist in the air, half in celebration and half in defiance, clapped the victorious team as they came towards us, and joined in with songs in praise of Dundee United. On the pitch, some fans were sharing their moment of jubilation with the players wearing tangerine. Regaining my footing, I was embraced by the stranger next to me, a man whose only previous conversation with me had been to tell me that the three seats to my left were not taken. A goal in the last minute is the most thrilling – and the most heart-breaking.Īs the ball rippled the corner of the net, I was carried forward by the exuberant surge of those behind me. This was the final minute of the second leg of a play-off semi-final, a goal that would end year-long hopes for the losers and allow the victors to carry on dreaming. This was not an equalising goal in the 72nd minute of a humdrum league match in November, nor the opening goal of a routine win against a struggling team in on a Spring afternoon. As Paul Dixon’s deflected header looped over goalkeeper Robbie Thomson, the anticipation hit me: that split-second feeling just before the ball is about to go into the net. Every supporter in the main stand, myself included, held their breath. At around 9.30pm on Friday, May 19, 2017, time stood still.
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