Goalmouth action
Some of you may recall that I have decided to abandon decades of following Hibernian FC for some adventures in the East of Scotland League, a world of football many times removed from the overpaid prima donnas who populate the upper echelons of the footballing world.
Naturally, being a lazy bandit, I elected to follow the team closest to my house - Edinburgh City. Equally naturally, it transpired that due to the Fookin Awful Fighters needing several days to load in their strawberry cocaine and gold plated hoors, the first 'home' game of the season was relocated to Rosewell, home to the legendary Whitehill Welfare.
But a plan is a plan, and so it came to pass that my plans to follow Edinburgh City came to fruition in the Total Football League Cup, Group 2 game against Craigroyston. In Rosewell. Now I had a vague notion that Rosewell was somewhere Penicuikish, due to a few months working in Esbank in the eighties. But that was the eighties, not a time I remember particularly well. But thanks to Whitehill Welfare I had a map of Rosewell and a bus number. The wrong bus number, it turns out, but certainly
a bus number.
Eventually, I got to Roswell via places I'd only ever heard of in fairy tales of yore. "Dinnae go tae Bonnyrig, son", my aged granny would cackle, her remaining tooth glistening with canine fervour, "ye'll be eaten by canny-ba's". Of course, the gods had got wind of my plan, not helped by my reading the map upside down. Hey, I'm fae the city, we dinnae need maps there! I say upside down but really the map was the right way up, it was the bus that arrived upside down, albeit not literally.
Then, of course, the gods threw in a diversion and some road works to leave me in the wrong place. Although I did find a park with goalposts, which threw me for a minute. Then I walked too far down the only road I could see, not realising that access to the ground was via a used car lot. But, eventually, an hour and a three quarters after leaving Leith, I arrived. Thank goodness for the "make yer ain 50 pee cup o'tea".
It was also raining. Straight down. But they must be used to that in Rosewell, cos they had a disused cow byre masquerading as an enclosure. Thankfully. The game wisnae up to much, not much football, a load of skiting aboot, Craigroyston hit the post once, but finally the gods took pity on me with a dodgy 90th minute penalty. Goal! And victory for the City.
So, homeward bound, with a victory under my belt, on a bus that claimed to go to the Royal Infirmary and somehow ended up in Wallyford first. WTF? Luckily, the red buses live there, so I was able to plot a route home safely, arriving back 5 and a half hours after I left, feeling oddly satisfied at having suffered for my team.
Next time out, another home game to be played away, versus the might of Spartans!
