In October 1999, I made my virgin trip to the remarkable city of Glasgow to see Mogwai. As is often the way with West Coast line the trains looked rather dubious until they subsequently ran successfully on the day without any requirement for unwanted shuttle buses. We disembarked at Glasgow Central mid afternoon and the station lives up to its name as you head straight out into the shopping, bar and restaurant area.
Glasgow is such an easy city to navigate as it is built on tramlines in the style of San Francisco and it reminds me of Manchester in relation to the grand buildings readily on display. I have grown to love Scotland and the locals and in my humble opinion their friendliness, ready banter and stoicism greatly outweighs the odd English hater.
We had a cheeky flier outside the station in one of the plethora of bars available to us and caught the tail end of Wales losing to Australia in the Rugby World Cup quarter final. John Dewhurst, Uncle George and I had a triple room in some digs on Sauchiehall Street.
It was a filthy ‘banshees howling’ type of night as we grabby a chippy tea prior to heading over to the infamous Barrowland. In the cab we spotted a chap topple over in the wind which sparked a dry riposte of ‘he’s had one too many’ from the cab driver.
We piled into to the pub next to the venue where the fun began. I was first in and just through the door when instantly approached with the refrain ‘You the polis?’. After he received a negative response, the second question was ‘You wanna buy a PlayStation?’ to which I politely declined.
Whilst the lads got a drop of the black stuff in, I nipped to the loo and commenced some banter with a local chap. Unexpectedly then this 6-foot 4 punter blocked the doorway and asked with some intent ‘Are you Rangers or Celtic?’. Crikey, I had only been in the boozer for five minutes!
Afterwards I learned we were in the Celtic dominated area of the city, deep into the East End. But not knowing this at the time of this latest question, I played dumb and stated that I supported Preston. ‘What kind of F—–g answer is that?’ was the measured response but my glib answer at least ensured my exit route.
We christened the pub the Hoops Bar that night. The official name was Baird’s Bar which has since been shut down for violent incidents and has reopened as a furniture shop.
We headed into the Public Bar which I discovered to be a shrine to the team in Green and White, we should have gone in that area first! There was a little stage where a bash em up band called the F—–g Eeejits were belting out thunderous sectarian anthems. What an utterly vibrant establishment and I loved the place and it was a bracing start to the evening’s festivities.
A little disclaimer, you may deduce from the redactions above that I am a tad prudish but that could not be further from the truth as I am more than capable of sustained swearing jags when required, the real reason is that I have distributed this blog to many work colleagues and this censorship ensures I can bypass any obscenity filters!
