Yoker Athletic FC

One day, I would like to take a tourist, preferably one I’ve no desire to see return to Glasgow, to a junior football match at Holm Park.
We would take the train to Yoker station, all the better on one of those biting cold days when your hands and feet feel like they may drop off and the rain pierces through your clothes, and walk through the deserted streets until we reach the turnstiles.
After paying our money to get in, I will then explain that the five pounds we have just parted with has granted us the right to stand beside the pitch, which looks more suited to the ploughing of King Edwards, in the open air for the next two hours of our lives. I will also explain that the corrugated iron shell that constitutes Yoker Athletic’s under-​cover area offers about as much protection as a pair of mittens in a boxing match.
When the teams come on the field, I will confirm that we have indeed paid to watch these hungover, over-​weight train wrecks and that yes, that old man in front of us really did use the C word three times in the five word tirade of abuse he’s just hurled towards the hapless referee.
When half-​time comes along, I will reward my visiting friend with a cold pie and assure him/​her that the blob of grease that has just slurped from it on to their jacket will not come out, no matter how many times they wash it.
If they survive the second half «action» until the referee’s full-​time whistle peeps, then, and only then, will we head to the small social club.
And this time they truly will be rewarded. With an ice cold pint of Tennent’s. And it will be the finest and most well deserved pint of Tennent’s they will ever taste.
This is a true Scottish football experience. What was it Dolly Parton said? If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
She penned that after a Clydebank — Yoker derby y’know.