A Lamb Amongst Lions

Saturday, 5th December. A freezing, drizzly, grey afternoon. Slightly hungover from the birthday celebrations the night before, I dragged myself into town and met with the rest of the DFTV-ers. We were not looking forward to the afternoon ahead. For we, as part of the unholy Creative Beginnings module, were away to attend... A PARTICK THISTLE GAME. My earlier protestations that I'd already been to the football at Parkhead, as a kid, had fallen on deaf ears. This was about 'learning'. 'Engaging'. And most of all, 'surviving'...

Thanks to Julia's driving skillz, we made it to Firhill without a hitch. No thanks to the BBC, our presence at the game had been announced on the news... suffice to say I was feeling a li'l bit apprehensive. I had a horrible feeling, like they knew we'd be coming... they'd be waiting for us. We strode up, casual like, a sort of uneasiness creeping in until eventually we were at the turnstiles. The roar of the crowd was audible from outside the stadium and inside it buzzed in my ears. I heard the rumbling from the seats above us and gulped. We were inside now... all that was left now was to cross the threshold (a feeeeww minutes late) and take our seats. As the game had already started, the Jags fans had already taken their seats and were shouting away. Unfortunately, the only seats left were right. Down. The front. So we had to bypass all the radge Thistle fans and, even better, EVERYONE could see us coming in. I've never felt more out of place in my life, and my bright purple scarf didn't help me blend in to a sea of red and yellow...

Once we took our seats, we attempted to follow what was happening. Well, the rest of 'em did, I was more panicked about our positions- being three rows from the front, I was TERRIFIED every time the ball even came close to our side of the stand. It didn't help that it was bitter cold and my head was still fuzzy from the night before... We spent alot of the time trying to work out if the handful of people in the stand opposite were away fans or not. If so, it was a shame for them- there were maybe only 20 folk there at a push. Still, we tried our best to get into the swing of things- as shown by these smiling faces:

Well, Lucy's smiling face at least! As for the game, there wasn't much in the way of action- well, not up our end anyway. It seemed to be mostly up the other end of the pitch. The poor ol' goalie looked as bored as the Very Cold Man with Camera. We tried to get into it by seeing if there were any hotties on the pitch. I spotted none, Flick found an affiliation with Number 5. We even tried to throw in some chants of our own... I don't think "you're a king amongst men, sir" will ever catch on, but hey! it was worth a shot. Still, we got an earful of the..err... 'colourful' banter from the trackie mob in front of us... "Yer maw's a ride!" was a particular favourite of mine. One thing I remember from going to games with my dad was that I was allowed to swear- no one could hear me anyway and I thought it made me sound soooo grown up. Despite the fact I couldn't see what was going on, cheering and jeering made me feel more a part of the crowd... sadly though, it didn't turn out that way on Saturday! Possibly because I didn't have a scooby what was going on, possibly because the stadium was exactly 'full' and I didn't want to draw any more attention to our corner...

Unfortunately, being vegetarian, I couldn't sample any of the 'tasty' halftime treats. Believe it or not, football catering doesn't offer much for non-meat eaters, but Murray took one for the team and got a good ol' fashioned pie and Bovril. Not that I missed out on the Bovril much- I remember trying it years ago and not being too impressed... like gravy flavoured tea, uuurrrggghh. Ah well, as long as one of us tried it, it still counts...right?

The rest of the game played out and, despite my griping and moaning, it actually wasn't too bad... well, not as bad as I feared anyway. We had a right ol' banter between us, and being the proverbial fish out of water let me view the game completely unbiased. It was weird though, being at a game where I didn't support either team. It left me feeling a bit disengaged, and I wondered how in the hell this related to us at all. A lesson in teamwork maybe? Hmm... Nah, too cheesy. An encouragement to follow sports? ....don't be silly. The reason I got into drama, art and watching films was largely to do with my AWFUL co ordination in the field of athletics, and the fact I fell over quite alot when required to do anything overtly physical. The whole Creative Beginnings thing is supposed to be about getting a feel for all sorts of 'Glesca culture', but considering I'm a weegie anyway it didn't seem all that relevant, or indeed necessary.

In the end, I came to a somewhat shaky conclusion... I thought back to the Screenwriting class when we had to debate a topic, take sides and argue our point. It's alot like football. You choose your team, support them ardently through thick and thin and, more importantly never back down. Like an argument in a debate, you see your team through to the end. You stick to your guns. Same with writing, too. You have to make your audience engage with the characters and scenarios you're presenting them with. And if you manage to get through an entire season without some kind of pie-related poisoning, well, more power to you!