At No. 11 for St Johnstone, Eddie Malone

by Paul Connell

 

Furfuxache, Malone, ah coulda defendit that baw better.

Xept of course ah couldnae,
being 46, no particularly slim and no entirely sober
and, more's the point,
crap at fitba'
even as a teenage skelf like you are now.

Obliging me to stick in at school
and earn the job that now justifies and finances
my right to sit here in a blue plastic bucket seat
yelling abuse at you.

product of one more generation of the same intensive breeding programme,
of carefully calibrated dosages of Lorne sausage, sectarianism and capricious weather.
doing your best down there for a lot less than I might think,
playing to an entirely appropriate level for a team that can barely summon 2000 a fortnight.

Notwithstanding this careful analysis of the social, economic and
cultural factors which brought us here today, I still feel fully
entitled to say:

Furfuxache, Malone, ah coulda defendit that baw better.