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Connolly, caused controversy when he claimed that people from Edinburgh were just not funny.
“I don’t know why. I think it’s about immigration, because I don’t find Edinburgh people all that funny,” he said. “They’re very interesting and nice, but you wouldn’t point to funny as being one of their features.”
Billy must have been deliberately provocative because as a stand-up and folk singer in the sixties and seventies he would have shared stages with one of the greats of Scottish comedy, an Edinburgh comic called Hector Nicol. And he would have thanked Hector because without Hector Billy would not have had an act – Hector was one of the first comics to introduce blue material to his routines. (He also often dressed up in outrageous female costumes but Billy referred bananas to dressing like your nana).
Hector wasn’t just famous as a comic, he was also an actor and, before his death in 1985 he was a regular on Scottish screens in the soap series Take The High Road, which was like a Scottish Emmerdale Farm, or Emmerdale Croft. But his lasting legacy was not his jokes or his performances but his songs. Hector was also a prolific writer of songs for football clubs.
For Hibernian he wrote ‘Glory Glory To The Hibees’, a song and tune ‘borrowed’ by Man Utd today, for Hearts he wrote ‘The Hearts Song’. He also wrote ‘The Terrors of Tannadice’ for Dundee United and ‘Up Wi’ The Bonnets’ for Dundee.
Ironically, Hector, despite his east coast home, was actually a fan of St Mirren, based in the west coast in Paisley, the town where he was born, though he never, as far as we know, wrote a song for them.
Up Wi’ The Bonnets sings of the pride fans feel at watching the players play in their traditional blue shirts.
“You can sing of your glories of teams you have seen,
like the Saints and the Dons up in old Aberdeen,
but in all this wide world there’s just one team for me,
that’s the brave(bold) boys who wear the dark blue of Dundee.”
But although there best days are behind them, as the 21st Century has seen them yo-yo between the SPL and the first division while battling financial problems, there greatest moment came in 1961 when Bob Shankly (brother of Liverpool’s Bill) led them to their one and only league title. The title-winning team was commemorated in the final verse and is now celebrated before every home game as the team walk on the pitch at every home game to Hector Nicol’s song:
“for there’s Robertson,Penman and Alan Gilzean,
with Cousins and Smith there the finest you’ve seen,
a defence that is steady heroic and sure,
Liney, Hamilton, Cox, Seith and Wishart and Ure.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2OqDLOsajQ
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About the Author
After too many years as season ticket holder at Parkhead, Andy Todd renounced the SPL three years ago to support Queens Park. One team is a rank bunch of amateurs who play in a state of the art stadium and the other is…(I think we can all see where this is going).
Andy has been performing comedy for 18 months but is currently ‘between gigs’ while he writes a book on Scottish property law to be published in Summer 2012. Its potential audience will be less than 300 but his mum will be very proud.
Follow Andy on Twitter: @toddandy
Check out Andy’s website: www.toddandy.com
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