Pearse James tells us… “I was a Human Bollard”

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Boredom softened my skull, as I kicked the base of a traffic cone repeatedly. I stretched my neck to face the August sunshine and saw the faint roar of football fans fade into the gently moving clouds above. A staggering figure appeared in the corner of my eye. I looked round to see a Kilmarnock fan, with a squashed strawberry face, on a disgruntled march out of the stand.

“Lemme OOT!” he spat, pushing at the exit I was guarding.

“Well”, I started, slipping into official steward mode. “If I let you out, you won’t be allowed back in.”

“AH DON’T WANTA BE LEFT BACK IN” as he pointed a finger back towards the ground.

“SEE DAH…” he growled as he prodded his finger in the air. “F@?KIN ESS PEE EL PISH”, he bellowed as he barged past me and out of the exit I was opening for him.

And so it began.

This was my first match working as a football steward. Hearts v. Kilmarnock on the opening day of the 2004/05 season. The Killie ‘Loyal’ in question made his strident exit barely 30 minutes into the game and his hasty abandonment set the tone for the long and turbulent season ahead.

Football stewarding: A desperate profession that attracts the low rung desperate dregs of society that effectively become human bollards for hire.

I was sucked into the luminous security thread of Football’s trousers, as a skint first year student. Easy to drift into as the only job requirements are a pulse and the ability to stand. Plus you are teased with hot rumours of watching games for free. A little bar of soap chucked into the sh*t pit.

But my full debut, in the Tynecastle sunshine, bedecked like a radioactive penguin, was spent largely staring at an exit gate behind the stand. I was soon to learn that trying to keep sane in the face of skull-pounding boredom was the only skill I could develop as a steward.

After my first shift though, one of those hot teasing garters was flung in my face as the Supervisor asked me if I was OK to do the first Old Firm the following week. My heart skipped a dizzy beat. “THE OLD F**KING FIRM”.

This fixture for years had a foreboding excitement to it that had me buzzing, dreaming of being a first hand witness to one of football’s fiercest derbies. Brought up in Cork, Celtic is your default Scottish team but largely our football attentions were taken up by English top flight teams. The only time we would collectively look further North for our TV viewing was The Old Firm. Even on grainy analogue TVs, I marvelled at the white hot ferocity burning from the screen…

Now I was to be lowered into the cauldron, right in the eye of the Scottish Saruman, deep into the heart of footballing darkness.

So where was I put on my shift for the entire game? In the car park by the North Stand with Sharon, a Mother of 4, trying to earn a bit of extra cash for her hen weekend in Blackpool. Rain dripped from the peak of my baseball cap into grey pools below as Sharon bemoaned the complexities of trying to buy 6 fancy dress police uniforms for women who were ‘no skinny like they ones aff de telly’.

The lottery of shifts in a steward’s life meant you could be up in the footballing heavens one shift, or stood by a fire exit for 6 hours the next. This could be further complicated by matters on the pitch as an hour into a shift at Rugby park with a wide open view of a turgid Kilmarnock vs. Dunfermline match, I began to think that those on the fire exits had it easy.

I did win the lottery that season though. I headed out for Celtic’s Champions League clash with Barcelona with every appendage crossed in the hope of getting a good spot on my shift to watch the game.
The head supervisor waved his finger to the left and right of me sending his army of human bollards to various parts of the stadium. Some were glumly marched outside. Others got perched smugly in the sweet spot of the dividing line between home and away fans.

I was one of the last ones left… and then I saw him. The man who was to become my angel in a baseball cap: Wee Jimmy. A seasoned pro from a different stewarding division that hand-plucked me from the dwindling selection. As I trotted alongside him, he pursed the side of his mouth and slowly breathed: “Don’t worry son. You’ll get a great spot here.” Oh Wee Jimmy. You had me at hello.

Up in the heavens of the North Stand, a firecracker of a Champions League game fizzed on the green below. Ronaldinho. Deco. Sutton’s equaliser. Marshall’s save. Larsson’s muted goal celebration. 3-1. I never found out how it went, but I can bet this was a whole lot more entertaining than Sharon’s Hen do in Blackpool.

The personnel deployed with you on your shifts was also a lottery. I was flung together with an array of characters in the bowels of Scottish football grounds. One such character was Des, a 68 year-old whisky enthusiast with 26 hairs on his nose. A pedantic detail to note, but as I said, you find any way to relieve boredom when stuck with the same person for several hours. Stationed at our gate, a St. John’s Ambulance worker greeted us as she passed by. Des swung round after she was out of ear shot and enlightened me as to his disgust at her Englishness.

“She dat’s anudder thang ah hate aboot the English mahn… They answer yer question fur ye”.

Then mimicking her Southern English twang went:

“AWWIGHT lads. How ya doing? Awwight yeah?”

Leaning further he heatedly finished: “How the f*ck do you know I’m alright? Lemme answer the bloody question hen.”

I never indulged in the Anglo-lambasting as I was too busy counting the hairs on his left ear lobe.
The season bore on. This security slut was passed around football grounds like a porn mag in prison.
I stuck the pungent smell of plastic on the sideline of East End park as The Pars were subjected to a guinea pig season. A horrendous plastic pitch, trialled by UEFA, that gave the game the air of a glorified 5’s encounter.

A few grey afternoons at Rugby Park where I can’t remember much about the football, but do salivate at the memory of their Chicken Balti pies. Nipple whiningly cold nights at Murrayfield, attending Hearts’ weird home European games that season.

And the ‘Brox. Where I had to put on a wobbly generic Scottish accent, for the fear of my Republican brogue ousting me as a Tim. Visions of a coffin with a folded up security jacket and baseball cap on it. Des as chief pall bearer. Sharon squashed into a fake police woman’s uniform, saying a few words about our short time together. A little plastic sculpture of Blackpool Tower by my tombstone.

“Naaayy Bodder Mete”. Phew. They bought it.

I did of course catch an Old Firm. Several of them. Both at Parkhead and Ibrox. The first game, I was overwhelmed for the first 15 minutes. A storm of vocal thunder. A sea of people thrashing and writhing in step with every stroke of the ball far below. But my jaw slowly closed as I began to absorb the sheer enormity of it all and amazement soon gave way to an uneasy feeling.

I was pitched not too far away from the dividing line between both sets of supporters. I focused on individuals in the seething masses. Grown men spitting at each other. Possessed by rage. Visceral gestures and volleys of abuse.

I tried to focus back in on the spectacle of sport, but the undercurrent of hatred was palpable. So after my initial yearning to attend, my heart now sank when I realised there was an Old Firm coming up.
The real breaking point was a League Cup game that went into extra time. The overrunning meant both sets of supporters had to exit at the same time. So I was marched out to form part of a barrier with mounted police and makeshift steel gates.

I stood for over half an hour in front of a crowd of football hounds, barking, hissing, bloodlust in their eyes. If they could get across to other set of supporters 100 yards away, blood would run in the streets as they brutally savaged each other like the dogs they were.

All my love of the artistry and passion for the beautiful game dissolved that night. I didn’t care about the score. I curled up in bed, clutching my stomach, physically sickened by the boil on humanity that had been lanced before me, and the vile puss that ran from it…. I know this is a comedy blog. But I can’t put a punchline on this. There are certain things that are so phenomenally abhorrent to me that I am not able to joke about. Genocide, Cancer, Janette Krankie’s sex life. Wallop. A big rope of Janette Krankie’s torn knickers to get out of this dark hole. Next paragraph.

My white shirt beamed in the May sunshine. Last day of the season. I twirled my baseball cap freely in the Summer air as I went to catch my bus with me fellow keepers of the sporting peace… I was off to Murrayfield. My security group was covering the Heineken European Rugby Final. I thought nothing of the football. Or more naively I was expecting, like many Celtic fans, that the results were a foregone conclusion. Rangers had a tough away game to third place Hibs. Celts were to face a depleted Motherwell at Fir Park. Celtic to win easy. League in the bag.

I spent most of the afternoon fighting with Toulouse fans. Somehow, in a sport not known for its hooliganism I was put in a section of Murrayfield with an army of French nutters. Drums, banners, smuggled bottles of whisky, cigars. The stewarding safety manual was set alight before me. I looked out onto the rest of the stadium fill with placid Rugby supporters, and looked back at my beret swinging zoo animals and began to sense that this may not be a good day for me.

I took a welcome break at the haven of the burger van outside. I was reliably informed that the Hoops were one-nil up. The Gers were drawing nil-nil. The May sunshine burnt a little brighter and I went back in for round 2 without the Toulouse Rugby casuals.

Another heavy barrage of French expletives followed on my return. I always thought Scots were world champs at swearing but the French would certainly be strong challengers. I eventually gave up any notion of stewarding, reducing my duties to rubbish collecting. Making several trips to the bin on the first concourse, with several clinking whisky bottles.

The Rugby itself finished in a rare draw, which meant an extra half an hour of bottle collection. I grabbed a quick break, so stressed I had almost forgotten about SPL happenings. As I leaned against the burger counter, two girls, fellow stewards, burst out into leaps of luminous joy. One had a radio earpiece and was shouting: “MOTHERWELL HAVE EQUALISED”.

The steam from the slowly frying onions drifting across my face and masked the tiny tear floating down my cheek.

I sat dejected on the steps of Murrayfield, clocked off from any notion of work. Toulouse won and the maniacs drummed incessantly until they were eventually escorted out of the stadium by the police.
I headed back to my bus and was hit a cold realisation. My destination was Ibrox. The security firm kept most of their equipment there and that was the umbrella drop off point for any out of town shifts.

So there I was. The last place any Celtic fan wanted to be on that Sunday. By the big blue doors on Edmiston drive as hordes of jubilant fans marched towards the home of the newly crowned champions. I had to wade through a thicket of red, white and blue as my green heart ached.

Two hours after my drop-off I arrived home, flinging my whisky stained baseball cap across the room. My flatmate looked up and saw my beaten brow and drooping face.

“What’s up with you?”

I inhaled, swung a left arm out in the general direction of Govan.

“SEE DAH… F@?KIN ESS PEE EL PISH”

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About the Author
Pearse, originally from Cork, has spent nearly a decade in Scotland, and first started Stand up in August 2009. Since then he has reached the final of several national comedy competitions including the 2011 Scottish Comedian of the Year.

He was born into a warm analog world and is getting bitter at the cold digital grave that he is destined to die in. Football is the only constant he trusts in the chaos.

“Masterful images” – Chortle
“A bright future” – The Scotsman
“Irish” – The List

Have internet fun with him at www.pearsejames.com or @pearsejames.

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