Episode 2 of the Scottish Comedy FC Podcast is out now. Subscribe/download/listen HERE
In keeping with their friendly reputation, Partick Thistle were kind enough to extend an invitation to Scottish Comedy FC to attend yesterday’s press launch for the club’s new kit sponsorship deal. Local firm, Just Employment Law have stepped in to replace MacB’s Water, who have gone into administration. I managed to make it through the press conference without offering the joke “Do you think the problem with MacB’s was that they were bottlers?”
Our resident Jags fan, Ray Bradshaw, was unavailable so I was at the press conference on my own. A shame, as Ray is such a Thistle diehard that even his hair colour is modelled on a combination of the club’s colours. If nothing else, he did manage to text me his take on that bottlers joke. “Awful”.
So what did Ray miss? Well, he missed the chance to play corporate buzz-phrase bingo. The JEL Chief Exec managed to use the sentence, “We hope the deal will sit well with our brand going forward”. That phrase probably offers an insight into why the company chose Thistle. After all, there’d be no point trying to do a deal with Rangers if you’re interested in “going forward”. Not now that Jelavic is gone. Should the brand’s aim ever change to being to “tip-tap around in midfield because there’s only David Healy up front” then perhaps some business can be done.
Hearts would also be out as a choice for a sponsorship tie-up. Just try to imagine the explosion of rage in Vladimir Romanov’s Kaunas office if he was informed that he had a call waiting from a team of employment lawyers. Whatever the Russian or Lithuanian for “Tell Ryan Stevenson to shove it!” would be getting spat out before any conversation could even begin.
As it is though, this is an unusually heartening story for Scottish football as it involves a local firm stepping in to help a club facing an unexpected piece of financial adversity. MacB’s untimely financial problems had the potential to cause real difficulties for a Scottish institution so JEL’s intervention must be applauded.
(I know there’s no jokes in the above paragraph. We want to be invited back!)
Speaking of Glasgow clubs facing financial adversity, I also failed to pluck up the courage to ask Jags boss Jackie McNamara whether he agreed with his Celtic opposite number Neil Lennon’s view that Scottish football doesn’t need a strong Rangers. I’m guessing that he might. After all, Jackie Mac’s now only one tax judgement away from being the manager of one of the two biggest clubs in Glasgow.
Having wrung every joke I can think of out of the sponsorship launch, all that remains is to thank both the Maryhill Magyars and JEL for their invitation and their hospitality.
Actually, that’s not all that remains. We should also thanks Partick Press Officer Ami Small for having coerced a couple of younger Jags players including Aaron Sinclair into dressing up in judge costumes to promote the new deal… (If anybody’s wondering why club captain Alan Archibald isn’t also pictured in one of the outfits, I watched him respond to the photographers’ requests with a polite but firm “I’m not doing it.”)
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About the Author
Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other shite”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)
“brilliant Scottish comic” Kate Copstick, Scotland on Sunday
“Head, shoulders, knees and toes above the rest…mighty stage presence and impressively high punchline ratio” Brian Donaldson, Scotsman
“freshly minted topical gags…pin-sharp lines…great routine…a class act” Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk
“has flourished…cracking lines” Jay Richardson, Scotsman
“there are few of his Scottish-based contemporaries that can spin the same high standard of punchlines” Brian Donaldson, Scotland on Sunday
You can follow Teddy on Twitter: @ComedyTeddy
Check out Teddy’s website: http://comedyteddy.com/
