Teddy’s View: Roald Dahl’s Killie, Steven Pressley’s silly, and hands up for the England team!

Episode 2 of the Scottish Comedy FC Podcast is out now. Subscribe/download/listen HERE
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There was a surprising event at the weekend as Scotland served up a quality football match, broadcast live on terrestrial TV, with top-class young players on show. Perhaps unnerved by the knowledge that his Falkirk side were going to earn him some unexpectedly positive media and public reaction via their performance against Celtic, Steven Pressley had to work hard to keep up his negative image. Thankfully, ‘Elvis’ leapt into action by bundling Emilio Izaguirre out of the way in the tunnel to get to the referee, being sent to the stand, then giving a bewildering post-match interview. That interview involved him saying, “Would that penalty have been given if it in the other box?”, leading the BBC’s Jonathan Sutherland to summarise with, “You’re saying the big teams get the big decisions…”, before Pressley sh*t out of putting his fine-kitty where his mouth was and said “No, I’m just asking you the question.” The fact that it actually was a penalty didn’t seem to have made it’s way into the big man’s thinking. The First Division Mourinho.

The other Cup-Semi also served up a bit of fuss. Kilmarnock boss Kenny Shiels, aka The Big Friendly Giant, tried to claim that their opponents and local rivals, Ayr United, weren’t disadvantaged by only being a part-time team. Keeping up the Pressley-esque diplomacy master-class, after Ayr took his Killie team to extra-time…Shiels said that he was “disappointed” in how Ayr had played. Shiels may yet find that claiming being part-time is no disadvantage wasn’t the smartest thing to do with the most finance-aware chairman in the SPL. We can see how “positive” his team are when Killie chairman Michael Johnston announces he’s “taken onboard” Shiels comments and that the team should look into finding additional work as plumbers. I suppose the one thing Kenny could claim over Ayr is that his team are so skint that he has to get his family to play for the team as a favour… son Dean scored the winner.

Young Estonian forward Henrik Ojamaa has signed a 2.5 year deal with Motherwell, following 4 goals in 5 games under a short-term contract. This one may be a bit disappointing for headline-writers who were confident they had enough rubbish puns to see out the rest of his initial contract, but will struggle over the extra two years. Hopefully Henrik copies the current trend in Scottish football for celebrating goals with unfortunate hand gestures, to facilitate a headline of “Henrik Oh Yer Maw!”

Speaking of hand gestures, the now traditional pre-match handshakes were absent from the QPR v Chelsea game, after the FA intervened to avoid the embarrassment of the QPR players’ apparent unwillingness to shake England captain John Terry’s hand. This must have been disappointing for the FA as, even before Sepp Blatter’s words, they’d always shown a willingness to react to allegations of racism with a show of hand & arm-based respect towards the person accused.

These are testing times for Kenny Dalglish. After his Liverpool side had despatched both Manchester clubs to march on in the two domestic cup competitions, he faced a real challenge in not cracking a smile. They say the form book goes out of the window for a cup match like Liverpool v Man Utd, but I’m pretty sure most journalists would have stuck a tenner on having two interview two growling and grumpy Glaswegian managers after the match rather than just one.

Just a short column today. Why? Because I spent yesterday editing episode two of the Scottish Comedy FC podcast. It’s out now and features myself, John Gavin, Ray Bradshaw, and Pearse James. If the editing sounds choppy? Bear in mind that due to our team’s apparent loose grasp of defamation law, it’s a miracle I was able to edit into any kind of publishable state…!

You can download/listen/subscribe HERE
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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/

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