The Back Page

Marvo!'s Magic Boots

You'd think that The Back Page wouldn't be the sort of publication to listen to and reproduce gossip and rumours but we are what we are.  So, when a story about our own Childrens' Entertainer of the Year Marvo! the Magician came to our attention, we couldn't resist spilling the beans. 

Let's set the scene.  It's a place many of us have been - the white brick walls and artificial light (actually, that doesn't really narrow it down much!) of Forthbank Stadium.  Four officials appear for the womens' international friendly between Scotland and Northern Ireland.  All get changed and just as boots were going on, it happened....  Marvo! realised that his had disappeared!  Fortunately, being a football stadium, there was the odd pair of boots around and Stirling Albion were able to come to the rescue, saving Marvo! from an evening standing around with only a couple of sandwich bags to cover his socks.  Unfortunately, none of their players have feet as big as Marvo!, so the replacement boots were a tad small.

Of course, no accusation like this should go without an illicitly obtained mobile phone pic as evidence:

What The Back Page wants to know is whether this was a magic trick gone wrong?  Did the boots ever re-appear?  What does that mean about Marvo!'s magic powers?  We ask you - are any of us safe???  Quite frankly, we fear for our very existance.  If any of you notice a couple of frogs hopping around the games hall at Grangemouth Sports Centre next week, please be kind to us.  See what we risk to bring you the best stories?

Missing in Action

The presses of The Back Page have been quiet for too long.  Yes, it's time we expose more funny goings on around our world of refereeing.  Many of you will know that this time of year brings summer jogs instead of training at Grangemouth.  Those of you who take part will also know that someone getting lost is an annual event.  That's why The Back Page brings you this special appeal.  We're looking for this man:

  

 

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El P Retires in Style

Does the picture look familiar?  Yes, it's been a frequent expose for The Back Page over the last year, all the goings on down El. P's Bingo Club.

You might well wonder what will become of our leader when he retires.  Well, we at The Back Page don't.  We know exactly where we'll find him - supplementing his meagre minutely rate (see picture).

Still, all is not lost.  Let's face it, President Elect Iain Craig hasn't been immune to the odd story on here either.  Actually, with that in mind, we're a bit worried about being banned in his first act, especially after the covert karaoke surveillance tape incident.

Still, be it on the website or through other means, The Back Page will be on Sir's tail for you, our loyal readership, for the next 12 months.

Be assured, no indiscretion will go unexposed in the interests of good journalism.  Beware the mobile phone camera!

Somers gets the pies (again)

Not that the back page is into conspiracy theories but David "pitch inspector" Somers has struck again, cancelling tomorrow's Airdrie V Dunfermline match.  What's the harm in that, you might think?  After all, the pitch was probably frozen solid.  Well, sources have informed The Back Page that a certain referee was seen wandering from the Airdrie pie stall with a haul of pies, diet coke (that would make a difference!) and 8 cream cakes.  When challenged about the 8 cream cakes, Mr Somers told the back page "they're for my work colleagues!"

Yes, I'm sure we believe that they made it to the tax office.  In fact, we'd dare to suggest that they might not even have made it out of the Airdrie car park.

Thanks for Visiting

stirlingshirereferees.org - our annual website report for last year tells us a lot about you lot!  We're pleased to report an amazing 5577 hits were recorded on our lovely website since the relaunch in 2008.  The news page was the one that most of you were looking at but we're also feeling rather smug that the back page was the second most popular with 1494 hits.  It must be be down to Iain's singing ;-)

Now the worrying bit.  When you find us via Google or some other search engine, they tell us what you were searching for.  Whilst most of you were sensibly looking for stirlingshire referees, who's going to own up to the vast number of hits from searches for Iain Craig, Wes Boulstridge (probably mostly the press and disgruntled Aberdeen supporters) and Craig Charleston (again, probably the press!)?

Some of the best searches were:

Peter Kinney Magician (maybe we should let him have an advert), Jim Horne Referee Aberdeen and Exploding Cake (read down!)

Happy New Year everyone.  The Back Page is always happy to hear from you, especially if you have video footage or photos!

Iain Craig Banned from El P.'s Bingo Club!

You could almost set your watch by it (we at the offices of the back page do, in fact!) - yes, Thursday night = more pictures from members' mobile phones arriving at clipeline central. 

Some of the time, we can be bothered finding out what the story actually was.  Other times, we just make it up.  So, we were rather interested when this picture dropped into our mailbox without a story one recent Thursday night.

Our journalistic integrity got the better of us for a minute and a rumour was obtained that a prize was being procured for the dinner dance raffle. 

Raffle prizes, however, don't make good stories, so your Back Page team has since obtained a better story that the picture was in fact taken after Iain had just been warned by El P's barman to drink out of a glass in future and to stop lowering the tone of the place.  Now that's a story we can believe!

We don't like to judge but they say that the camera never lies... 

No doubt it's not the end of the bingo club saga.  Who said referees were boring?

On a serious note though, we'd like to thank Kenny and the Colonial Bar in Falkirk very much for his support.

Our Leader's Age

You'll all be wanting to know the result of the vote into how old our beloved leader has just become.  In order to give the fairest representation of the breakdown and to preserve the identities of those of you who were brave enough to take part in the poll, the back page have decided to swap the normal unit of measurement for these things for a brand new and highly anonymous unit, the Wes.  Here are the results:

Age 42 - 9 Wes

Age 45 - 9 Wes

Age 46 - 9 Wes

Age 47 - 18 Wes

Age 50 - 18 Wes

Age 51 - 36 Wes

So, we hereby declare that by a massive majority, the readership thinks our glorious president is 51.  We bet he's glad that we didn't include any options that were higher...

El P Back in the Headlines!

There's no escape from The Back Page - our sources (both little birdies and not so little birdies) gatecrash every event to bring our readership the top stories.  When our beloved leader thought he could have a private birthday bash at his bingo club, it didn't take long for the pictures to start arriving:

With only the best digital cameras, our sources grabbed this fantastic picture of the old exploding birthday cake trick as it went off a little early on Iain Craig.

And one cleanup later, here we have Iain and El Presidente with the real cake.

Now, the question for you all is - how many candles are on Craig's Birthday cake?

It's a special vote in the caption contest zone of the members area which can be accessed here.

We'll publish the result in 30 days time...

El Presidente and Some Old Ref in Bingo Shocker...

Lots of people might wonder what happens on a referees' night out - perhaps a little debate about whether that challenge was a yellow or a red card over a can of Irn Bru?

Apparently not.  No, yet another anonymous source tipped the back page off to yet another shocker with a mobile phone camera.

Freshly of a certain age, Mr Fernie was caught at El Presidente's favourite bingo club.  Our sources tell us that the winnings here were £38 - enough to put a smile on a certain Aberdonian's face.

So, what was £38 spent on?  30 seconds of El Presidente's time?  a few dozen cans of Irn Bru with the odd fish supper for our anonymous source?  Well, they didn't tell us, so in true back page style, we'll just make it up.  £38 of bingo cards, as the picture shows.

Fernie's 40!

A less than little birdie tipped us off that there was a surprise party to celebrate Kev's big 4-0.  Being the professionals that we are, we crashed the venue behind Gordon Whitelaw with a mobile phone camera to bring you the highlights.

David Somers indulges in another few gallons of his favourite pre-match, post-match, pre-training, post-training, pre-fitness test, post-fitness test, all purpose drink.

Being the athletes that we are, that's all that we drunk all night.  No prizes for guessing who the pint belongs to!

Question - if any of you were having a party, would you let either of these two near the buffet/cake?  We thought not...

Kev cuts his rather appropriate cake assisted by Rhonda.

The cake featured a mini Kev sitting in the centre with a red card out (not like Kev at all!)

Which lead on to the rather unfortunate incident involving the entire cake being stolen.  The following image was taken from the venue's CCTV camera with the culprit's face having been blacked out for legal reasons but no prizes for guessing who soaked an evening's Irn Bru up with it!

At that point, we were rumbled and kicked out but a fun night was had by all. 

Another quality story from your back page team.

Where's Somers?

These clips were another fine anonymous submission to The Back Page with a note saying that they couldn't believe such a thing existed without featuring our own David Somers.  Isn't the flagging style of the last assistant referee a lesson to us all?

Get your kit here!

The Back Page stumbled upon some shady looking dealings after training recently.  Just as we were vacating the car park after a hard, honest nights work, we came upon these rogues up to a spot of mischief, we reckoned.

Rumour has it that a knocked off shipment of last season's kit might have been getting exchanged. 

Of course, when we enquired what was happening, the situation turned nasty (see photo) and we had to make a rapid escape.  Despite being chased, we're glad to report that your journalists made a lucky escape...

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Chips with that?

It has come to the attention of The Back Page that a certain pair of senior listed referees on their way to annual conference in St Andrews last weekend kept up our tradition of meeting at a certain chippy. 

Inside sources who took part in this (who will remain nameless for telling but I think we all know who we're talking about!) reveal that the order was 3 fish suppers, a sausage supper, a portion of mushy peas, a bottle of Irn Bru and a bottle of Lucozade.  And that was just for Iain Craig!

11st 5, he claims.  Not any more, we think!  Lex take note, sounds like Iain will need an extra few laps to work that off...

Something interesting to put here?  Click here to tell - you know you want to!