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Traces of Gregory’s Girl

Clik The Mouse

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 “It’s so hard being in love, eh?”

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 I’m used to shocks….
FA Cup exits to minnows
League Cup Final defeats
Stevie G’s slip
World Cup non-qualification (when “the Clown” came to town)
England losing to Finland
And for the green-gilded side of me
so pleasantly shocked
when Quinny scuffed past van Breukelen
when Houghton headed past Shilton
when Houghton chipped Pagliuca, in Giants stadium in ‘94
and oh the roar –
not in Chinatown, Manhatten nor the Bronx
but a mickery-mackery merriment
that hadn’t been heard for yonks…

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 I say again:
I’ve been used to shocks…
goals timed by Fergie’s clocks…
deflections in off pads in socks…
scrawny scorers, Scots from Lochs…
an “oarsome” finish, from Simon Cox…
a devilish tune, from Johnny Foxx… (Underpass)

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 but what has me most aghast
is a face from the past
that skinny, lanky one from Gregory’s Girl (aye, a fitba flick)
(and my yardstick)
that wee bawbag of a Gommy
now lining out
as a shaven headed, biker-leathered, druggy thuggy
and who now graces
the fixatingly fervid forensic…
tenterhookin’ “Traces”

Notes

I really enjoyed the TV series “Traces” which completed last night (19/1/2021).
During the first episode, I literally fell off my chair when I realised that Emma’s dad was actually John Gordon Sinclair – a working actor, but I hadn’t seen him in anything since he played the lead role in the seminal Gregory’s Girl, a Bill Forsyth movie released in 1981.

Cards on the table: Gregory’s Girl is my favourite movie, it made me laugh so much, at an important time in my life.
For I was Gregory:
Super-awkward with girls
Super-rubbish at football
And yet super-fixated with both.

Football in movies – rarely works, does it?
My favourites:
Gregory’s Girl
Kes
Bend It Like Beckham
And I do enjoy Escape to Victory, even though it’s so unrealistic, but great to spot so many real footballers hamming it up!

This week I also saw for the first time an old WWII classic B&W… One of our Aircraft is Missing, which also has a lamentable football scene.

Some Scottish dialect:
Fitba: football
bawbag: derogatory term
Gommy: Irish equivalent – Gombeen, English equivalent – Palooka

Sorry for the attempted pun with “oarsome” – does it work when the coxswain doesn’t actually strike the oars in the boat race?
Simon Cox, English striker who played for Ireland under the “Granny” rule.

From the same era (early 80s):
The great synth song “Underpass” by John Foxx (originally of Ultravox), what we would now refer to as “earworm”!
A reference inserted as a ham-fisted nod to a running gag in Gregory’s Girl, where two of Gregory’s pals spend most of their time looking down at motorway traffic sharing inane facts.
The other musical tie to the movie, was the acting debut for Clare Grogan, playing Susan. Clare was also lead singer of Altered Images (hits: I Could Be Happy; Don’t Talk To Me About Love; Happy Birthday!)

And a little known fact I’d forgotten….
a clip from Gregory’s Girl featuring Dorothy (Dee Hepburn) was part of the opening ceremony from the London 2012 Olympics! (another of my all-time tele-visual favourites!)

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/traces-of-gregorys-girl/