The Friday Stickler

Blue carpet football and a big night for Steve Clarke

Hello Friday people

I watched the Scottish Masters tournament from Aberdeen last night. Maybe you did too? It was a decent night’s entertainment largely because so many of the guys were really competitive - Bruno Alves, John Rankin, Barry Robson all giving it plenty on the physical side, Danny Swanson scoring goals for fun, Kris Boyd perfectly playing the Panto villain, one hopeless referee and the BBC coverage having no clue what was going on.

In the end it was an Aberdeen v Rangers final. Dons keeper scored the goal of the tournament.

Despite a last second Rangers equaliser, Aberdeen went on to win in the penalty shootout. All’s well that ends well.

It’s an emotionally complex thing watching footballers that you grew up idolising now kicking about with grey hair and being puggled after 7 minutes of action. I really felt it last night when watching Eoin Jess playing. I’m a few months older than Eoin, watched him from the South Stand in his prime playing days. He should always look like he did then, not some bald guy that’s the oldest in the tournament.

It’s a stark reminder that we all age, even though we don’t realise it. Well I don’t. Maybe you have thoughts on this. I’d love to hear them.

Scotland are playing tonight. I haven’t been excited by it all week. It’s a huge game for Steve Clarke. Feels like a must win for him and he’s pretty much got the squad he wants to pick from. We’ll see how it goes as we gather round our iPhones to watch live on YouTube.

Yesterday I hoofed my Twitter blue tick into the BlueSky.

I’m not prepared to pay £11 a month to Elon Musk anymore. I’ve also joined BlueSky as I mentioned a couple of days ago. Six years of building up Fitbatweets on Twitter so I’m kind of dual posting on both sites until we see how things play out. The important thing for me is that I’ve built a place here that is not reliant on the whims of social media. And I thank you for joining me by being a subscriber. Spread the word.

I’m working on putting 2024 sticker squads together for the shop. They look great, go on all the merch and it’s nice to draw players from different teams. I’m picking teams that are performing well this season - Celtic, Aberdeen and St Mirren are there, I added Motherwell last night and Kilmarnock should be good to go tonight. I’d like to get the two Dundee clubs added too. The others have squads that the fanbases aren’t too happy with and Fitbatweets is supposed to be joyous. I can’t imagine Hibs 2024 being in demand so I might go back to 1991 or 2016 for them.

Have a shop around at fitbatweets.com

I’ve also opened the Christmas window for commissions so if that’s something that might interest you please get in touch.

Enjoy your weekend everyone, wrap up warm now and I’ll see you Monday for a look back on the action from tonight and anything else I’ve been watching.