In sports broadcasting a ‘You’ve been framed moment’ lurks around every corner.
Sent abroad early in my career for a Celtic game, my co-commentator was a well known newspaperman. He was an artist but not of the variety that required a brush.
I smelled trouble as soon as I met him at the airport; or rather I smelled strong drink. I never saw him from the moment we left the plane until the night of the match, when it was obvious that he’d been painting the town red.
When he swore on air early in commentary, I realised that his slurred tones were not the result of jet lag from the short flight.
I almost fainted before I realised that his speech was so garbled from the drink, that only I had actually noticed it.
My successful tactics for the entire 90 minutes were to involve him as little as possible, picking up the commentary after a few seconds of his contribution and rudely interjecting almost as soon as he spoke.
Celtic featured in another of my embarrassing blooper moments. Rushing to the wee ‘bhoys’ room at Parkhead just before going on air, I found myself locked in.
As the programme theme tune blasted out, the presenter linked to me live, mischievously asking me where I was. There was no option but to explain my embarrassing predicament to the nation. The chief steward in the Parkhead stand and thousands of fans never fail to remind me of the escapade to this day.
When Dundee United signed Slovakian goalkeeper Dusan Pernis, I was assured that the goalie’s command of the English language was on a par with mine.
That should have been a klaxon blaring warning sign. Seconds into the interview, it became apparent that he could barely understand a word I was saying.
I foolishly pressed on with the time honoured tactic of the hapless tourist abroad, slowing my speech to nursery speed, before attempting to dig my way out of a hole which was getting closer to Australia with every daft question.
On another occasion in Eastern Europe, having fought very hard to persuade my bosses to do live commentary of a match which we were not even going to cover, a club chairman left me in a desperate situation just hours before kick-off.
I’d already negotiated with a mysterious fellow called Yuri, many hundreds of miles away for commentary rights, which we apparently did not have and then to crown it, I had to handsomely bribe stadium engineers to install the lines for broadcast.
All of my good work almost counted for nothing though when the Scottish club chairman, a few hours before kick-off, decided to demand a much increased fee above the already agreed one, for his ex-player who was to be my summariser.
A series of frantic calls between me and the chairman and back to base in Glasgow managed to seal the deal, but not before my boss threatened to pull the plug on the entire broadcast, leaving me with a nervous tic of Inspector Clouseau proportions.
The joys of broadcasting: Aye right.