Pitches and Pies

From Caithness to Dumfries & Galloway, down the highways and byways to visit the often-uncelebrated delights of Scottish lower league football, we embark on a journey of nostalgia and sentimentalism, the gastronomic delights of the Scotch Pie - or not as the case may be, as Bruce visits the picturesque, dilapidated, and downright brutally functional football grounds of Scotland. Hear about the linesman who resigned mid match, the lost bus driver of East Lothian and the vagaries of the ScotRail timetable, a floodlight fetish, the strange things to be found in gents' toilets, the conversations with frustrated goalkeepers and club officials not to mention the sacked ball persons. Such are the delights to be found in this detailed diary describing one man's seemingly endless quest for the perfect Scotch Pie and the ideal football ground. At times a very personal chronicle of emotions, reflecting on family, friends and acquaintances of the past as the groundhopping continues. As Shakespeare might have said in Hamlet, 'The pie is the thing,' but there is of course the football where the results rarely matter and the match can be enjoyed without the anxieties and fretting when it is your own team out on the pitch.