The first capacity crowd of the new season will be recorded tomorrow afternoon. Except it won’t be called a crowd, it will be more properly termed a congregation. And every place taken up won’t be inside a football ground. It will be contained within a more conventional place of worship inside a church.
And when the great and the good gather for Andy Goram ’s funeral service, it will seem like saying goodbye to a place in time for football as well as bidding farewell to The Goalie. A level of irreverence will need to be tolerated within the context of the more sombre aspects of the occasion – how could it possibly be any other way?
Ally McCoist, John Brown and Donald Findlay QC will take turns at the lectern to immerse themselves in the sorrowful side of a man’s passing. They will also recall a litany of stories to describe the life of a player acted out during a time when the composite picture of a professional’s life still left room for what was innocently known as high jinks.
