JOHN HILLCOAT

Jul 29 2007 JOHN HILLCOAT

THE new season is almost upon us and I can't believe I'm about to start the 20th campaign of my career.

If someone had said to me in summer 1987 that I would still be involved in senior football today I would have needed a doctor to treat the cracked rib caused by my laughter.

Over the past two decades I've often thought football's answer to the grim reaper had finally tracked me down.

But lady luck and the motivation to prove people wrong was enough to keep me dangling by the few hairs I have left over the soccer scrap heap.

I thank my lucky stars that I'm still a footballer and the butterflies will fly around my stomach ahead of Stenny's league opener against Arbroath at Ochilview.

But those nerves are NOTHING compared to the fear that you'll never play senior football again.

Forget butterflies, it's more like pterodactyls (those big dinosaur birds) in your stomach when that happens.

The first time I experienced them in my belly was in 1996 after a disappointing season at Clyde.

Our gaffer at the time Alex Smith had done a great job convincing the board that full-time football was the way forward for the Bully Wee.

The club invested heavily in the youth programme and also in first-team wages. The transformation was almost instant as Clyde went from being a run-of-the-mill Second Division team to an organisation that paid decent full-time wages and offered incentives like signing-on fees and cars.

The gaffer's vision was Premier League football within five years and Scottish football stood up and took notice when he signed Celtic legends George McCluskey and Charlie Nicholas.

But Clyde's new profile meant every club in the league wanted to take us down a peg or two.

They relished battling against stars like Charlie and George and playing at our plush Broadwood Stadium.

We were seen as the prized scalp of the Second Division and teams would set up formations that would cripple flair players like Champagne Charlie.

I remember sitting next to the Celtic and Scotland legend in the dressing-room after games. The cuts and bruises around his calves and Achilles area were so bad that it looked as if he had been attacked by the Baseball Furies (the mad gang who starred in the 1979 film The Warriors).

Those knocks soon took their toll on Nic and the physical abuse he suffered during his debut season in the Second Division was enough to put him off lower-league football for life.

The disappointment of finishing in the bottom half of the league dictated change at the club.

And it wasn't long before the dressing-room gossips started the vicious rumour that EVERY out-of-contract player would get the custard pie treatment.

Our last game of the season was 1-1 draw against Forfar at Broadwood and we were told to meet on the Monday morning to return our training gear.

That clobber was washed and counted by legendary kit man John Donnelly who's now at Airdrie United.

John gives me pelters every time I see him just because I haven't given him a mention in this column.

Well JD, I'll sort that out here - you get more and more like The Penguin from Batman every day.

Up until that day I loved the song I Don't Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.

But the words soon had a bitter personal meaning as the dressingroom gossips got it absolutely RIGHT.

Guys like Ian Angus, Tommy Harrison and Graham Watson were sensationally axed as the players paid the price for underachieving.

It was soon my turn to face the music but I was still confident the gaffer would offer me another deal.

After all, I was the only full-time goalie on the books and was earning around £15,000 per year.

That was much less than the other casualties.

But my hope soon turned to anger and disbelief when Alex sat me down in his office and handed me my P45. I could have ripped the head clean off the Incredible Hulk given half a chance.

I soon calmed down though and accepted that the gaffer was only doing what he thought was best for the club.

The Clyde axe didn't kill my career and I soon moved to Partick Thistle.

Eleven years on - and a million kicks in the chuckies later - those words from Bob Geld of have now been replaced by the lyrics that made Elton John famous: "I'm still standing".

But for how much long longer? Who knows?

'I thank my lucky star I'm still here'