THE anecdotes are flowing with such pace that, rather oddly given the company, the wine is actually struggling to keep up.
Sitting across from me is one Hugh Keevins and we are looking back on a life well led, if not always sensibly. It is a wonderful hour.
He is now in his 33rd year on Radio Clydeâs Superscoreboard, a Scottish football institution in which fierce debate and jaw-dropping bampottery are effortlessly mixed together six days a week.
The bold Shug has been the wirelessâs most distinctive voice â we can all do an impression â since 1986 which is when he joined the legendary Jimmy Sanderson a few months before that doyen passed away.
Now, a journalist interviewing another journalist tends to be, for want of a better word, naff. Despite all our conceit, nobody cares about us nor are particularly interested in learning. However, Keevins is different in that he has become more famous than most players and everyone seems to have an opinion on him.
For over three decades, heâs been throwing figurative hand grenades at callers who react in a Pavlovian way to whatever this wee Drumchapel guy says.
âIt is a life lived by accident,â boasts Keevins as he recalls how he became the most recognised football pundit in the country. And heâs right.
Paul Cooney ran Radio Clyde and Richard Park was Mr Football. It was somewhat of a fluke that Keevins was to join their gang.
âIâve had 30 years predicated on one sentence. Richard said to Paul âthat guy has a weird voiceâ,â Keevins tells me with a smile. âThere was no broadcasting talent, because I had never done it.
I replaced Jimmy after one week and it was so nerve-wracking that I donât mind admitting that I was on sedatives for a wee while.
âI was following a legend in Jimmy, so there was a great deal of pressure on me. I was at The Scotsman, I knew my business, but this was replacing Jimmy Sanderson whose standing at that time was, well, he was out on his own.â
And now the stories begin. They donât stop. Not even for breath.
âWe were doing the phone-in one midweek,â Keevins says. âJimmy was in full flow and I tried to get his attention by waving my hands. âWe eventually get to the commercial break and Richard, who was incredibly astute, says to me âyou stupid boy.â
âIt was then I told them that the studio was on fire. Jimmy had thrown his cigar into the bin at his feet. The flames were huge. I was the only one who noticed. Jimmy was speaking and when he spoke, the nation stopped.â
You canât move for phone-ins today. Clyde remains popular, but in the 1980s and 1990s it was the only station on in the car when everyone went to and from games. And not everyone was friendly.
âI came back to the house one night and [long-suffering and devoted wife] Janet asked me how it went. I said it had been smashing, apart from one caller who gave me a real hard time about Danny McGrain, who was a neighbour of ours.
âJanet says âoh, I knowâ and so I ask her how she knew, because she never listened. She says, âhe phoned from here.â
âA guy had come around to plug in the washing machine or something, it got to 5pm and he said: âMrs Keevins, can I use your telephone?â Apparently, he then started to get very excited and thatâs when Janet realised he was talking to me. So, this guy phoned me to give me a right dusting down over Danny⌠and Iâm paying for it!â
Brilliant. That is, of course, funny, but there is a darker side to all of this. Keevins believed at the time that Walter Smith and Ally McCoist carrying the coffin of Tommy Burns would bring some order and sense.
âIf anything, itâs got worse.â
And when you listen to some, if not all callers, and I also believe the sewer has deepened, there are moments which make you wonder about the human condition.
âItâs abuse at times, no other word for it,â says Keevins. âThe greatest misnomer is that weâre all Jock Tamsonâs Bairns because they have you pigeon holed. You get it for that reason.
âThey look for agendas and conspiracies that are not there. These people are full of anger.â
And their way of expressing it is shouting about football on the radio; the stink of sectarianism never far away.
It used to get to Keevins, but then his older grandson was born with severe autism and suddenly Davie from Govan bellowing at him down a phone about an offside decision didnât really matter.
âIâm not bothered what people say about me on the radio,â he said. âI know the anguish which my grandsonâs condition has caused and I know how heroic my daughter and her husband are. These people can say what they like.
âMy grandsonâs birth changed everything. I know what real life is. I used to take it badly, probably took it home, but my wife is great because she thinks itâs a lot of nonsense. Sheâs smarter than me. Women always are.â
But there have been some moments throughout the years at football grounds when being Hugh Keevins came with a target on his back.
âA guy hit me at Tynecastle,â he says, almost with pride. âJorge Cadete scored two goals, Celtic won 2-1, Davie Provan and myself were doing the game. I told the studio not to come to us at the final whistle because it was hostile to the point of being sinister.
âOf course, they did. I went off on full flow and became aware of a guy behind me, and heâs been giving me grief all day, I turn to keep an eye on him and he thumps me, and I was caught by a supporter who lifted my body up and gave me back to Davie, who by this time is purple.
âDavie starts screaming âHugh Keevins has been attacked!â My youngest heard about it at the dancing later that Saturday night.â
And then there was that almost iconic time in 2000 when Keevins was thrown out of the Celtic Supporters club before a press conference.
I was there that day and can vouch for the incredible silliness of a situation that should have been beneath that football club.
âI recall the journalist Ian McGarry saying to the blessed Finbar OâBrannigan, not his real name, that he had just made me famous by throwing me out. His reply was, of course, that he didnât give a ****.
âThe next Monday Iâm in town, Iâm at the hole in the wall and someone puts what feels like a gun to my back, tells me not to move and to put my hands up. Iâm thinking this is it. I slowly turn around and itâs Bobby Williamson.â
Journalism these days tends to be the playground of the middle class, but there was a time when theyâd let anyone join.
Ma Keevins sounds an angel. Keevins was 10 when his dad, a clever man who liked a bet, died.
âShe literally scrubbed floors of pubs and toilets. It was as working class as you could imagine.â
But even she was a critic.
âMy brother came around one night, he had never been to the house, and I asked what was up. He told me it was about our mother, and of course Iâm thinking all things, and he tells me that she wasnât happy with me tipping Rangers to win the cup and I hadnât to go back to the house for a while.
âAccording to her, even though I thought that, I shouldnât have said it.â
Keevins is 68 in November. He is retired from newspapers, presumably with a few bob â heâs never denied the rumour he has his first fiver â so why still do it?
âI wouldnât do it if I was embarrassing myself or if it bored me,â he insists. âI genuinely love it. Itâs great fun, keeps my mind active. Iâll go on for a bit longer.â
And with that, we down our glasses and say our farewells.
The old soldier will be throwing those grenades for years to come, and nobody does it better. For this, we should be thankful.
After all, putting on Keevinsâs nasally voice, I will stress that itâs only an opinion.
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