FOOTBALL was my first love. Growing up in Perth in the late 70s, playing football was the big thing. I’d play at primary school and at Cubs and there was a place in Gannochy in Perth called the Curlie where my mates and I would go and play football pretty much every evening and weekend.

I was a striker – I was a poacher and I’d hang about the box and tap them in. Those were the days though when you played 2-3-5 so it was all about scoring goals.

My first memory of watching football was Argentina ’78 so my introduction to the sport was the highs and the lows that you need to get used to as a Scotland fan – drawing with Iran and then beating Holland all within a week.

So I experienced glorious failure pretty early on.

I remember after the Iran game, going outside, taking my Scotland top off and stamping all over it. One of my neighbours saw me do it and told on me to my mum and dad.

None of my family were St Johnstone supporters - my dad is from Dunfermline so didn’t follow Saints but we moved to Perth when I was three and my brother and I badgered my dad to take us to a St Johnstone game which, eventually, he did.

The first match I went to was the 1st of May 1979 – I was approaching my 7th birthday – and my brother and I didn’t know we were going until about an hour before.

It was all very exciting. We were up against Dundee – St Johnstone were playing to avoid relegation and Dundee were playing for promotion to the Premier League.

St Johnstone ended up winning 3-2 and it was a crazy game – it was still terracing at the old Muirton Park with no segregation and there was crowd trouble - there were bottles being thrown, there was fighting and there were people peeing in bottles so there was a bit of everything.

I got hit on the head by a bit of glass and I remember it being pretty scary. That was old-school Scottish football.

I was mad about football and I played every Saturday morning until I was about 12 but then the big boys got bigger and I couldn’t really cope with their strength and them kicking me all over the place. At that point, I got into drama and began focusing my attention on that rather than football.

I’d split my time at weekends between going to matinees at Perth Theatre and football so, one weekend, I’d go to an Agatha Christie or an Alan Ayckbourn play and then the following weekend, I’d go and watch a St Johnstone match.

At that point, in the 80s, St Johnstone were pretty rubbish but Dundee United, Aberdeen and the Old Firm were doing really well so a lot of my friends in Perth would go to Dundee to watch Dundee United play. Muirton Park was really the only place I’d go though.

I started at drama school in Glasgow in 1990 and McDiarmid Park had just opened the year before and so when I was home in Perth for Christmas, I’d go to games – I’d always be at the New Year game with a hangover.

And when I was in Glasgow, I was friends with a lot of Celtic and Partick Thistle supporters so I’d go to Parkhead or Firhill with them because I just like football, so I was happy to watch any team.

Later on in the 90s, I had a season ticket for St Johnstone and I’d go back to Perth for every home game but ultimately, going to every match became logistically too difficult so since giving up my season ticket, I’ve always sponsored a player at St Johnstone and that’s my way of putting my money into the club.

I still try to get back to McDiarmid Park at least four or five times a season and these days, I sometimes take my two daughters. If I bribe them with a pie or a blue doughnut, they don’t put up too much resistance.

The day St Johnstone won the Scottish Cup in 2014 was the best Saturday afternoon I’ve ever spent at a football match, without question.

Bizarrely, and worryingly at the time, we went into that game as favourites but everything went exactly to plan which as a St Johnstone fan and a Scotland fan, I wasn’t used to.

My eldest daughter was at that Scottish Cup final too and so has watched St Johnstone in Europe as well as win a cup so she’s seen all the good times whereas in my childhood, it was the complete opposite.

I’m not a regular at Scotland games but I’ve been to a few big ones – Italy when we lost out, Germany when they beat us and Poland too. So we never seem to do very well when I’m there.

Tennis is the other sport I’m interested in – I grew up playing tennis in Perth and was boys doubles champion at Kinnoull Tennis Club in 1983.

Seeing Andy Murray come through has been just amazing, him winning Wimbledon is up there with St Johnstone winning the Scottish Cup for me.

The day he won Wimbledon for the first time, I was in tears. To see a boy from Perthshire win the greatest tennis tournament in the world was remarkable – one of the things I never, ever thought I’d witness.

He’s an absolutely supreme athlete and I love his grumpiness and his huffiness - I think that’s what makes him the player he is.