It’s been very quiet on the Walker family front in recent months… then the two of them emerge within days of each other.
I met Andy first of all at the last Dundee United v Dundee match at Tannadice, then his brother Charlie sends me a letter.
While Andy’s conversation was relatively tame by his own standard, Charlie, I reckon, has now taken queries to a whole new level.
“There was a game on Sky TV just before Christmas 2011 involving St Johnstone and Aberdeen,” stated Charlie.
“It was played in atrocious weather conditions and I seem to remember one player scored a goal from 50 yards.
“I also reckon Lochee United juniors got a bigger crowd than that game in the same week.”
First to the senior game, and the match in question was St Johnstone v Aberdeen on Tuesday, December 13, 2011, which finished in a 2-1 win for the Dons.
The weather was, as Charlie said, atrocious with strong winds and heavy rain.
Match reports at the time stated: ‘the ball was being blown off its spot when it had been placed for a goal-kick. The corner flags looked were being blown to a 45 degree angle.’
As for the ‘50-yard goal’, the same report further stated: ‘Peter Enckelman makes a stinker of an error. He was 30 yards out of his goal, out on the left, to clear the ball into the Dons half. But he doesn’t get enough distance on the ball and it lands at the feet of the alert Ryan Jack, who knocks the ball two yards over the halfway line and sends a long-range shot into the empty net.’
The McDiarmid Park attendance was a measly 1,607 but we don’t have any records of Lochee United attendances around that time.
Can any Thomson Parker help out here?
Charlie then moved on to North Korea, whose shock 1-0 World Cup win over Italy was featured in BwB on May 26.
“Your story about North Korea brought back memories of the time I was sitting in the old Robin Hood Bar in Lochee High Street,” he continued.
“I thought I could answer most questions on football but was completely stumped when a young lad, nicknamed Champagne Sandy by his mates, asked me to name that North Korean line-up.
“I couldn’t, of course, but then he rattled off the complete XI, then produced a newspaper cutting with the team to prove it.
“He could also rattle off both line-ups in the famous Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup Final at Hampden Park in 1960 – a game the Spaniards famously won 7-3.
“He then said it was too easy and then proceeded to spout out the individual names in the line-ups backwards, eg Saksup (Puskas), Otneg (Gento), Id Onafets (Di Stefano) and all the other 19 players. He even said Tawom for the Scottish referee Mr Mowat.
“I kid you not.”
Andy reckons he has some good tales in hand and promises to share them with BwB readers soon.
Have a story to share with John? Email: jbrown@dcthomson.co.uk
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.