Lochee local football legend Willie Grier responded to the December 30 query in which we were trying to establish whether Albert Kidd played the guitar on television.
Dougie Scrimgeour and Frank Mulholland had asked the original question regarding the former Dundee FC star.
Willie offered: “I don’t know the answer to the guitar question, but I do know he was a good singer.
“He was with Lochee Boys Club as a young player and I remember he did very well in the Leng Medal competition.
“I’m sure he actually won it, but I might just be wrong there.
“He certainly went far in the competition.
“I think the song he sung was the ‘Wee Cooper O’ Fife’, the one which contains the lyrics ‘Nickety, nackety, noo, noo, noo’.”
Willie was very impressed with Albert as a young player, but . . .
“Wee Albert was a great player,” continued Willie, who also successfully managed junior sides Lochee United and Downfield.
“The problem with him at that time was he tended to hang on to the ball too long. So we took the decision to loan him to NCR amateurs so he could play a few games against men.
“That way, he soon learned to let the ball go quicker as the men would immediately get the tackles in.”
Probably for many readers, ‘The Wee Cooper O’ Fife’ song brings back memories.
Old-fashioned family parties at New Year usually involved a happy uncle belting this one out.
Former Evening Telegraph sports editor Ed Gorrie said he remembered hearing about Albert playing the guitar on TV, but couldn’t recall the details.
Then Albert himself confirmed this to be true.
From his current base in Adelaide, Australia, he firstly jibed: “30 degrees here at the moment and I guess it won’t be that in Dundee.
“I’ve been living here now for 31 years and have lived longer in Australia than I did in Scotland.”
He then continued: “Yes, I played the guitar on TV when I was a lad (12-13). High Time was the programme on Grampian TV.
“I actually won both the Leng Medal and the Gold Medal.
“For the Leng Medal I sung ‘The Piper Of Dundee’ and for the Gold Medal it was ‘Ba Loo Lammy’.”
Albert is currently a director in his family’s national business Pinnacle with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and headquarters in Adelaide.
He described the core business as retail design and construction and gave, as an example, that they design and build Jamie Oliver restaurants, banks and medical centres.
The firm also have other retail outfits.
Albert still stays in touch with football, and continued: “On the football front, I commentated on the A League games for some 10 years.
“I have also had a radio programme for more than 20 years with different stations.
“Triple M is the radio station I work for now and this is probably the biggest station in Australia.
“We interview people such as Brian Robson, Archie Knox, Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes, Graeme Souness, Terry Butcher and Colin Hendry.
“The programme is based mainly on the A League, English Premier League and Australian national team re World Cup qualifiers, etc.
“Adelaide United are in the A League, so they have their fair share of time on the programme.”
The former Arbroath, Motherwell and Dundee star concluded: “There are lots of Scottish guys across here such as Stuart Beedie, Stuart Munro, Iain Ferguson, David Mitchell, Grant Bremner, Ross McCormack — the list flows on.”
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