How did tiny Aultbea produce two southern soccer talents? – column

So many interesting people were around Stornoway last week at the Hebridean Celtic Festival. As well as the musical acts over in the tent, there was a veritable parade of entertainers assembled in the centre of the town as slack-jawed shoppers looked on. Jugglers, Japanese unicyclists, dancers – even a Johnny Depp lookalike on a tricycle.

Festivals draw many people, not because they are particular fans of any particular music genre, but because they simply wanted to meet people, savour the atmosphere and enjoy the craic. Even the Free Church (Continuing) was out in force and had a stall. Alas, I was led sorely into temptation. Inverness-based firebrand Donald John Morrison almost succeeded in making me take a pamphlet. Better luck next year, a’ Dhomhnuill Iain.

Fleeing the wiles of the Continuing, I raced to the sanctuary of an hostelry. Who did I meet there but Martin Hill. Great yarns. Originally from Middlesex, Martin, who is now in his early 70s, told me about his idyllic childhood in the west London suburbs where he went regularly to see Brentford FC with his dad. A favourite player was Hugh Urquhart.

Years went by and Martin moved north and settled in Contin in 1977. He became a publican. Before long, he met a guy who lived nearby by the name of Urquhart. Ah, he’d heard that surname many years before. He told his new friend Mr Urquhart about the Urquhart who played for Brentford. “Ach,” says the other fellow “That would have been myself.”

Aultbea

Hugh Urquhart was actually from Aultbea, the west coast beachfronted hamlet in Wester Ross. The coincidence of now having his former soccer idol Hugh as a near neighbour hundreds of miles away from Brentford still makes Martin shake his head as he remembers happy days of yore as a nipper.

Another coincidence. Another Highland footballer played for Brentford in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The late Roddy Munro previously played for a wee club on the shores of the Clyde called Glasgow Rangers. Wait, wait, wait. I’m not finished. Guess where he was from. A fishing village on the shores of Loch Ewe called … Aultbea. Brentford had two players from Aultbea. What are the chances of that?

Then I was collared by Colin Macleod. He lives in Maryburgh but insisted that really he is a Stornoway cove. A Westview Terrace boy, in fact. Colin first sold anti-fouling paint, mousetraps and Tilley lamps at the former ship chandler and hardware shop, the lamented Charles Morrison & Son. Later on, he became well-known as an insurance agent and that other former Man from the Pru, Michael Maclennan, remembers him well. Ah the tales, he told me. Just a pity they are not fit for a family newspaper.

Colin, who tells me he is 82 but looks about 20 years off that, is of an island family, the Sketches. We may even be related along the line. We both have bright eyes, we both are dashingly handsome with the same chiselled jawbone structure, we both put all that down to the necking of the occasional amber neck tar. Ach, we’re practically brothers.

I also met the lads’ partner in crime, Big John. Lochussie contractor John Sinclair, at 54 was the baby of the group. He was making his 19th visit to the festival. Wonder if you can figure out how I know that, John? Martin and Colin both needed a sensible chaperone to make sure they got back safely to Rossshire. The big fellow spent time being a perfect gentleman with Katie and Louise, the two friendly lasses from Lochgoilhead we ended up beside.

And those girls were well-behaved too. Ladies who come to Lewis for a good time are not as badly behaved as the ones who frequent places like Inverness. So naughty are they that the male staff at Hootenanny’s bar have had to start wearing trousers because female customers, after a few bevvies, insist on checking out for themselves what’s worn under their kilts. Would never happen in the Lewis Bar.

What men wear in the north of Scotland is very important. Clothing and accessories have to be practical. Because of this ridiculously unseasonal weather, my mate Calum was bought a pair of earmuffs by his wife for tramping round Stornoway. They look a bit weird but they keep the old lugs cosy. However, when I met him on Saturday, he didn’t have them on.

When I asked why, he said they just weren’t practical. He explained how he wore them on the first couple of days of the festival but when anyone offered to buy him a drink, he just couldn’t hear them.