Nor did he use any foul language as he looked at me and a few other bystanders and said with all sincerity and in measured tones, “I couldn’t have taken it if we’d lost the day!” And the two young teenage girls clad in green and white and singing – not The Celtic Song, nor Sean South of Garryowen but the Beatles “She Loves You! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” Incongruous, but there is nothing logical about ecstasy!
A few Pars fans were about, clearly disappointed but nothing nasty about them. Handshakes were exchanged and smiles and “We will see you on Wednesday,” a reference to the League game scheduled for that night, and one of them with a transistor radio told me that Kilmarnock had won 2-0 at Tynecastle. The implications of that one didn’t sink in until later, such was the all-consuming rapture of the moment.
The train from Mount Florida to Glasgow Central was noisy and overcrowded, dangerously so in fact but no-one cared. It was then, however, that real fear took over me that this might all be some sort of a dream and that I was going to wake up! Various thoughts of existentialist philosophy coursed through my mind, but they were soon driven out by the words of “the dreary New Year’s Eve” and “sworn to be free.” If I was going to wake up, so too would thousands of others!
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