It's been a long time, there has probably been more lows than highs. There has been a lot of snigerring comments made in my direction. But one thing is for sure I will take the consequences, because there is nothing like calling yourself a Stirling Albion Supporter.

For over 30 years now, I have been  all over  Scotland and the World proudly wearing the colours of Stirling Albion Football Club.

It all began in 1978, when I was just two years old. My mother Marion had just been employed by the club when Alex Smith a long standing friend of the family invited my mum to for a job at the Albion cleaning the building and washing the team strips and training gear at Annfield. My mums duties were not finished there as she was also in charge of the players tea and pie shop during the first team and reserve matches.

It was a real family connection with my father Robert (Bobby), who had spent many years working at Alex Smith's restaurant now taking charge dispatching and delivering  the Albion kit hampers to away matches. 

Memories of those first few years at Annfield are obviously very faint, due to the age I was, but at four years old Alex Smith allowed me to become the Albion team mascot and I wore a very oversized team shirt and off I went, into the players dressing room and then onto the hallowed Annfield turf. 

Also at four years old, I started to be a ballboy. Mostly at reserve matches to start with and then onto first team matches. One of the ballboy memories I have was trying to cover the whole four sides of the pitch myself at a very early age during a reserve match. For the next ten years I was a ballboy up until I was fourteen at the end of the 1989/90 season. During those times I was most often picked upon by the other ballboys :) , whether it was because my dad was now in charge of the Balboys or was it because  I was just a spoiled little brat. Probably the latter if what most people say is true:)

During my school years I would go up to Annfield during the school holidays, while my mum worked ( or played the fruit machine all day). Those were classic times. My mum worked with the late Bruce McDonald the Annfield groundsman and he would allow me to go onto  the Annfield turf myself and I would have a game of football in my full Albion kit and boots. Whether it was playing pool for free in the members bar, being scared out my wits to go anywhere near the Annfield Mansion House, driving the grass mower and then playing on the astroturf after reserve matches with other supporters it was all one happy memory. 

Around about the age of 13/15 I would also look after the Albion dressing rooms alongside my dad at Annfield and during those Annfield years I also sold match programmes and on one occasion was assigned to a  turnstile for a match.

It was at this time when I was about 15 that I was picked  through my juvenile team to sign for  the Albion Youth set up run by Peter Caproni. The youth set up was not very big at that time and games were few and far between but in the last two years of John Brogan's reign as manager I was given the chance to play in the Albion reserve team mostly as a back up.  I made about 10 appearances for the reserves under John Brogan before he was dismissed and Kevin Drinkell took over. I worked under Kevin for a few months before being invited to return for pre-season training.

It was at this stage that for  the previous two years I was employed as an apprentice electrician and I took the bold step to give up football and concentrate on my work. A decision I still sometimes regret, but to be truthful it was the correct decision as I now have my own electrical business which employs people.

At the start of the Drinkell era the club went semi - full-time and my mum who although now down at Forthbank still worked in  the pie shop and made the players refreshments. My mum could not work full time due to family commitments and after over 16 years association with the club she left. But my father was to continue working at Forthbank, still looking after the ball boys and watching the dressing rooms, while I took a back seat and a sat in the stands watching the matches for a year.

I could not just sit down and do nothing and I started to video record using my camcorder Albion matches making an end of season video and I still have some classic Albion matches on my camcorder tapes. It's like everything else, I would have loved the club to start producing the videos and selling them, but for one reason or another that could not take off.

My father decided to call it a day due to ill-health and I was the obvious choice to take charge of the dressing room area and ball-boys. At present I am still in charge of those responsibilities at Forthbank but I seem to have found another couple of jobs along the way. One is the standby Electrician at Forthbank on matchdays and the other is the editor of this Official Web Site, which I must admit gives me great pleasure.

Well that is just a brief outline and some of the memories of my 30 years  so far with Stirling Albion. I could go on and on and go over so many more happy memories, especially from Annfield Park and  famous Albion matches I have witnessed. Perhaps another time I will look back over them because one thing is for sure, no matter how successful we are in the future, I will always follow the team through thick and thin. Players and Managers will come and go, but fans like myself and many others I know will always be there right behind whoever is in charge or playing at Stirling Albion Football Club.