BEN and a 'GOALDEN' CHRISTMAS

There wasn’t a time in my life when I didn’t know Ben. From my earliest memories, he was always there.

We lived in a ground floor tenement flat in Edinburgh’s Southside and Ben and his family lived in the stair opposite.

Ben was just a few months older than me and growing up we played together every day. Cops and Robbers and Japs and Commandoes were popular, as was Hide and Seek: with eight stairs in the street (some with very dark coal cellars!) there were loads of places to hide, and there were a few parked cars in the street you could hide behind too. The den was an old tree at the top of the street.

Our street was a cul-de-sac – as well as the tree on a patch of waste ground at the top of the street there was a cemetery wall, and from our earliest days we would practice our football skills there. Football was our real passion.

The tree served as a defender. We would bend the ball round the tree as we practised our shooting and honed our mazy dribbling skills.

We chalked a goalpost on the wall and Ben and I would take turns, one shooting penalties and the other in goal. We’d play for hours, until we were called in for tea, and then we’d go back out again afterwards: lamp posts and lights from the overlooking houses were our floodlights.

I remember one particular Christmas Day: it was snowing! Ben called in for me first thing with a bright new orange football, and I set aside my Shoot football annual, the Topical Times football book and Roy of the Rovers annual to go and play football in the snow.

Our primary school was just across the road, and although we were first there we were soon joined by pals who had been thinking exactly what we were thinking – quite a few of them in new football strips!

We marked out a pitch in the pristine snow and enjoyed the game of our lives. It must have been freezing, but you don’t feel the cold when you’re a bairn.

Ben was small for his age, much smaller than me, but he was lightning quick – a real wee will o’ the wisp! No one could get near him! I remember Ben sprinting down the wing despite the deep snow, crossing the ball for me to bullet into the (imaginary) net. Goal!

At half time we all shared the contents of our selection boxes, an early Christmas dinner!

I can hardly remember what I had for tea last night, but, while it must have been nearly sixty years ago, I still recall we won that magical Christmas Day match 3-2. Ben scored a goal himself and created the other two.

We went home after the game soaked through, but glowing. It was getting dark and it was still snowing. It’s a Christmas day I’ll never forget.

We went on to play lots of football games together, Ben and I, but never one quite so special as that one.

Back then, I could never have imagined a day that we wouldn’t be out playing together. Inseparable, we were like twins – odd twins, admittedly (think Laurel and Hardy or Little and Large). It would always be like this, I thought: me and Ben, Ben and me.

But even before the end of our primary school days, our brotherhood was broken. Ben and his family moved away. They only flitted to Tranent, but to me it might just as well have been Timbuktu.

I really can’t recall now how sad I was back then, and for how long, and my mother and father are no longer here to ask. Children are resilient, though, and I’m sure I bounced back pretty quickly. We all move on.

It’s funny how the oddest things jog your memory, though. My grandson is football daft, and asked me one day about who my favourite players were in ‘the olden days’!

I regaled him with tales of those good old days, the giants of the game and in particular, Celtic’s Jimmy ‘Jinky’ Johnstone.

My grandson tracked down some jerky old black and white footage of the wee maestro online – and I was immediately taken back to our own magical match in the snow, with our own wee local magician pulling the strings …

Ben was unstoppable that day. He really was an incredible talent. I wonder what became of him?