In an exclusive interview with our sports editor, Paxton Quigley, Scotland’s Team Manager, Jock MacSporran claimed full responsibility for the dismal failure and eventual disqualification of his men’s team from the hopscotch event at the Gold Coast’s Commonwealth Games.
“Look, it’s all a misunderstanding, it’s a new event to the games and, yes, I should have researched it thoroughly. The mistake was caused by the name HOPSCOTCH. What do you understand by that? It’s obvious. Hop is for beer and Scotch is for whisky. There’s nae mistaking it. Well, there obviously was on my part.
“I thought this was right up our street, a boozing competition. I knew we could beat the Sassenachs and the Aussie bastards hands down, so a few weeks ago I scouted the pubs in Glasgow on a Saturday night and looked out for the biggest boozers I could find. Anyone sinking pints of heavy chased down by wee drams of the Famous Grouse was invited for an interview in my local, “The Bawbag and Gobbler” where I weeded out the weaklings and finally came up wi'a team of the most scabrous alcoholics in Bonny Scotland.
“Well, ye can imagine our dismay when we turned up in our kilts for our first round match against Kiribati. Kiri-bloody-bati where the hell is that? Apparently it’s some banana republic in the middle of naewhere-on-sea. Their team was all fit young men dressed all namby pamby in nice wee shorts and vests and they sniggered at our tattoos and kilts, but we knew we could take them. That is until they showed us the hopscotch court. Bloody hell, we were shocked.
“After the officials explained the rules to us, we gave it a go, even though we were suffering slightly from hangovers. In the first few minutes we were warned by the umpires that every time we hopped they could see our bare bums and glimpse our wedding tackle, because as true Scots we refuse tae wear underpants. So we tried hopping with as little bounce as possible and, aye, for a while we didnae do so bad.
“The last straw was when it came to the turn of the team captain, Hugh Mungous-Dick. It was when he bent down to pick up the bean bag that the lady judge from Sri Lanka fainted and the crowd of blonde Aussie girls squealed with delight. Disqualification was immediate but I have to say the Aussie lassies were on our side. They booed the decision for twenty minutes afterwards.
“It hasn’t been a complete disaster though for Hugh. He has signed a contract with an Australian film company to star in an art house movie called Blonde Beach Bimbos Ride Hard. Some people have all the luck.”
