top 10 Motherwell, bottom 5 Motherfu**ing bad

Motherwell. At The Brox. This Saturday. 3pm. Nice.

Our season’s neither up nor down yet - and Motherwell’s is just coming together. Everyone’s still in their relevant competitions and nothing’ll be decided this weekend.

In short, unless there’s a horror injury, an away win or a massive goals tally, there will probably be nothing greatly memorable about this weekend’s match yet I’m so bl**dy happy to be going because this is what it’s all about - the beautiful routine of football:

Saturday’s Rangers-Motherwell game is traditional top-flight Scottish football as you’d think of it when considering say “What it means to have a season ticket”, ” a typical day out at the fitbaw”, “the kind of game ye sometimes don’t even remember being at”. Doesn’t matter what happens in life, as long as there ain’t a major social catastrophe the football goes on.

You want injuries, tactics, form guides, wind-up gossip? The Daily Retard and the Current Bun are engaged in a price war - you’ll get aw that quite cheap.

Me? I’m in the mood to think back on what games featuring Motherwell have stayed with me most. I’m in the mood for a couple of anorakish lists.

FAT ECK’S TOP TEN FAV GAMES FEATURING MOTHERWELL:

(Miss World order - ie back tae front.)

(10) WELL … 2 GERS … 2; 4th Sep 1982, Fir Park, Premier Division:

First game of another dreadful season and a pish result against the newly promoted Steelmen. I was 13 years old and wisnae allowed (ie paid) tae go every week yet. But 20,000 packed intae the auld Fir Park in my place and, like me, they mibbee wurnae too bothered we hudnae won; Ye see Jock Wallace was back in Scotland that day. The last manager tae win the league with Rangers (Ironically clinched in a game against Motherwell) had taken over at the Lanarkshire club - poor John Greig was struggling with us and we just wanted to see Jock even in the same stadium as Rangers again. He would be back in the proper dug-out soon enough.

(9) WELL … 1 GERS … 5; 18th Dec 1999, Fir Park, SPL:

True Blue King Billy Dodds gets his first and second Gers goals in style. Kanchelskis brace and Big Amo scores too as Advocaat’s Rangers stretch classily away to two titles in a row.

(8) WELL … 2 GERS … 4; 17th Nov 1990, Fir Park, Premier Division:

A bit wet and wild but Mark Walters is superb and Gary Stevens the total athlete with two overlapping goals from fullback. Graeme Souness’ Rangers look set to waltz to their third straight title - a great day out … but things would change before our second trip of the season to Fir Park …

(7) Motherwell … 4 Dundee United … 3; 18th May 1991, Hampden, Scottish Cup Final:

While our 3-2 win over Celtic in 2002 is my personal fav Scottish Cup Final, I watched this one on the telly and it will stay with me forever. A classic from first to last and a poke in the eye for the Aud Firm as Hampden is packed with the two dullest sets of scarves in Scottish Football Fandom providing a truly colourful Cup Final with nae need for religion or politics. Craig Paterson and Davie Cooper get a different kind of adulation.

(6) Motherwell … 4 Cel**c … 2; 9th April 1991, Hampden, Scottish Cup semi-final replay:

We won the League and the League Cup this season: Smellies had put us out the Scottish in the Quarters but the only blemish on our domestic bliss was almost worth it as I danced around the living room watching Colin O’Neill’s ridiculously long drive send another Celtic team of the nineties crashing to a trophyless season. Watched the highlights without knowing the score - nice to see Dougie Arnott ripping someone else to shreds for a change ! :-)

(5) GERS … 4 WELL … 3; 19th April 2003, Hampden, Scottish Cup semi-final:

Sunny day, noon kick-off and the biggest Motherwell support I’ve ever seen. Bert Konterman scored another Hampden Semi pile-driver and we looked comfy until a James McFadden masterclass - including one of the best-worked goals I’ve ever seen at Hampden - had us behind at half-time. Amo and Magic Mikey Mols got us back on easy street but the day was helped by the fact that, while I typed my Blog in a City Centre cybercafe (home PC on the blink - the things I do for you guys…), news came through that celtic had lost a vital league game to Hearts at Tynecastle. The Treble was on its way to Ibrox!

(4) GERS … 5 WELL … 1; 20th March 2005, Hampden, CIS League Cup Final:

Eck McLeish’s third League cup and second-last domestic trophy. Winning any cup final is great but when there’s not even any time to be worried it’s even better. Defenders scored five of the goals in this game - When Nacho got his he celebrated right in front of the part of the South Stand I was sat in. Terry Butcher’s young Well side started a bit of the psycho stuff when they realised all was lost but calmed down enough to esnure the Davie Cooper League Cup Final was a lovely afternoon.

(3) GERS … 2 WELL .. 0; 29th April 1978, Ibrox, Premier Division:

The first time I ever remember Rangers winning the league. Colin Jackson and Gordon Smith with the goals which helped us secure the title from Aberdeen on the last day of the season. I wasn’t there. Was 8 years old at the time. But I do remember seeing the score on the TV, after a day of waiting to find out while my mum dragged me round the shops. I then got a school duffle bag with a printed photo of that treble-winning team emblazoned roon it. Didn’t realise I’d be fu**ing working for a living before we won it again. “Mister. Do ye do briefcases with Ranges team photies on …”

(2) GERS … 1 WELL .. 0; 28th March 1987, Ibrox, Premier Division:

…and this HORRIBLE game was when I realised we were gonnae do it - we were gonnae win the league for the first time since 1978. I was fu**ing there THIS time alright! Dave McPherson got pelters all game - and he wasn’t alone as, in front of at least 20,000 Gers fans who hadn’t been at Ibrox for most of the last nine years, we struggled to break down a Motherwell side which had already won once at Ibrox that season. The goal, from Coisty, was scrambled and messy and took ages to get over the line and barely did get over the line! - and it happened just five minutes from time and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. I’d been watching The Teds home and away every week for a few years by that point - I knew what it took to win league titles - but only from what I’d seen Celtic, Aberdeen and Dundee United doing. This, I knew, was the kind of desperate win which brought titles. And this title, I knew, was coming to us.

(1) 22nd May 2005, Fir Park, SPL: Well … 2 Ce**ic … 1:

“Is that helicopter fur us, Franny??” “Canne be, Pat - it’s just sterted flyin away in the other direction…”

TALKING ABOUT HIMSELF IN THE THIRD PERSON’S BOTTOM FIVE WORST GAMES FEATURING MUTHERFU**INGWELL

(5) GERS … 2 WELL … 0; May 3rd 1986, Ibrox, Premier Division:

We qualify for Europe on the last day of the league season and Souness and Walter Smith are introduced to the crowd: In truth it was the beginning of a decade of total dominance - but the day itself was dominated by the news from Dens Park and Love Street. Hearts hadn’t just chucked away the title - they’d chuked it into the worst possible hands. I still stayed in Ayrshire at that point. My train home stopped at Paisley. Bad day.

(4) WELL … 3 GERS … 0; Jan 3rd 1983, Fir Park, Premier Division:

Too young to be there. But a memorably miserable start to my new year as I listened to McClair and co tearing us apart on Radio Clyde.

(3) GERS … 0 WELL … 1; Nov 8th 1986, Ibrox, Premier Division:

Had a typical teenage tiff with my parents and decided I was gonnae go to the Army Recruitment Office before the game. Didnae bother. Stood on the West Enclosure instead as the Souness revolution took a body blow to the typical Motherwell Ibrox performance of the eighties - 11 men behind the ball except for one break-away per half. Decided my team needed me more than my country. Told my mates, “that’s the game which cost us the title” - we were Champions by May.

(2) GERS … 0 WELL … 2; May 5th 1997, Ibrox, Premier Division:

The Nine-In-A-Row party spoiled by a brilliant counter-attacking Well team under one Alex McLeish. A lot of balloons were burst that day - I was one of them.

(1) WELL … 3 GERS … 0;THE NADIR: May 4th 1991, Fir Park: Premier Division:

Souness has just left. Walter Smith has just taken over and Dougie Arnott decides he’s gonnae do his usual - and we let him. Second last game of the season and we let Aberdeen go top of the league. Not just that but we looked like a team in crisis. Of course, with hindsight we all know this game just made Three-of-a-set-of-Nine-In-A-Row all the sweeter but that’s not how I felt on the day. Fu**ing SHAT myself!

So what’ll happen this weekend? We really just can’t tell.

But Ibrox could be heaven, or it could be Motherwell.