The Madness approach

In the way of these things, a recent discussion with our historian Mr Iain Russell started with Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, moved to a Marxist theory of football and, inevitably, ended in a discussion on how Denis McQuade’s play reflected Hegelian dialectics. It was a slow day at the office.

Now, I know it is unlikely, but it is possible that some of you might have never heard of the finest winger ever to play for Partick Thistle. In fact, some of you might never even have heard of Partick Thistle. It so happens that Mr Russell and I are lifelong Jags fans, which accounts for a lot, so let me bring you up to speed.

The Jags are Glasgow’s alternative football team. That means both an alternative to the Old Firm and, some would say, an alternative to football. I wouldn’t disagree. We are known as the Great Unpredictables. This season we also have the world’s scariest mascot, Kingsley, designed for us by Turner Prize award winner David Shrigley. Of course Shrigley is a fan. What other team would he support? 

Definitely not Lisa Simpson: Kingsley the Partick Thistle mascot and stuff of children's nightmares

All Jags followers know that a glorious victory against a top side will inevitably be followed by a shambolic defeat, but we soon learn that an acceptance of this is a great lesson for life. I can only imagine how tedious it is to always expect your side to win and when defeat eventually comes how crushing it is to your soul. At this point I could mention Chelsea’s current form as evidence, but I wouldn’t be so cruel.

Back to the point. Denis McQuade was the most unpredictable of the Unpredictables. He was training to become a priest when he decided to become a footballer, though he also took a joint degree in French and maths at the same time. He was an oddity, a 6-foot winger who shambled up and down the pitch creating havoc among his opponents and to his own teammates in equal measure.

The Madness (as he was nicknamed) would beat an entire team on his own then fall over his own feet in front of an open goal. When he got the ball, the crowd held its breath in anticipation of either an amazing dribble down the wing, or an act of pure farce. While you never quite knew what would happen, you were guaranteed that it would be spectacular.

Speaking in an excellent interview for The Scotsman, he opined: “I operated on the basis that if I didn’t know what I was going to do with the ball, the opposition would have had no bloody idea.” Neither did we on the terraces, which is why we loved him. He was one of us – moments of brilliance shining out among the general shambles of a life. Denis McQuade was the existential footballer (and yes, only a Jags fan would write such a pretentious line).

The McQuade factor can be – indeed should be – applied to most things in life. Approaching life in a satnav fashion is boring. It is only when we turn the TomTom off and get lost that things become interesting. That is when you find new things, new people, new experiences. Getting from A to B is boring unless you go via U and P and J on the way.

It’s how ‘The Madness’ approached his football and is how we all need to approach our whisky. Unpredictability is that single cask, it’s a distillery not doing what you expect it to do; it’s that wild punt that you take. It is the weird, the unlikely.

As soon as whisky becomes predictable then it becomes little more than a safe commodity. You pick up the glass and know what the end result is going to be. That reassurance is fine at some times, but to really appreciate whisky, you need to miss the open goal, laugh, then do the equivalent of bending the ball in from the ‘Firhill for Thrills, Johnstone’s For Rolls’ sign.

Just like The Madness would.