Cubby 50

The Friday night regulars celebrated Cubby's 50th birthday in the traditional way:

Ewen Hay, Ryan McConnachie, Jeb Tyrie, Gary Duncan, Neil McCubban, Mike Johnston, Ian McRae, John Moir, Paul Knight & George Robertson.

According to my records, this was the 28th "official" shirt awarded since Fred Morrison received a simple t-shirt to celebrate his 50th birthday way back in 1991. Fred finally received a proper football shirt - Third Lanark, of course - for his 60th.

There was one other named shirt and it was when Bob Bennett decided to buy himself one on the occasion of his 40th birthday. At the time, this was deemed to be far too young to receive an official Vets shirt, the normal minimum qualifying age being 50, as most of us only started playing again around our 40th birthdays. Times have moved on however, and there have since been four other "40" shirts issued - Gary Grant, Nigel Meany, Ewen Hay & Andy Robertson.

Ryan Hay became the youngest ever when he hit his 30th birthday, but 50 has been the most popular age, with a total of 15 issued to date. There have been six "60" shirts issued as well, plus one "65" (Dan Corbett), but the most unusual one was when Rob Dunnachie moved away from Banchory and we decided we needed to get him a shirt to remember us by - on the occasion of his 49th birthday!

Five of us - Andy Gore, Colin Kilgour, Jack Simpson, Dave Williamson and I - have each received 2 shirts, having played on both our 50th and 60th birthdays.

Of the 28 "official" shirts issued to date, Cubby's was the 6th Scotland one, of which one was a rugby shirt - guess whose? There have been 4 Partick Thistle shirts issued, 2 Hibs, 2 Notts Forest, 2 Wigan, 2 Wolves and 2 Aberdeen, but only one each Third Lanark, Ross County, Celtic, Dundee, Ireland, Argentina, Manchester United and Motherwell.