I HAVE a pal who, when she finds herself in a less desirable situation than she’d like, scoffs, only half-kidding, ‘So, is this my team?’

It’s that picking sides thing that puts me off team sports. I’ve never been a fan of football. My dad was so Celtic daft it gave me the jitters! Then there’s all that sectarian stuff, I think is the scourge of this city. I have seen the beautiful game, in all its beauty, but I never thought it could lead to something as grand as this week’s story.

Over a decade ago some Glasgow pals from Anderston, who loved the game but got fed up ‘doshing’ out for an hour on a 5 a side pitch, also realised they were fed up with the competitive argy-bargy that followed. So, they moved their game to their local red ash pitch on Elderslie Street on Sunday afternoons and welcomed the locals who wanted to play to join in for free.

To date, this game of football happens every Sunday and if you were to turn up to spectate you would see a game that has at times, sported nineteen different nationalities! Giving a whole new meaning to the term ‘World Cup’. The goal that was set was to have no restrictions on the players, neither gender, nationality, nor age. Teams have had five-year olds and seventy-five-year olds playing!

Over the last 10 years this game has resulted in a community gathering that has had ramifications no one could have foreseen. A community with diverse social backgrounds, minority ethnic groups and many vulnerable individuals, has through a game of football, created unlikely friends and softened all manner of divides.

It was this energy of reaching out that informed the next amazing thing that happened. A ball kick away from the red ash was the original Glasgow Gurdwara, one of Glasgow’s Sikh Temples. Having been left empty in 2016 when the Glasgow’s Sikh community moved to their new build, The New Central Gurdwara Singh Sahba, our footballers, now team handed, made a pitch to the Sikh community to use it, with the purpose to serve those in need.

The Sikh community agreed and now they have possession, all manner of plans is afoot! Some of these are not quite out of the dressing room yet and there’s a lot to tackle when it comes to keeping up the building but, from what I’ve heard of the game plan, they will be kicking off with a daily pass of hot meals to our homeless people, with shelter and support for anyone who needs it thrown in.

This week’s high-falutin’ conundrum:

An inclination of the cranium is akin to an inflection of the optical lens to an equine quadruped devoid of the visionary sense.

You know you’re old when: Getting up from the couch comes with its own soundtrack.

Last week’s high-falutin’ conundrum:

‘Ornithological specimens of identical plumage habitually congregate in the closest possible proximity’.

Answer: Birds of a feather flock together.