The Mick McManus of North soccer no longer provides 90 minute emotional upheavals for paying spectators on Saturday afternoons. The burly jaw-jutting figure who was the villain of so many pieces from Brora to Buckie for 19 seasons, now sits as near sedately as ever Ally Chisholm could be imagined to sit, getting a grandstand’s eye view of a Highland League scene which is less colourful for his retiral.
There he was at Kingsmills Park the other day wearing a bright purple shirt and cheering on Qualifying Cup minnows Golspie.
"I couldn’t watch any football match without choosing one team and supporting it fervently," he explains. "You know me - I’ve got to get involved.
It seems strange to see Chisholm as a spectator after almost two decades as defensive lynch pins of his beloved Clach.
The modern game caught up with Ally and they say that you can’t stop progress.... but certainly, one can regret the fact that football’s tactical trends demand conformity and threaten to make dinosaurs of the dwindling bunch of real characters. "The Highland League is just not the same" says Ally "In the old days every team had a player the crowd latched on to - the Dod Buchans, the Andy Mitchells, the Ginger Mackenzies. Now the whole face of the game has changed. Formations restrict individual play. The standard of football has risen greatly - but there is not so much for the supporter to shout about."
The old cliche "the man the fans love to hate" must have been coined with Ally in mind. Like Mick McManus he delighted in making the opposing fans howl with rage... and achieved this object with laudable consistency.
He collected bookings as if they were stamps - yet was never sent off. "There wasn’t a ref. fly enough to pull me off" he says cheerfully. Some supporters reckon he was the dirtiest player of the decade, but the real dirty players tap ankles, pull shirts and go over the top on the referees blind side and in sneaky stealthy fashion.
Ally’s fouls had all the subtlety of a Chieftain tank and all the stealth of a Zulu uprising. He gave notice of illegal intentions by dilating his nostrils, baring his teeth and gathering up a twenty-yard head of steam before launching a kamikaze attack on his trembling target.
His favourite description of the opposition, no matter how many goals they led Clach by, was "rubbish". Caley never beat Clach on merit... the reasons for the Telford Street team’s many victories ranging from lily livered linesmen and myopic referees to intervention by the dark forces.
When Ally came upfield for a corner kick or a free kick it was with as much advance preparation as a Himalayan expedition.
His own forwards were often irritated by the fact that Ally’s interpretation of a telling through pass was to hammer the ball 40 yards over the head of the most convenient forward and then shout: "There you are, get after it." But no one who ever played with or against him ever suggested that Ally Chisholm gave less than his all each and every time he wore Clach’s black and white.
A flash or phase of vintage Chisholm would brighten up - or liven up - the dullest game. He loved to get the crowd going...and the more they barracked him the better he would play.
"I know I was a character - and I revelled in it. I played for a wonderful club and I was completely wrapped up in doing my best for them for 19 seasons. It’s been very hard this season to watch Clach - I’m bracing myself for every tackle. But I’ve no regrets. It was fun while it lasted."