info@businessghana.com
1994 wasn't exactly a landmark year in Scottish football, but it was certainly a memorable one. Celtic faced financial meltdown, Raith Rovers won the League Cup, Rangers claimed their sixth league title in a row, and the Scotland national team missed out on the World Cup Finals for the first time since 1970.
But something else happened that year: the very first episode of Off the Ball was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. It was also very nearly the last.
A new television documentary airing on BBC Scotland this week - Off the Ball: Petty and Ill-informed - charts the inside story of this anarchic programme, exploring why it now holds a place in Scotland's cultural landscape 25 years on.
Presented by Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan - the 'odd couple of Scottish football' - it represents ordinary fans across Scotland, while also pushing boundaries and poking fun at the ludicrousness of our national game.
If you wind the clock back to the early 1990s, Scottish football coverage tended to be deferential and Celtic and Rangers dominated the headlines (some will say not much has really changed). Football fans had no voice, the internet was in its infancy and supporters had no place to vent their anger at the state of their clubs.
What emerged during this time was an underground magazine movement made by ordinary football supporters: the fanzine. They were an edgy, cut-and-paste antidote to the mainstream media, often underpinned by a sense of humour that was usually only found on terraces or in the pub.
Broadcaster Jim Spence wrote for the Dundee United fanzine, The Final Hurdle.
"The fanzine movement was the first big challenge to the kind of traditional press," Spence explains. "It was a way of pricking the pomposity of those in power who really had no time for the average fan and thought that they shouldn't have a view."
The BBC had already enjoyed success with football television programmes such as Standing Room Only and Fantasy Football League, both of which had tapped directly into fanzine culture. BBC Scotland wanted in on the act, and a new fanzine-inspired radio phone-in show was born: Off the Ball.
Greg Hemphill is now a veteran of Scottish comedy through Chewin' the Fat and Still Game
The first episode of the new programme was broadcast at 17:30 on Saturday, 19 August 1994, and made an immediate impact. It was hosted by comedian Greg Hemphill with studio sidekicks including fellow Still Game star Sanjeev Kohli and Cowan, a fanzine columnist for the Glasgow Evening Times.
Then Scottish FA chief executive Jim Farry was an immediate target on the first episode, described by one caller as "the mutant son of Adolf Hitler", which led to Farry threatening the BBC with legal action.
The original producer of the show, Alan De Pellette, believes Off the Ball was unlike anything heard in Scotland before, and created a stir.
"It launched with an almighty bang," he says. "No question about that. By the Monday morning, we were concerned that the first show might be the last. We were threatened with a libel suit and the negotiations went on right up to the wire, until the second show, and we survived with an apology."
From the outset, Off the Ball's intent was clear and unrelenting. On one occasion, Hemphill stripped naked and hijacked an Scottish FA news conference at Hampden. Off the Ball was certainly off piste.
By the end of its first season in May 1995, it had built up a firm following, but the future was uncertain and its anarchic 'zoo radio' format didn't appeal to everyone.
"Initially it was a car crash," says author Christopher Brookmyre. "It was a terribly misbegotten mishmash. The main thing that struck me about it was that people were on it because of their comedy background, but they didn't necessarily know much about football."
For Cowan, it was unclear if his fledgling career in broadcasting would come to an abrupt halt. "I didn't know if the show was going to continue," he explains. "It had almost been like a wee experiment."
Original co-presenter Kohli enjoyed the buzz of working on the show, but acknowledged that it definitely needed a host with a solid knowledge of the Scottish game.
"They wanted someone that was more a fan of Scottish football and knew the ins and outs of Scottish football - which Greg doesn't, which I don't," says Kohli.
For the 1995-96 season, Off the Ball's line-up was dismantled and a new host was sought; someone who could combine an anti-establishment sensibility with solid football knowledge. Enter Stuart Cosgrove.
"The first year of the show wasn't quite working," he says. "There had been criticism coming from within the football industry that they didn't like its anarchic approach."
Cosgrove was already an experienced broadcaster, but was also a writer, an academic and a Channel Four television executive who was football daft. He agreed to take over with Cowan as his side-kick.
Over the ensuing years, their unique partnership spoke directly to supporters across Scotland, while targeting the "big boys" of Scottish football, and underpinning it all with sharp wit and humour.
Off the Ball finally became the on-air fanzine it had set out to be a year earlier.
In the 25 years since it landed on our radios, Off the Ball has evolved with technology and media trends, but has somehow managed to remain relevant and true to its fanzine roots.
A chance booking of Scottish soul singer Christian McClure in 1999 opened the programme up to the world of entertainment, and the arrival of the Scottish Parliament brought an even wider pool of guests.
When then first minister Henry McLeish appeared on the programme in 2000, Tam pulled a gun on him live on air to test the efficiency of his security team. After that, celebrities and politicians lined up to be laughed at, including presenter Lorraine Kelly, actor Brian Cox and singer Amy Macdonald.
Topics on the show are often unrelated to Scottish football, and Off the Ball has now become a window into Scotland's past and present. From raging about the placement of apostrophes to correctly pronouncing the surname of Celtic's much-maligned Brazilian defender Rafael Felipe Scheidt - it now holds a unique place in Scottish life.
Cosgrove adds: "I think what we've done is we've fashioned a show that touches the nerves of Scottish people and their attitudes to laughing at themselves."
Off the Ball: Petty and Ill-Informed tells the remarkable story of how a football fanzine programme became a national institution. As broadcaster Kirsty Wark says, if Off the Ball didn't exist, it would have to be invented.
"As long as football is such an important sport in Scotland - and I can't see it ever not being - then you need a show like this," she says.
'Off the Ball: Petty and Ill-Informed' will be broadcast on BBC Scotland on Wednesday, 18 December at 22:00 GMT and repeated on Friday, 20 December at 23:00
