CATCH THAT PIGEON
2 02 2008A story for saturday.
I used to play football in the Glasgow Catholic Primary schools league. I do believe I was also the first player to be sent off in that league. I was 10 years old and outraged by a decision so I called the referee a ’speccy (bespectacled) wank’. I was also sent off in another game for a tackle which could probably be justly described as assault. A waist-high two footed lunge. In my own defence, we were already losing three-nil and I didn’t want the little bastard to score a hat-trick. It’s contrition central here today eh?
The story is from a different game though.
I think I was 11 and I was the goalkeeper and was standing in goals watching the play, which was at the other end of the pitch.
I heard a thud on my right side and turned round and couldn’t see what had made the noise so I looked back to the game. There was a bit of action at my side of the pitch and then when it was back at the other side I looked around and saw a dead pigeon lying just to the right of my goal. I was a bit surprised by this - after all, they don’t just drop out of the air when they die do they?
I kicked it off the pitch and got back on with the game.
Ten minutes later there was another thud and I saw another pigeon lying a few metres away from the first.
Right, what the f*ck is going on here?
Obviously during the game was not the time to begin investigations but I was trying to look around whenever I got the chance. I was racking my brains wondering if I had heard anything on the news about a pigeon disease or something.
After ruling out this possibility I started scanning the side of the pitch and the sky in general but came up with nothing.
Later on I heard a couple of people arguing somewhere but couldn’t see them. Then I heard a crack over to my right side. I looked up at the building on the right side of the pitch and there were two teenagers with an air rifle taking shots at the pigeons.
When they noticed that I had noticed them they waved and were very cheerful about it.
It is not at all that I am upset about the loss of a couple of pigeons that makes me think about this story, nor is it the wanton cruelty.
It is 2 things.
The first is simply how strange I thought the episode was at the time and the second is that that is someones idea of fun.
Well, pigeons are pretty loathsome - greasy winged rats which strut about bobbing their heads like the House of Commons when the party whip comes around, or else throwing bits of discarded food all over the place like, well, the House of Commons at trough time. Verminous things.
The little bastard that lives behind me has a gun and is always shooting birds and cats.
On the radio yesterday was an hour long program by this gal that has a program called “Speaking of Faith” . She was so impressed that her preacher grandfather killed a snake that frightened her and she compared it to the fight between good and evil. It really bugs me that humans look at animals and decide that some can live and some must die because we might hate their method of locomotion or whatever. Killing for the pleasure of it is only slightly less repulsive than torturing for pleasure such as bullfighting, dog fighting, and rodeo.