THE covers laid over the Station Park surface and the grafting of local volunteers in the Forfar area appear to have given the club's Scottish Cup tie against Rangers a chance of going ahead this lunchtime, pending a morning inspection. Frost, freezes, and flurries of snow have framed the occasion. Yet, for two employees of the Third Division side with the warmth to melt polar ice-caps, the Sky-screened encounter could amount to one of their last days in the footballing sun.
Step forward Derek Lilley, 17 years a pro footballer, during which time he has served 10 clubs. Most notably Leeds, Dundee United and Livingston, whom he scored for in their 2004 League Cup final win. On leaving St Johnstone two years ago, he thought
his times playing games that engendered national interest had passed.
Step forward manager Dick Campbell, 40 years in the game, part of a successful Dunfermline coaching team, but more recently an ebullient, blunt speaker portrayed as a footballing antiquity following his sackings by Partick Thistle and, nuttily, when he was top of the Second Division at Ross County.
Striker Lilley, who will turn 35 tomorrow, has Campbell to thank for the chance to complete an unexpected Old Firm cup double, after appearing as a substitute for Stirling Albion against Celtic last season.
"In the summer I wasn't in the frame of mind to pursue a club," Lilley says. "If it comes to an end, it comes to an end, I thought. Then Dick called, I was on the phone to him for over an hour, despite keeping telling him I had to go. He said if I came here it would be fun and an adventure. With his enthusiasm, I knew it would be."
It is impossible not to enjoy the company of Campbell, to luxuriate in tales of his colourful ways and language. Like the time his rallying call to a team he said could not dare to be on the end of cup shock was simply: "Tora! tora! tora". Or when, after sacking players for indiscipline at Thistle, he stated publicly he was sending out a message: "And that is: do not f*** about."
"He can be inspiring, frus... can go for the old-school team talks," says Lilley, who is excited about playing in front of 5,000 at a stadium he has seen hold no more than a 10th of that.
"He has dealt with all kinds of players in all situations and is well versed in what to say and how to deliver it. Players know exactly where they stand."
At Forfar, the players stand among a Campbell clan with Dick's twin brother Ian his assistant and his son Ross on the playing staff.
"There are too many of them for my liking," smiles Lilley. "And now Big Toddy (former Dunfermline player Andy Tod] has come, and he's like a step son. There is a real close connection and all the Fifers are creeping in. It is a funny situation for Ross having his dad and uncle coach him, but he must have been used to it all his life. It is funny for us that the two of them look so alike, but only from a distance now. Pink (Ian] is a wee bit fitter than Dick. Get a side shot of them and you know who's who."
The "good craic" with which both brothers oil their footballing wheels is clearly infectious for Lilley, who is finding himself the butt(on] of jokes for his day job as a salesman for Cadbury's. "The other players say I earn buttons and the like, but I really enjoy being out and about after finding office life was not for me."
He quit a bank post after finding nine to five in the "claustrophobic confines" of the four walls of an HBOS branch left him "suicidal".
"It was all doom and gloom with the credit crunch," Lilley says. "It was rumours all the time and I wanted to go rather than be pushed."
In his football career, Campbell has been denied that luxury, except when leaving Brechin City for the full-time position at Firhill in 2005. His grinning earthiness seems to have been frowned upon by certain chairmen. Most pointedly, when he was fulfilling the 'successful promotion push or else' remit at Ross County in 2007, but was bumped after three months because his football was reputedly "too defensive".
"I was at Stewart Petrie's going-away party at Ross County last week, so I've no axe to grind with anyone. It was a shock, there was a conflict of interest, but we are all governed by confidentiality.
"It goes both ways. I am lucky in life that no-one, not a player or director, has ever dobbed me in. That is because I never say anything bad about people in public either. I don't think I've failed at anything I've done in my life. I was second at Dunfermline when John Yorkston decided he wanted to bring in Jimmy Calderwood and got Thistle promotion and brought down their debt. That's fitba'. You might be initially left with a bad taste but life's no' a rehearsal, you have to get on with it."
Campbell has to get on and "hire and fire" as a business development manager for Avenue Scotland, the company in which his brother is MD. He works for Ian by day, and has him work for him at night. "Fitba's great, I love the training nights, saves me from going hame and watching the telly, talking to the wife, things like that."
Campbell says he "honestly doesn't give a monkey's" about the result against Rangers that will see him pitted against great mucker Walter Smith, a pal way back from their days together at Dundee United. "The relationship I have with Wattie is special, but come the game you can stick your friendship up your jacksie."
He says he won't give it "all that boring stuff" about keeping it tight, holding Rangers out when it comes to giving his last address to his team, but tell them they must dream, believe it is their day.
"I say to the players every week 'these are the best days of your lives, now go and enjoy yourself'. They are wound up like 10-bob watches already. If they do well, they will have credibility and a DVD they can show their bairns for the rest of their lives. That will be my team talk."
The full article contains 1101 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
