I want you to look in your crystal ball. The speaker was the sports editor, who was casually throwing pieces of barbecued deputy sports editor to his pet sharks who have used the rising damp in the office to some effect. The crystal ball is more difficult to explain. Suffice to say, it was all the result of my central position in a defensive wall, dropping temperatures, a centre forward with the kick of a seriously cross mule and a Mouldmaster.

Anyway.

It is the time of year to look to the future, said Mr 666 (he cheats at snakes and ladders), performing a manicure of a young sub-editor with a series of bamboo shoots. Unfortunately for me, it takes all mytime to look for my car keys. Iwas watching the world's strongest man programme on the telly the other day as I could not find my keys or my life. Anyway, the competitors were all pulling trucks with a rope attached to their waist. Ifelt like shouting: "I know you have lost your keys, but there's no need to go to those lengths. TheAAwill help out."

Anyway.

Mr 666 wanted me to look forward for St Mirren. But StMirren only exists in everybody's rear-view mirror, I protested. Oncewe start believing that Paisley is the future, we will be creating ourvery own Zombie movie. And St Mirren is very much of my past, like wetting the bed. Though the StMirren episode took place more than two weeks ago.

Anyway.

The Buddies are leaving LoveStreet today. A legion mourns. And I have my memories, too. Thereading of Endless Love by BillLeckie (Macdonald Media, £9.99), the Buddie who can never spare a dime, has provoked some emotion. It is a mind-boggling, rambunctious rant. This is a compliment. Beware football books that have no passion. It is my only piece of advice. Well, that and never stand in a defensive wall within 10yards of a Mouldmaster.

Leckie fulminates with wit and witters with some fulmination for more than 200 pages. It is impossible to agree with all of it. Indeed, I don't know if Bill agrees with all of it. But, like the vet facing a very large rottweiler armed only with a pea-shooter, it is impossible to put down. It is an ode to football, a boyish wink at the beautiful game. It is, supremely, a love letter to Love Street. And I loved it. Not least because it is where I made my professional debut in senior football.

It was the early seventies and Stan Park, legend and sports writer of the Paisley Daily Express, was on holiday. I was called from the bench. This bench was situated several miles up the road, where Iconstructed paragraphs of praise to Johnstone Burgh. These paragraphs were so large that they had their own weather systems, police forces, several post codes, two time zones and a vast, sprawling veldt where intelligent life should have existed but was strangled by gangs of crude similes and unnecessary oxymorons.

I was the McIlvanney manque. Not only had I not washed behind my ears, I was more than partial to a piece of writing so verdant the paper should have come with a bag of manure. Indeed, some readers on perusing my guff insisted that the manure was already there.

Big Shug in London wrote with a flourish, Big Nose Shug in Johnstone wrote with a flurry. Ormaybe a slurry.

Anyway.

The bright lights of Paisley beckoned and I took my space in Stan's seat. I was as nervous as Salman Rushdie at a pre-Haj party. This was my big break. Atleast until Mr 666 administered an affectionate tap on my skull with hisknobkerrie decades later, fracturing my skull in two places, both of them on my head. The match passed in a blur. I returned to New Street to write a piece that rivalled Decline and Fall in length but a Jackson Pollock in colour.

This was the big-time, I enthused, chomping on my fish supper as Iwaited for my train later in Gilmour Street. And it was. The deal was simple. Somebody had sent me to a fitba' match, paid me for doing so and now people were going to read my verdict. And more than 30 years on, that incredible state of affairs has continued, obviously without the paying bit. And the people reading me.

I will not head out to Love Street today. I will leave it to the Buddies. The press box will be crammed withGMac and baby Ennis, Dougie of the Sinday Tome, RobertGrievious, Charles from the Beeb and Mr Leckie himself. Itwould be almost an intrusion into private grief for me to barge in.

But I will remember that LoveStreet was where this marvellous life as a sports writer had its beginnings. For that, I am eternally grateful. Others have another view. There are reports thatlovers of good writing are preparing to dismantle Love Street with their own hands.