So CalJack, why have you decided to start this mad hipster blogging shenanigans? I can imagine a couple people being curious as to why i have decided to take a venture into the glamorous world of blogging. To answer you curious folk, there is a variety of reasons. The idea of a blog first came about last May after a trip to Links Park in Montrose to see Queens lose the first leg of the relegation play off 2-1, i found the ground itself a great small ground with plenty of character and despite the result i thoroughly enjoyed the setting which lead to me and my flatmate discuss the idea of creating a website and discussing our experiences, opinions and issues regarding football. At that time i had just finished university, didn’t have a job and was wasting my days away in the flat applying for jobs so the motivation to start a blog was non-existent although the idea remained. As the year progressed, i found work, graduated and started volunteering, these all seem like positive steps and in many ways they are but over the course of the second half of 2019 I had the growing feeling of loneliness which has lead to lack of motivation, laziness and a constant feeling of tiredness. So at the beginning of 2020 i had to step back from myself and assess my situation.

When i look at myself i see someone getting left behind, my girlfriend and family are in another town, my friends are either moving on in a new town or moving on with their partners, that just leaves me here just existing in my own bubble. I need to start putting more effort into reaching my full potential and concentrate more on my career goals. I’ve therefore set myself a series of goals for the year (which I’ll keep to myself) which i hope will help with self-improvement, lend me motivation, improve my self-worth and improve my confidence. Now what does all this whining, feeling sorry for myself and goals talk have to do with a football blog? Doing this blog i feel will help occupy my brain, it’s a creative hobby, it’s going to give me a sense of structure if i aim to post at certain times on certain days, it will hopefully motivate me in other aspects of my life. Ultimately this is going to be a football blog but from time to time if i feel like letting people know how i feel, i feel this blog will be a great escape for me to do that. There is a great stigma about men discussing how they feel, i want to play my small part in breaking that stigma. So that’s enough of the personal and ‘deep’ matters lets lift the spirits and move on to the name of my blog.

The name ‘No Composure’ took around half an hour to come to, names such as ‘Pie and Bovril’, ‘A View From The Terrace’ and ‘Off The Ball’ were inspirations, they lead me to think about myself at football games. I came to realise the thing that frustrates me the most about watching football the most is the composure of players and i’m constantly in the stands, head in hands shouting ‘Where’s the Composure!’. For me, composure is one of the most underestimated qualities a footballer can have, the ability to stay calm on the ball, to place the ball rather than leather it, to play the right pass, to know when to pass or dribble, to know when you should clear the ball or bring it down, all of this ties into composure, an ability in players i personally love to see. As a Queen of the South fan the luxury of being able to watch players with amazing all round composure is most of the time few and far between. If we look at Lyndon Dykes in a Queens shirt his composure last season when deciding to pass, when to dribble and having is head up was second to none, however, in front of goal the composure to calmly slot the ball or home or place the ball was lacking in my opinion, many shots he panicked and placed just wide or far too close to the keeper. This season from what I’ve seen of him the composure is there, he’s calmer in front of goals the goal against Raith Rovers in the cup highlighted that for me. I am very rarely critical of Sir Stephen Dobbie however, he does at times lack the composure to play the pass or cross the ball opting to shoot instead. What frustrates me is that i know he has the composure in him to do it but put Sir Stephen in a 1 on 1 i back him 100% of the time he’s the calmest man on earth in them positions. A player that perhaps lost composure with age was John Rankin. There were often times the ball would be cleared to him from a corner, rather than look up turn, play the pass, Rankin would just hoof it over his head and give the opposition the ball straight back. What Rankin lacked in composure he made up for in energy but again from a personal stand point i love a player with composure over energy. I think you probably get the gist of what i mean by composure by now but trust me in future blogs I’ll discuss further the beauty of composure that I’ve seen in other players.

So to quickly round off this introductory blog i’m gonna hit you with a few ideas i have. I’m really keen to do a series called ‘CalJack’s greatest matches’ where i’ll talk about the best matches of football I’ve attended or watched give a run down of the ground, fans and match itself. I am also interested in maybe doing a ‘This Week in Football’ sort of thing where i’ll discuss mostly Scottish football that week unless something major in world football has happened. I’ll have more ideas over time don’t worry. I know the layout and punctuation of this intro may not be great but it’ll improve in time the more serious I start to take this the better the quality is going to get. So be sure to subscribe to hear a random Scottish boy’s thoughts on football and life from time to time.