Terry Butcher: Yule never believe how I saw the light

I WAS asked to turn on the Christmas lights in Coalburn, Lanarkshire this week and believe me it was so cold the old horse chestnuts were in danger of dropping off.

But this was no ordinary event to kick-start the festive celebrations.

It took place at the home of councillor Danny Meikle, whose house regularly features on TV because, when the lights finally go on, the electricity grid is in danger of meltdown.

I swear to God I felt like Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.

All the neighbours from the surrounding houses came out, there were TV cameras everywhere and then some bloke reminded me that it all went pear-shaped last year when the lights didn't come on.

I was trying to contain my laughter as I stood outside this house, freezing to death, before giving a brief speech and switching the lights on.

Believe me, I have never seen so many decorations on one house in all my life.

Thankfully it all went to plan, and when the lights did come on, the temperature soared from -4 to about +40. Suddenly I thought I was in the Caribbean.

It was all in a good cause though because councillor Meikle collects money from the local community and gives it to the Yorkhill Children's hospital in Glasgow.

That said, I did have to warn councillor Meikle that a plane might land in his back garden, mistaking it for Glasgow Airport.

Prior to that, on Tuesday, I took Rita to a reserve game at Hibernian.

I know Gordon Strachan regularly takes his wife to games and then splashes out on a fish-and-chip supper, but having come from Lowestoft in East Anglia - where we lived off the damn stuff - I knew that wouldn't go down well.

As it was, I had to drag Rita out of the house kicking and screaming until I mentioned that I had booked us into this upmarket restaurant in Leith called Martin Wishart's, who happens to be the chef and the proprietor.

The truth is, a football agent got me in because the place is booked up well in advance. I didn't pay him a fee and if I'd known how much it would cost I would have charged him for mistaking me for one of his millionaire clients.

It did give me a really good idea though.

I thought about pulling off the scam Paul Sturrock did when he was at Plymouth, by conning the local paper into giving him his own column in the Good Food Guide. It's true, he went and ate out at restaurants for free - and if you know Paul like I do, he's the last person in the world you would send to restaurants to run the rule over their food.

I was the youth team coach at Dundee United in the late 90s when Paul was manager and a few of us would often travel down South to watch games.

Paul's taste in food left a lot to be desired.

He would stop off at the local service station and buy pork pies, scotch eggs, a big bag of Pringles and wash it down with a can of coke.

And he wondered why his figure was on the round side?

Anyhow I closed the week by having a laugh at the expense of the local TV station. On Fridays they normally do a round-up of games with the managers of every SPL club. If you're lucky you get about 10 seconds on air.

It was so freezing I decided to turn up for the interview in this big Russian, furry hat with ears that come down like Deputy Dog. The presenter just fell about laughing when he saw me and at the end of it the interviewer nicked my hat and ran off across the pitch, with me in pursuit.

They thought it was so funny that they scrapped the interviews with other managers and just televised the interview with me in this hat.

I close by mentioning my book - and hopefully for the last time.

Due to this column, my autobiography has had so many plugs I think the publishers are thinking of submitting it to the Guinness Book of Records.

Seriously, the book has been short-listed by William Hill for the Sports Book of the Year and tomorrow the awards take place at a prestigious venue in London.

I wanted to go but thought better of it.

After all I've taken so much time off from Motherwell to do autograph signings I thought this might raise some eyebrows in the boardroom.

The last thing I want is a vote of confidence for skiving off to an awards ceremony.

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