OF all the potential prizes that are up for grabs in tomorrow’s archetypal David and Goliath meeting in the Scottish Cup between Albion Rovers and Celtic, it is a three-course meal that is motivating one particular household with vested interests.
That’s what is at stake between flatmates Ryan Christie and Callum Ferguson, childhood friends and present-day lodgers as they find themselves on opposite sides as the battle-lines are drawn at the Excelsior Stadium.
To claim the reward, all that either player must do is score in the game. If both find the net, it is presumed they will go Dutch.
“I’ve barely seen him actually because I’ve been away in Dubai,” Christie said. “He’s been winding me up that I was away in the sun and he was playing in a mudbath at the weekend.
“We’ve spoken a bit about the game, but we’re keeping our cards close to our chest as of now.
“It will be very strange. I don’t really know how it will feel. Obviously he wants to win and I want to win. We are both very competitive people.
“We play FIFA all the time but even in little things around the flat it is about trying to get the better of the other one.
“I am not a bad cook but he is terrible. If I score, it might be a trip out to a restaurant.”
The friendly wager aside, there is no doubt that for Celtic man Christie, the match could carry weighty significance for his future prospects in the green and white. Flirting around the edges of the first-team this season, he has impressed in his fleeting cameos, but this clash against League One opposition may hand him a significant opportunity to influence the thinking of his manager.
And while he would have liked to have clocked up more minutes in the starting eleven, he is keen to showcase the fact that he too has benefited from his boss’s knack for improving the players under his charge.
“From the start of the season looking back to where I am now, I can 100 per cent say I’ve improved my game in all sorts of different aspects,” he said.
“The boys have all had to start again and start learning his ideas.”
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