From Montrose to Man Utd, Murray and the Miracle at Medinah and it's all thanks to the Daily Record – David McCarthy

"The Atlantic stretches out endlessly in front of him in seven shades of blue.

The breeze rarely lifts its voice above a whisper and the waves come ashore so timidly you can almost hear them apologising for licking at sand the colour of the pistacchio ice cream they sell in the beach hut cafe.

Yes, Paul Crosbie is a long way from Dumfries on a wet February.”

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The guy who wrote this back in 2004 - yours truly - about a 27-year-old Scot who found himself the manager of the Turks & Caicos international team as it embarked on a World Cup qualifying campaign, had also travelled a long way from his roots in Glasgow’s Arden housing scheme. For that, I thank the Daily Record. In time-honoured tradition, it was the only paper I ever wanted to work on and from the age of 10, looking at that huge tower block of stone and glass on the left hand side as I crossed the Kingston Bridge, it was an ambition.

It took me until I was 32. Those were the days when you did the hard yards as local and regional papers before, maybe, getting the call from the nationals. The call came 29 years ago this month. This weekend, I’m hanging up on a career dominated by deadlines and headlines and whatever follows isn’t going to have the adrenaline rush of ripping up a 1000 word match report when a last minute goal changes everything, but I can live with that.

I’ve always subscribed to the theory that those who can, do. Those who can’t? They write about those who can.

I’ve spent half my life writing about the people who can do things in the sporting arena that mere mortals like myself can only dream about. Now it’s time to look up and actually watch a goal being scored without checking what minute it happened in, who provided the assist or who cocked up