Real Breakfast Show presenter Robin Galloway talks to our very own roving reporter John Bleasdale on his programme’s National Pride.

Robin's Scottish Passion Is No Wind Up!!

Hampden 1976! Over 100,000 fans cram into Scotland’s Football home for the visit of England. The sun is shining, Kenny Dalglish embarrases Ray Clemence and the Tartan Army celebrate another triumph over the Auld Enemy.    What a time for Real Radio presenter Robin Galloway to attend his first ever Scotland game – and he nearly missed it due to a broken ankle. However a fifteen-year-old Galloway took out desperate measures in deceiving his parents to ensure he made the journey south from his hometown in Aberdeen to be there.The Real Breakfast show host took time out to share those early memories with Tartan Army Magazine when he also revealed a certain colleague inspired his fashion sense.

Of his first Hampden experience, Galloway said: “I had just got a perm copying Alan Rough – I’ve never told him this actually. We took the train down, got the Scottish Special from Aberdeen with my perm. I thought I’d broken my ankle about a month before and I had the stookie and everything on and it was a case of ‘right you’re not going to the Scotland game, you’ve got a stookie on it’s not happening’. So I got a bread knife and cut it off so I could go to the game just to prove that I was alright. So I cut the plaster off and as a result got to the game.” 

Robin’s passion for his country has never left him since and every International week he, in conjunction with co-host Cat Harvey, does his bit to get the nation up for a Scotland game. 

The best case of this was undoubtedly during the Euro 2008 campaign when Scotland ran World Cup Finalists France and Italy very close - before agonisingly missing out in the closing stages of that heartbreaking final game at Hampden against the Italians. 

Robin said of the campaign: “It was phenomenal. When it comes to International week, when it comes to your country, the great thing is it’s open to everybody and everybody can take part, join in, there’s no real rivalry and if there is it’s friendly not like the Old Firm or Hearts and Hibs or Aberdeen and Dundee United. It’s something we can go on as a Regional Breakfast Show and talk about and know everyone wants to be a part of it. That was the case for both French games and certainly the Italy game when we really really did think we were gonna do it.” 

In the week leading up to the Italy game, the Real Breakfast Show used their popularity to promote one of the most bizarre songs in broadcast history when a regular listener called to sing The Wallpaper Song. It became one of the most requested tracks on the station for that week, as Robin explains. “That was Ricky from Musselbrough. He phoned in one day, I don’t know why he phoned in but he just phoned in the lead up to one of the games – probably was the Italy game – and sang The Wallpaper song down the phone; we’d never heard it before. It went ‘and the wallpaper sticks to the wall’ then second verse ‘and the wallpaper sticks to the wall’. We ran with it and started playing it then people were phoning up and asking about it so we just kept playing it. By the end of the week, people were requesting it, people were phoning up the jukebox and asking for it. We were singing it right through the game and people were singing it, it was crazy. There’s a lot of it on youtube actually, it was a phenomenon.” 

You may by now be thinking “how bizarre” but those who are regular listeners to the Real Breakfast Show were not surprised by the popularity of The Wallpaper Song – they’ve heard it all before.

Prior to another World Cup without this proud nation and with the cries of “England expects” assaulting our ears, Real Radio campaigned to get a song about a St Johnstone striker into the charts. 

The aptly named Jason Scotland of Trinidad and Tobabgo was in their squad for the 2006 Finals in Germany and, by coincidence, were drawn to face England in their group. 

Scottish Quest posted a song in his honour on their website and, with help from the Real Breakfast Show amongst others, launched the single which got into the top 40 Singles Chart – meaning every English radio station had to play it. 

Robin said: “They got in contact with us, we’d heard it a couple of times. We were going to do something on our own, looking to write our own but they beat us to it. We kind of liked that and we went with it and got it into the charts. We were the first broadcaster to play it and certainly played it more than any other station did. There was a little bit of love-hate relationship with it at first where it was like ‘that’s brilliant’ ‘that’s rubbish’, Scotland’s like that; they call a spade ‘a spade’. After a while it grew arms and legs and led to us doing the Trinidad and Tobago Breakfast show on the run up to it. They (Trinidad and Tobago) couldn’t believe that we were getting behind them instead of England and they were delighted. It was great, they ran us from their show and we ran them from ours and apparently their programme controller who was quite muscley wanted a kilt. The broadcaster on air said (Robin quotes in Jamaican accent) ‘if you’re going to get him a kilt you’d better make him a long one". 

Prior to the Jason Scotland phenomenon, Robin had announced on air he was doing the unthinkable in supporting England. However, this was all to wind up Cat and the nation and was quick to dismiss any thoughts he would side with the Auld Enemy – and wasn’t slow in slating the English media along the way. 

“I think they are self-centred, I think they’re arrogant” he said. “It’s the commentators that probably rile us more than anybody else in the ‘how long is it going before they mention 1966’: it happens all the time. They’re a professional body of broadcasters, they do a good job but there’s no doubt they revel in it. They know they’re doing it though they’ll deny it but they know they’re trying to wind us up I have no doubt in that. It’ll be very interesting to see how they act when we do manage to qualify – which I really do hope that 2010 is going to be the one – and how they treat us and how they report it.” 

The Jason Scotland and Wallpaper songs are just two examples in what makes the Real Breakfast Show so popular. Another massive reason is the now legendary Wind-up phone calls, which has created the characters Hector Brocklebank and Old Mrs Galloway. 

Robin has wound up many an unsuspecting person from the regular punter through work colleague to Donald Trump and said of the Wind-ups: “It all started when I was working with Northsound in Aberdeen when we used to do a thing called ‘the early morning call’. I used to phone people up when it was their birthday or to get them up for work. There was this one guy who was still half asleep that said ‘aye aye leave the keys in the letterbox aye’ and I start stringing him along. Then people phoned up at the end of the call saying ‘aye that was really funny, you should do that sort of thing more often’. So then we started getting the nominations coming in and coming up with the characters Old Mrs Galloway and Hector and the rest is history.” 

Whilst the Wind-up’s are popular, the undoubted reason why people tune into the Real Breakfast Show is due to the camaraderie between Robin and Cat and the things they talk about. Their relationship is great on air and is definitely the case away from the mikes, as Robin explains: “What you hear is what you get. Cat and I have been working for about four years together now, we’ve never had a fallout and for two people who work and see as much of each other as we do you would imagine we would be at each others throats but that’s never happened – and I hope it never does. We have fun; she’s a fantastic girl, brilliant media operator, best in the business, great to work with, a joy to come in in the morning and have a laugh with her.” 

Robin also added: “She’s got the qualities of a girl plus a few blokes qualities thrown in as well. She’d be your ideal partner or wife because she’d let you watch the football – infact there would be no question because she’d be watching it as well. She goes to more Scotland games than most blokes I know. She’s a fantastic girl and a really great friend as well.” 

The success of Real Radio is down to a great team environment that comes across very strongly on air with the relationships between all colleagues and their listeners. Robin emphasised this strongly and he said; “That has been the success of Real Radio and that there’s been what’s known in the trade as – it’s a bit of a cheesy name – ‘Stationality’. We eat together, we drink together, we got out together and we hit it off well. The guys, every single one of them, wants all the shows to do well. When the station ratings come out, of course you look for your own figures first, you want to see everyone doing well. It’s very much like a team effort and that’s what makes Real Radio successful – not just the Breakfast Show that’s successful, ALL the shows are successful and we have a genuine regard and liking for everybody and get on very well together. I’ve worked at an awful lot of stations and that’s NEVER been the case before. It’s quite a bitchy industry, it can be a bit selfish sometimes, a lot of people worry when their ratings come out – not here, it’s not the case.” 

Regarding the listeners, Robin simply said: “Best callers ever! If the caller doesn’t make the station then they provide us with the content. We try to talk about what we think the nations talking about, even when going to Asda and listening to what people are talking about and try to replicate that.” 

The Breakfast Show has proven to be popular with a fair number of the Tartan Army over the years – but not as popular as the Tartan Army are with Robin. He said, correctly, of them: “The greatest band of football supporting people ever! Best sense of humour and most articulate sense of humour of any supporting band ever. The songs, the entertainment, the fact that they self-police and are NEVER in trouble. That is a big two fingers up to the English fans. They’re amazing and will follow their team until the end of the earth.” 

The Real Breakfast Show has many a discussion about the most random things but you can bet your life that the National team will continue to be a talking point during this campaign where, hopefully, all roads will lead to South Africa in 2010. 

“I would be the happiest man in the world if we got there” said Robin. “It will be hard but it would be fantastic. The World Cup for me is the pinnacle of International Football it’s the crème-de-la-crème.” 

Lets all hope that we’ll be marching all the way to South Africa and it’s guaranteed that, if we get there, Robin and the Real Breakfast Show will be leading the way.

Interview by John Bleasdale