Hearts & Hibs Enter Scottish Cup Semi-Final to James Bond Theme Tune Because Scottish Football Is Undefeated
Q. Has there ever been anything more profoundly Scottish football than Paul McGinn trying to keep a straight face for the camera at a rain-soaked Hampden Park as the James Bond theme booms over the PA?
A. No.
The circumstances at Hampden on Saturday evening were bizarre enough. Hearts and Hibs went at it in the south of Glasgow, looking to seal a place in last season's Scottish Cup final.
Watch the highlights from a thoroughly entertaining Edinburgh Derby, as @JamTarts secured their place in the 2019-20 @WilliamHill Scottish Cup Final.#ScottishCup pic.twitter.com/44DdkVpUpO
— William Hill Scottish Cup (@ScottishCup) November 1, 2020
It didn't need the added weirdness of the Bond theme echoing around the empty national stadium as the players took to the park, but what the hell? You might as well go all out.
In the hours ahead of kick-off, of course, the news broke that Sean Connery - the original Bond and perhaps the most famous faces ever to come out of Edinburgh - had passed away. Every human being alive has been touched by Connery at one stage or another: even if you haven't seen any of his films, you can probably recall his famous acshent. The Edinburgh rivals certainly took his loss to heart.
When they emerged from the tunnels, the iconic chugging guitar riff, made famous by Connery's larger than life character, began to ring out. Before we knew it, we were seeing Craig Gordon and Paul Hanlon line up, stony-faced, on the touchline, as the brass 'do do, DO DOOO, DO DO-DOOOO' crescendo crashed down on the lucky handful of people in the stadium's red zone.
The teams are out here at Hampden. The Bond theme plays over the tannoy in tribute to the late Sean Connery pic.twitter.com/X0SE6m4LW7
— Heart of Midlothian FC (@JamTarts) October 31, 2020
Some might have cringed, but it was a nice moment. The right balance of tasteful and silly. Daft, over-the-top, but somehow genuine, and impossible to watch without smiling.
Hearts, by the way, won the game 2-1, and they will face Celtic in the final.
In other Bond-related football news, a story has began to circulate that Connery could have joined Manchester United on a £25-a-week contract in 1953 - but he rejected it to pursue his dream of acting.
"I really wanted to accept because I loved football," The Mirror quote Connery as saying. "But I realised that a top-class footballer could be over the hill by the age of 30, and I was already 23.
"I decided to become an actor and it turned out to be one of my more intelligent moves."
Connery starred in Dr. No shortly after his 32nd birthday, and went on to reprise his role (smouldering spy in a tuxedo) in five more films.