Speech by Colin Scott

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Colin Scott
Speech Date: Jul2007
Graham, Hammy, mate, this is going to be an uncomfortable few minutes for you.

Haley, there is also a couple of uncomfortable minutes in store for you. But that won't be until later on tonight, and none of us will be there for that.

It can be quite nerve wracking when you have to give a speech in front of so many people. But it's made much easier nowadays with the invention of the internet. When I first started writing this speech I spent ours trawling through some great websites. Then I realized I was supposed to be writing a best man's speech.

The only responsibility I had other than the speech was to make sure that he turned up on time, sober, and looking good. We'll 2 out of 3 isn't bad!

We'll get to all the stories in a minute, but my first duty is to ensure certain people are thanked for their part in the wedding day.

Earlier on I was chatting to a few guys, checking out all the ladies as they came into the hotel, and the general consensus was, that the female guests certainly scrub up pretty well. That was before we saw the bridesmaids who look absolutely gorgeous, and seriously, I know the bridesmaids have offered Haley a lot of support.… in the 4 years that she's been planning the wedding. It's a long time having to put up with her but I do know that she genuinely appreciates your efforts very much.

Next it's time to thank the parents.

Haley is a very young bride and its only 20 odd years ago that Haley's was a wee baby and her Mum was sending her of to bed with a great big dummy. Who would have she'd be doing exactly the same all these years later.

But again, I know how helpful both sides of the family have been, and I know how much Graham and Haley appreciate it. The rest of us just appreciate the free food and champagne. So thank you very much to both families.

Now we get to Graham Himself.

Now, when Graham was born on 24th August 1979, and one of the things I decided to do when I was doing my online “research” was have a look to see who was number one on the day he was born. Let's just hope that Cliff Richard being at number one with “We Don't Talk Any More” isn't some kind of omen for his married life. Incidentally, the only famous person I could find who shares his birthday is Yasser Arafat. Who I believe had a very happy marriage so that certainly bodes well for the future.

I first encounted Graham in first year at high school where he was very well known, not because he was super cool or anything like that, but because he had the nickname “Hammy”, which meant that everyone knew who he was even although they didn't necessary like him.

Throughout school we found ourselves in more and more of the same classes, mainly because of our distinctive ability to be absolutely average and every single subject you could think of.

It was during this time that we discovered we shared a passion for football, and as we were both equally terrible at playing it, we thought it would be better to just start watching it, and this is when Graham's habit of supporting Hearts rubbed off on me, so I have him to thank all that!

It's at the football that he's covered himself in the most embarrassment. I'm told the time he nearly got arrested when he rubbed a policewoman up the wrong way at a protest is off limits, so we won't talk about that today.

Two other instances stand out for me. Firstly we were at Ibrox quite a few years ago and we were put in the section right next to the Rangers fans, at a time where the segregation consisted of an advertising banner three seats wide and nothing else. No stewards. No police.

As you can imagine, the banter was flowing between the two sets of fans, and the Rangers fans were all too delighted to stand up and make various rude gestures at us when they thought that their team had scored the opening goal.

Fortunately for us the goal had been ruled out for offside and we all decided to return the same gestures to the Rangers fans. Unfortunately Hammy was a wee bit over enthusiastic and he leaned right over the advertising hording, and promptly fell on top of it to loud cheers by all the Rangers fans, and he even had to be helped back onto his feet by the guys he was attempting to make fun of.

The second incident happened at Livingston. We were behind the goals as the players warmed up for the match, so we had to pay particular attention when they started practicing their shooting. Unfortunately he forgot to do this and so when Edgaras Jankauskas decided to shoot from an angle and the ball went slightly wide of the post, it hit him square in the face, knocking him sideways and sending his glasses flying. He wasn't too pleased about this, and his mood wasn't really helped by me trying to take photos if his squint glasses on my mobile phone.

You may also have noticed that his command of the English language isn't the best and he sometimes says things without engaging his brain. There are too many to mention, but the classic one has to be when our friend Adam was struggling to validate his parking ticket, Hammy snatched the ticket from him and said “Give it here, it's not brain science”. We both turned round to him and said “Brain science? What are you on about? It's not rocket surgery either”.

But being friends with him has taught me quite a few things, firstly it's taught me not to walk and text on your mobile phone at the same time, when you're drunk, at night time, and the wind is strong enough to blow over a wheelie bin. For those of you who hadn't heard, that's how he managed to break his arm a couple of years ago, so I hope you'll all learn from that.

It's also taught me that 4 years isn't really as far away as you think it is. 2011 seems like a long time from now, but let's just put that into perspective. In summer 2003 he said to me “She's been harassing me to set a date, so I had to agree to one” I said “When did you go for?” He said, 2007, and we both started laughing. It's not quite so funny now is it?

At first I couldn't figure out why such an eligible handsome single young man wanted to get married. Then I found out that Haley sleepwalks into the kitchen at 4am and starts cooking breakfast. Now that's the sort of thing a guy could get used to!

Anyway, it was shortly after he told me he'd set a date, he asked me to be best man, which I was of course happy to do as it gave me the opportunity to dress him up as Superwoman.

For quite a while which meant that organizing the stag do became my responsibility.

We had a great stag in Edinburgh for those who couldn't make it abroad, but I think those who were in Riga all agree that the highlight was when we went shooting AK47’s Uzi's and Glocks etc in an underground Soviet bunker.

Some of us faired better than others. I think I was third, with big Steve second, and Scotty the winner of the golden bullet. Of course when I told Haley this she was quite surprised. I think had she expected Graham to come first.

Anyway, I won't leave you with that thought. I've got one more thing to say and so that you know I'm being sincere, I won't even make any references to Hearts winning the Scottish Cup.

It really has been an honour to be standing next to my best mate on the proudest day of his life and I'm very grateful that he chose me to be his best man.