AS a means of providing me with a first-hand insight into the crushing psychological stresses attendant upon those greensward giants who serve at the sharp end of today's multimillion-pound football industry, my two-hour stint last week on the training pitch at Kilmarnock's Rugby Park proved to be an ideal method of . . . well, of demonstrating why I've never really come anywhere near being a greensward giant.

In other words, Gary, the boy Belcher done shite. That nae-legged eejit, a fitba' player? I've seen wardrobes wi' mair pace, agility, ability, and heart. It's official: Scotland Wing Wizard Nevin Nixes Belcher Bid For Firhill Thriller Status. Plus I got growled at by a Rugby Park scarey bloke, too.

To explain: I recently convinced ace Killie dribbler - and long-time chum - Pat Nevin to let me and two pals accompany him on one of his regular skill-sharpening sessions. No lung-bursting fitness-training to wreak thrombo-havoc on past-it oldster me, though.

Just us four with a leathern spheroid, savouring the eternal verities of the beautiful game, the proletarian ballet. Poetic jinks and liberating shimmies. Mesmeric darting runs; deft volleys; billowing onion-bags. That's what Pat and my mates Rab and Noddy were doing, anyway. But at a frankly alarming clip.

Too fast for my liking. Football shouldn't be undertaken at a mindless near-canter, if you ask me. That's why I employed a relaxed plod to demonstrate my soccer skills. What soccer skills? The more complex crowd-pleasing ones. Such as?

Oh, you know. Gasping like a grampus. Performing the blind-loon stagger and the slo-mo rubber-legs stumble. And that wasn't all. In addition, I delighted the assembly with my woeful sclaffs, my fluency in turning less quickly than milk on a cloudy day in February.

Highly embarrassing. What could I do to stop yon twinkle-toed Nevin humiliating me with his non-stop pantheresque glides? Some shameless off-the-ball smarming.

''Haw, Pat (pant, gasp),'' I gasped, panting. ''Instead of (cough, choke) just being over in France (wheeze, splutter) for Radio 5 Live, Channel 5, and the Daily Torygraph (grunt, sweat, wobble), you should be there on Scotland World Cup duty (groan, spew).'' He should, of course.

Raising this point didn't stop Pat running rings round me, however. It simply seemed to goad him to new torments. ''You'll learn something if you watch Belchy,'' he told my two sniggering chums mid-stride, barely puffed. ''Look - he doesn't kick the ball properly, he kind of scuffs at it.''

Things worsened further when Pat took us inside Rugby Park. ''The stadium manager's not about . . . we can go on the pitch,'' Pat said. As we did, up popped grim-visaged groundsman Gus Hollis.

Giggling foolishly, I tried the jokey approach. ''It's OK,'' I quipped. ''We're the Partick Thistle youth team.''

Mr Hollis's granite lips flexed minutely. ''If that's right,'' he spat, ''I've got bad news for you, Roy of the Rovers - your watch stopped in 1960. Get aff ma grass.''

Aff I got, pronto. Whereupon Pat stepped into his practised role as champion of the footballers' cause.

''Folk always say footballers work only two hours a day, and I always say: 'Maybe, but I did devote my childhood to the game.' When other folk were spending their teenage years drinking beer and chasing girls, I was kicking a ball every night.

''And another thing, my blood boils when folk who've never played the game professionally rant on in TV commentary boxes if a player mis-kicks in front of what seems like an open goal. They don't know how hard it is. Doing this job isn't easy.''

I never thought it was, I reassured Pat. I'm certainly all too well aware how difficult it is trying to earn a living in what you might call the two-bob end of

the multimillion-pound football industry, ie that scrappy bit where us once-mighty Partick Thistle at present find ourselves.

Relegated to the second divison, we're suffering what industrial management-speak always euphemistically refers to as downsizing. One Jag offers a poignant, painful example of what this process actually means.

Andy Lyons is a player who, for the past two years, I've hailed as a demi-god. Well, as an honest no-nonsense pro at least. Last week, back at his family home in Blackpool, Andy finished his first week's work far from the adulation of the terracing masses - as a postman.

Other honest Jaggite triers got the elbow, too. Blokes who might not have consistently rivalled Ronaldo in the skill stakes, but they always did their best. Nicky Henderson, Gregg Watson, Gareth Evans, Calum Milne, Jimmy Boyle, Alan Lawrence. Manager John McVeigh, too. I feel as though I've got to know these fellows, and I'm sad they've gone. How will Thistle thrive without them, with only 10 players now left on our books and little money in the bank?

Ach, what's the point of Thistle anymore?

Thankfully, an answer to this unthinkable question emerged the day after Celtic won the championship. Driving on the M8 past Royston's tenements, I spotted three geezers casually sitting atop a fence. Holding an Irish tricolour, they wore Celtic shirts - and black balaclava helmets.

Partick Thistle: we exist to ensure a nation's non-sectarian spiritual well-being. My calves still ache, but my heart feels less sore.