Calton Athletic are still alive and kicking

Athletic Recovery Group versus Govan Central in Barrowfield's Crown

Point Sports Centre on Saturday.

The game of course should never have been played, but referee Danny

Boyle knew that the lads were desperate to trudge through the glaur. Mr

Boyle is heedie at Ayr's Queen Margaret Academy and a well-kent face.

This was, he revealed, his first game as a referee, having passed his

final exams just in December.

If the weather was vile, the football wasn't, especially from Calton.

Professionals cannae appear in the rain while a team of recovered drug

addicts can play an entire game out there without greeting. For Calton

Athletic Recovery Group are exactly that -- ex drug abusers.

Calton have become famous. They were the inspiration behind the BBC

drama ''Alive and Kicking'' which starred Lenny Henry and Robbie

Coltrane (both of whom have gone on to be members of the Calton advisory

committee). Their success in helping drug abusers has been startling.

Since February 1991 when records were first kept 208 addicts have made a

sustained recovery from dependency. Since finding premises that figure

has increased to 240.

The success of the group is unrivalled yet funding is still an

enormous problem. David Bryce, founder and ex-addict himself, tries to

explain some of the problems. The Calton policy of total abstention from

drug abuse is not echoed by many of the social agencies which involve

themselves in the problem, certainly in this city, where there are at

least 12,000 users, and more deaths through heroin abuse percentage-wise

than anywhere else in the UK.

''The official policies of clean needles and heroin substitutes are

only encouraging drug abuse,'' says Bryce. ''What consolation is it to

grieving parents to know that their son or daughter died with a clean

needle in their groin? What we do at Calton,'' says Davie, ''is a simple

programme for complicated people.''

But funding has been hard. This is a seven days, five nights a week

project. The Calton needs #50,000 a year to continue and expand. The

Glasgow Health Board is a source of funding but there has been a serious

threat to Calton over the years.

Yet some quite surprising bodies have been very supportive of this

largely working-class, street-level group, though drug dependency cuts

across all the social classes, especially among young people. Some of

the E drug users look down upon the injecting addicts. The heroin users

reply: ''See you soon pal -- you'll end up using what we did just to

come down.''

But Glasgow Trades House, that august and largely conservative body,

recently donated #1000, and Merchant House five grand. Rotary Clubs have

invited the Calton group to talk to their members, as have the

Samaritans and many schools and colleges.

The workers at Greig's bakery gave a thousand pounds too. Talking of

Greig, John Greig of Rangers donated the profit from signed footballs at

auctions. Paul McStay gave a running machine and a treasured Scotland

strip. Charlie Nicholas and Tommy Burns both give welcome support.

Calton Athletic are not merely ex-drug addicts, however. They are also

top of the Glasgow Welfare League (they won 9-1 yesterday against

Govan), and took the Scottish Welfare Cup last year. They are a

formidable outfit, managed by John Jarvis, winner of the UK Postman of

the Year recently, and captained by Davie Main who has been with Calton

for three years and once played for Scottish Under-16 Schoolboys.

For success, read the astonishing failure of many of us to recognise

the pressure which led these young people into drug use in the first

place. Davie Bryce -- who admits to having gone through years of wasting

his and other people's lives -- once fought for a boxing title.

He could have been a contender. So could Marie Fitzpatrick, who once

represented Glasgow at badminton and who held down a good job as a

qualified hairdresser until the drugs scene caught her.

Marie is a clear-eyed, shiny-haired, well-spoken young woman of 23

looking a lot younger. Into aerobics and fitness programmes, she looks

more like a teenager. ''You should have seen me nine weeks ago,'' she

told me. ''I was a wreck.'' It is hard to believe. By coincidence,

referee Danny Boyle is her uncle.

Another coincidence. I met 20-year-old Jackie Heron. she is slight and

blonde, neatly-dressed and looks like a daughter you wish you had.

She is, like Marie, very pretty. She was very pretty when I last met

her, too. You see, I taught her, a pleasant, rather quiet girl. She has

been nine months drug free and last year came in third in the 10

kilometre run at Bonnybridge. These are young people who should have met

their potential. They are beginning to now, and more power to them.

Part of the secret is the sheer determination in the Calton group, and

the support shown by wives and husbands and sweethearts and parents.

Outside the ground, I spy a police car. They didn't know it was Calton

Athletic; had just come to watch the game. ''Is that Calton in the

blue?'' asks one of the officers. ''Bloody good team. Look, there's

another goal scored.''