The Big Man: Scotland has long celebrated the merits of being tall – Kevan Christie

Height can turn you into the champion of the playground and lead to a lifetime of getting served first at the bar, writes Kevan Christie (5ft 9in, if he wears his Cuban heels)

Billy Connolly may be one of Scotland's biggest yins, but he's nowhere near as big as Kevan Christie's old flatmate (Picture: Myung Jung Kim/PA)

I phoned my former flatmate the other day after writing a story about men above six feet being twice as likely to be diagnosed with coronavirus.

He’s at least 6ft 5in and it felt like the right thing to do – call to gloat seeing as I’d be giving him a mention and touching on our past.

I say flatmate, but it was his flat and I rented a room so that kind of made me the lodger and very much the junior partner in terms of who controlled the remote control.

Of course respecting the interest of height-based puns, he gave the idea short shrift, dear readers, although our exchange did make me chuckle – but obviously Covid-19 is no laughing matter and we can see you smirking behind that face covering.

Big toe the size of a chicken drumstick

Luckily, his natural slouch height is around 5ft 8in which takes him out of the virus danger zone.

I asked him how his big toe was getting on, the one that looks like a chicken drumstick and if he was still eating off a big plate with a giant knife and fork?

It all came flooding back – the days of having to stand on a box to reach the bathroom mirror to shave and arriving at the airport four hours early before our ‘stag weeks’ away so he could secure valuable leg room on the plane. ‘Men behaving sadly.’

The scientists who carried out research on data from 2,000 people in the UK and US said the findings do not necessarily mean tall people are somehow genetically more vulnerable to infection.

And taller people would be at no more risk if the virus was mainly spread through sneezing or coughing, which produce larger droplets that fall to the ground quickly.

Rather, the results indicate that Covid-19 spreads through tiny aerosol particles that linger in the air after being exhaled.

Psychotic Lilliputians

This got me thinking about my own and Scotland’s relationship with the so-called ‘Big Man’, a figure etched in our folklore.

Historically, to qualify for ‘Big Man’ status in the village you had to top the 6ft mark.

This would confer the right of champion in the playground and lead to a lifetime of being the person most likely to get served first at the bar.

Being tall is celebrated in Scotland.

Our greatest ever comedian is called the ‘Big Yin’, even though he’s only around six foot, and one of our most celebrated authors, William McIlvaney, wrote a bestselling book The Big Man based on a former miner and bare-knuckle boxer. Connolly appeared in this ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’ movie with Liam Neeson taking the title roll and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer delivering one of the all time great/terrible Scottish accents.

Unfortunately, in Scotland being tall also makes you a target for a whole host of psychotic Lilliputians who want to see you topple, with no shortage of offers for ‘square-goes’ flooding your inbox.

As someone who tops the 5ft 9in mark in my Cubans and if there’s a fair wind coming off the Firth of Forth, I should be able to... ahem, rise above having it in for the big guys. Alas, this is not the case and can be traced back to my time playing juvenile football in Edinburgh for the mighty Salvesen Boys Club.

Tynie giants

Although we had a decent side, the crack team at my age group were Tynecastle Boys Club who always seemed to favour tall players who seemed like giants to me.

It was a bit of a running joke, like Rangers not signing Catholics at the time, but any teenager who topped the 6ft mark seemed to pop up on the Tynie – and they were anything but – radar.

There were the odd exceptions. One of their star players was Scott Crabbe who was ‘normal height’ and went on to have a successful career with Hearts and Dundee Utd among others.

Scottish football in the 1980s went through a weird genetic phase where scouts from professional clubs would enquire as to how tall someone’s mother was as an indicator of future growth potential.

We can laugh about this now, given the success Barcelona FC have had over the years with smaller players like Messi, Xavi and Iniesta but it was the fashion at the time.

Looking back, height was definitely of more significance with a career in the polis blocked for anyone who didn’t meet the requirements which were around 5ft 10in for men and 5ft 4in for women – abolished by the Met in 1990.

There was always some wag saying you could get a job as a copper in Hong Kong where there were no height restrictions but in hindsight that seems racist.

At this stage, I apologise for concentrating on men but women and those who identify as non-binary are too intelligent to be involved in this heightist nonesense.

My old man tells a good story about a former pupil of his who went on to play for Rangers and, when asked how tall another player was, said “oh he’s about 5ft 11in or 5ft 12in”.

Of course the big man moniker gets us all out of trouble when we can’t remember someone’s name and is definitely preferable to an “alright thingummy”.

I haven’t covered the thorny issue of the ‘wee man’ as that’s an entirely different sub genre that would need another column to examine.

Maybe next week.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Joy Yates

Editorial Director