MENZIES READY TO GO BANANAS AGAINST ANDERSON

By Phil Lanning

CAMERON MENZIES loves doing selfies with human BANANAS as he prepares for a huge showdown with his hero.

The Ayrshire ace faces idol Gary Anderson in the European Championship in Dortmund on Friday night.

Menzies, 36, admits that his new full-time life on the oche is tiring but loves the buzz with the wacky Euro fans.

He revealed: “Being in Scotland, it can be a fair old trek to events. Wigan’s not too bad, but Leicester, Milton Keynes, they are five and six hours. In the future, I’m going to look at getting trains because I’ve had a few trains in Germany. It’s just been sometimes easier.

“I drive quite a bit, but it’s knackering because I’ve got to stop a lot of the time, so I might just get trains.

“I’m not complaining. The European tours are amazing. It’s just the travelling that is tiring, but they’re absolutely brilliant. They’re just sitting in the pubs and stuff all dressed up as bananas at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it doesn’t start until 7 o’clock. I’m sitting taking pictures for half an hour with bananas!

“As soon as it starts and during the breaks, it’s just tunes after tunes. I just love it. Prague was brilliant. Budapest was good as well.

“I’m there for a job, but I can just imagine why folk would love going to them. You’re just sitting there and just partying.”

Menzies has had another year of progress and is now used to facing the players he once looked up to like Gary Anderson and Peter Wright.

He added: “When I first got my Tour card, I was a bit in shock playing these matches. Now I sit with Gary and stuff and it’s different now. Same with Peter because he played with my dad years ago, so I’ve known him for a long time as well.

“It’s good playing against them now and I feel like, if I play my A game, I can give these guys a game. Before, I was just like: Do your best and see what happens. Now I’m like: If I can play the way I can, you never know because I’ve beaten them before.

“I’ve lost two guys that I’ve never heard of before, but then you see them in two weeks’ time and you’re like: This guy’s a player. We all can play nowadays, Anybody can beat anybody.”

Menzies is also hoping that new Rangers boss Danny Rohl can bring the good times back to Ibrox.

He said: “Don’t get me wrong, the manager we had recently, the fans just didn’t take to him. It just never worked from the start.

“I suppose right now the fans are kind of on the fence with it, but they will get on board if he starts well. It was the same with Steven Gerrard when he came. Some were on the fence with it because he didn’t have a long managerial history, but he did well.

“I’ll tell you, I watched the Arsenal the other night and Mikel Arteta didn’t have managerial history when he went into that job. He was an assistant to Pep Guardiola, so there you go. Sometimes you’ve got to take a risk.

“Rohl might not have been a head coach a lot, but he’s obviously been spoke highly enough of and he’s got this opportunity. And from what I’ve heard he did alright at Sheffield Wednesday considering what was happening there. All these guys have got to start somewhere.”

Image by Taylor Lanning.