“A week is a long time in politics” or so they say. For some people in football, a week must feel as long as an ice age.
Another week has trundled by in the SPL. Another Old Firm pantomime has passed us by. And what has changed?
Nothing really!
And guess what? Right on cue, Dougie McDonald sends Celtic captain Scott Brown off under “suspicious” circumstances.
Suspicious you say? You grab an opponents shirt and throw your head at his chest…you get sent off. It’s really pretty simple. You could argue that Kyle Lafferty should have seen red too but, surely it’s more of a handicap to Rangers to have the guy ON the park?
You then, of course, have the Old Firm fans. Some booed a minutes silence which was held in memory of a former Rangers goalkeeper. Let’s be honest here, you could have gone to ANY bookie in the civilised world…asked him to take a bet on the silence being disturbed…and been offered odds so short that Toulouse Lautrec would have been able to see over the top of them.
But, of course, they didn’t stop there did they?
You could argue that it was naive of Rangers to parade an ex-soldier at the game. In fact some Celtic fans argued before the game that it was more than that. They claimed that it was a deliberate act by the Ibrox club to elicit a response from the hoops’ faithful. So why couldn’t the self-proclaimed “best fans in the world” not rise above it and ignore the fact that Simon Weston was at the game at all? Why did a small number of them – perhaps even the same ones who booed the minutes silence – decide that, obviously, the best course of action was to take Argentina flags and even, at least, one Argentina football top to the game and to brandish  them at Weston whilst chanting Argentina, Argentina, Argentina?
We are talking here,or course, about a human being who received 46% burns across his body as a result of the ship he was serving on being bombed by the Argentine Air Force during the Falklands war. But why should we expect a bit or respect for a human when those doing the mocking quite obviously fall short of that mark themselves?
Now, on to more palatable topics of discussion.
First stop – what with me being a Jambo – Pittodrie. I never tire of saying that I am glad that Mark McGhee didn’t get on the plane to hold talks with Vladimir Romanov. I even said BEFORE the flight that, in my opinion, he was not the man for Hearts. So far, McGhee has performed FAR worse than, even I, could have thought that he would. As I have read one pundit saying elsewhere “…even DEBBIE McGhee could do a better job…”. In fact the only person at Pittodrie that seems to be doing a worse job than McGhee is the Aberdeen groundsman. Can somebody please explain to me how on earth Motherwell have been “investigated” over the current state of Fir Park whilst apparently nothing has been said about the state of the playing surface in Aberdeen? The players would have been just as well kicking the ball about on the beach itself rather than on the so-called “playing surface”.
Having said that, Hearts showed fantastic spirit in the way they reacted to every set-back that came their way on Saturday. They lost BOTH starting center-halves through injury and were also reduced to ten men. Did they do the same as their Edinburgh neighbours did a week earlier in Motherwell by hanging on as long as they could only to fall short towards the end of the game? NO! Up popped Eggy with that goal and the boys scrapped for each other for the rest of the game. One even going so far as to forgo stitches in a head wound in order to stop the side going down to nine men. Stand up and take a bow…Lee Wallace…fantastic attitude!
John Hughes consults his "I've got Pro-Zone, get me out of here" handbook
Talking of the sending off and the team’s attitude after it brings me nicely on to those pesky wee, flair-filled scamps from down Lochend way. Talk about hindsight being 50/50 eh? If only John Hughes had had the sense to NOT appeal against Liam Miller’s red card at Fir Park he might have been celebrating his side’s first win since…well I’m not too sure since when…nor do I really care. I just find it amusing that Miller was on the park in the first place to get caught out for a handball and ultimately causing Hibs to drop another two points.
In other football news today, amidst lots of pomp and ceremony, the Scotland national team have unveiled their super-duper new Adidas home kit and guess what?
It’s dark blue…with white shorts and red socks…oh and of course three white stripes down the arms. Didn’t see that one coming eh? It does actually have quite a nice design feature of having (an embossed?) Scotland badge on the main body of the top but other than that seems very plain and ordinary. Given the SFA’s recent track record of finding kit suppliers, I wonder if those in charge of Adidas’ UK division should start worrying about the longevity of their careers?
And finally for my weekend roundup, something that has begun to get right under my skin! I’ll make it quick, simple and as profanity-free as I can, but…..
…if I have to hear the phrase “…this looks like/could be Mulgrew territory…” one more time, I will f***ing puke!
Right. We all get it now. Charlie Mulgrew has a decent left peg on him and has used it to stunning effect on dozens of occassions to, once more, put Aberdeen right at the top table of Scottish football…….Oh! Wait a minute….what’s that you say? He’s only scored four times and Aberdeen are still s***e? Surely not?!
