Spare a thought for Guy Rutherford this weekend. The Scottish Claymores' Director of Operations and Events will be more in demand at Hampden than Henrik Larsson or Giovanni Van Bronckhorst.

However, in contrast to the Old Firm players, his job will have been successful if he goes

unnoticed in the public eye.

Rutherford has been given the colossal task of transforming Hampden from a state-of-the-art soccer stadium into a modern American Football facility. It usually takes a full week to make the turnaround . . . Rutherford has to do it in a matter of hours.

The Scottish Claymores will face Berlin Thunder in a crucial NFL Europe League match on the turf at 3pm on Sunday. The pre-game party, which is all part of the game package, begins some three hours beforehand.

As tight schedules go, this is on a par with organising a royal visit. The American Football goalposts for the match are not due to arrive from Berlin until 8pm on Saturday. There is no margin for error.

Whether there are green and white or red, white, and blue

ribbons on the Scottish Cup on Saturday evening, Rutherford cares not a jot.

He is simply keeping his

fingers crossed that there is no extra-time in the Old Firm encounter. If there is, you can bet he will personally be shooing the 52,000 supporters towards the exits at 5.15pm on Saturday.

''Officially, our contract for the use of the stadium does not begin until midnight on Saturday, but we're hoping to get some of our people in a bit before then,'' explained Rutherford.

''It takes about 400 people to put on a game of American Football at Murrayfield when you take into consideration the Rock Steady security, the back-fields staff, the hospitality and the

medical people.

''It won't be that much more for Hampden, but there will be a few key extra people involved.

''The goalposts are portable and the bases are the ones that England Monarchs had last year and require about four tons of sand to weight them down.

''The first thing we have to do is spike and roll the pitch and

re-do the markings. That will involve six people working right through the night.

''The Hampden staff will be responsible for clearing up after the cup final and ensuring the locker-rooms are clean. We will also have the use of their ground staff for preparing the pitch and we will have two of our own specialists also working through the night.

''The floodlights will need to be on but just in a limited cap-acity as obviously we have to be aware of the inconvenience for people who live in the Hampden neighbourhood.

''At Murrayfield, we usually have the stadium fully ready for sound-checks and screen tests at three o'clock on the Saturday afternoon, 24 hours before kick-off but this time we won't have that luxury.''

Rutherford's main worry is that there is heavy rain on Saturday night, Sunday morning. That would hinder the preparation of the pitch and leave him with a ''real struggle'' to lay out the markings.

If the weather is kind, the pitch should be ready by 10am on Sunday with the players likely to go through their warm-up routines less than three hours afterwards.

However, the field of play is only one - if the most important - aspect of an American Football match. The technical side is very important and Rutherford must see that the game clocks are working, the video screen to show action replays is functioning and all the production staff know their lines.

There is no time to remove banks of seats to accommodate a video screen as at Murrayfield and, as at Hampden last year when the Claymores played a match against Frankfurt Galaxy, the screen will be erected on the back of a truck.

The game will be televised by satellite TV, and everything must fall into place, right down to the timing of the cheerleaders' dance routines.

The Claymores will be playing to a capacity of around 20,000 for the match and only the North and South stands will be in

operation.