WELL that was one rubbish week.
It began with the news of Billy McNeill dealing with dementia, the middle bit was taken up by Alex Young, Scotland’s golden vision, passing away and then Tommy Gemmell left us on Thursday.
As Basil Fawlty once said; “Thank you, God. Thank you so bloody much.”
Of course, during such dark times it is important to remember the fun and both Lions had plenty of that.
Indeed, big Billy told a story about an Old Firm game at Ibrox under the floodlights and Tam was marking the Rangers winger Willie Henderson, a brilliant player who was blighted with terrible eyesight.
Willie wasn’t having the best game and could tell he was being shouted at but had no idea what was being said.
“Tam, what are they saying to me,” asked the man in blue.
“They want you to go over to them in the dugout,” replied his ‘pal’ in hoops who pointed the short-sighted superstar to where he should be.
And as Willie wandered over, with eyes squinting, he eventually came face-to-face with Jock Stein who told him where to go, much to the Celtic player’s amusement.
As a cub reporter, which is newspaper speak for being young and stupid, my patch for a while was covering Albion Rovers when the great Gemmell was manager. He saw no harm in offering the teenage hack a large whisky in his tiny room after matches.
Actually it was usually more than one. Actually I usually missed my stop on the train.
………………………………………………………………………………
To egg chasing now and Finn Russell, Scotland's superb stand-off, held a media event at his old school in Bridge of Allan this week to launch some running events in Scotland.
All well and good until it was revealed that Russell would NOT be talking about rugby.
Here is a hint to PR people. See when you book a famous sportsman, the ideal way to get publicity is to get them to speak about their sport.
Although I’m told Russell’s take on Ricky Tomlinson’s claim that late Countdown presenter Richard Whiteley was a MI5 spy was interesting.
………………………………………………………………………………
We did like the best football hooligan story of the week.
Vandals attacked the Crystal Palace team bus and by vandals we mean it was Crystal Palace fans.
Crystal Palace fans vandalized their own team's bus. https://t.co/Gv9mI8cM8c pic.twitter.com/833Go3i3AC
— VICE Sports (@VICESports) February 28, 2017
………………………………………………………………………………
Reader George Burchick liked a piece on Hampden Park and the rather dismal state of a once grand football ground.
“At Celtic Park there are separate doors marked ENTER and EXIT. At the national stadium there is only one door so at half time it's like the painting The Battle of Stirling Bridge as punters push past each other. It sums up Scottish football nicely not knowing whether it is coming or going. “
………………………………………………………………………………
Now this is cruel but we can’t ignore it.
After it was revealed that Rangers’ less than convincing defender Rob Kiernan’s red card against St Johnstone would put him out of the Old Firm game, an appeal was immediately put in by Brendan Rodgers.
………………………………………………………………………………
For Neds who find Clyde Super Scoreboard too intelligent, there is always talkSport.
On Wednesday some guy called Jason Cundy put down Celtic and Scottish football as whole because that patter does very well with the little Englanders who can’t accept that India is now a sovereign country.
Cundy is a man whose face looks slapped but that wouldn’t stop you from punching him.
He said: “I’ve looked on Twitter about how many people follow football clubs. Newcastle United have one million followers, Celtic haven’t got half of that. There are some Championship clubs and I reckon even some League One clubs that have a better Twitter following than Celtic.”
And then added: “What else are you going to do in Glasgow? It’s either drink beer or go to football.”
Adrian Durham is also an employee. He once wrote a column which told why Ryan Giggs didn’t have a good playing career.
To be fair, it’s good that society’s mouth-breathers get their own radio station.
………………………………………………………………………………
From the Evening times this week; “Rangers director Mike Ashley poised to slip into lingerie market.” Thank the good Lord that sentence didn’t end a word sooner.
………………………………………………………………………………
Tweet of the year so far came from the official account of Aberdeen while reporting on a reserve match.
62' Aberdeen change - Chicken on for Henry #DonsU20s
— Aberdeen FC (@AberdeenFC) February 27, 2017
We hear he’s good at crossing.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here