Weir's Week: Motherwell sack McGhee, Celtic lose a Lion and David Haye fails to walk the walk

This is when I realise how little I actually know (or care about) these days when it comes to Grand Prix racing, because, on the face of it, they all look the same.

Possibly why I prefer touring cars and rallying to F1, although, those other disciplines are headed in same direction. So probably why I like the retro stuff more than the modern concepts, and, why for sheer difference and unpredictability, nothing will ever match the Wacky Races …

Tuesday

And despite drawing the second-half of their game against Dundee at Fir Park 0-0, those who run Motherwell these days weren’t buying Mark McGhee’s excuses for being 5-1 down at half-time and duly sacked the former Reading, Leicester City, Wolves, Millwall, Brighton & Hove Albion, Motherwell (first time), Aberdeen and Bristol Rovers manager.

Still, Motherwell’s loss is Scotland’s gain as he will be staying on as No.2 to Gordon Strachan at international level to help mastermind our qualification for the World Cup in Russia next year.

I know, the group table might not make great reading, with Scotland second-bottom ahead of Malta. But, we are just six points off leaders England, as old Pittodrie buddies Gordon and Mark would tell you as they look for positives to back up their existing handy work.

Honestly, you just don’t appreciate how lucky you are …

Wednesday

Just as an aside to McGhee’s sacking, with him gone, that meant Motherwell joined Kilmarnock and Rangers in not having a current, permanent manager. That’s 25% of all Premiership clubs.

If football was any other kind of business, there would be people asking questions, commissioning reports and demanding research into why a quarter of our biggest companies in a particular sector or industry, were leaderless.

But this is football; run by dafties for dafties. So who cares …

Thursday

If news of Billy McNeill’s struggle with dementia was heartrending, then the announcement that Tommy Gemmell had passed away was even more upsetting and poignant in this the 50th anniversary year of the Lisbon Lions and their fantastic achievement of winning the European Cup.

On Thursday, the tributes rolled in from across the football world for Tommy, many more from members of the media who’d only ever seen his moments immortalised on grainy, monochrome film. I especially liked the chap on one radio show who I eventually asked what age he’d been when Celtic beat Inter Milan, only for me and listeners to be told he was only born in 1978.

Now, that’s what I call a womb with a view …

Tommy Gemmell was a lovely man, and one who I had the good fortune to get to know well during a couple of years in the early 90’s when I had the good fortune of having Tam as my captain; no, we’re not talking football, but cricket.

Tommy captained a football stars XI as we played against a similar squad from the world of rugby in various charity matches, organised wonderfully well by Tom Miller, who certainly helped various charities (and some bar stewards) with these epic encounters.

Not that Tommy was ever going to match D.R. Jardine or Mike Denness in the captaincy stakes. Indeed, his ‘whites’ always had that ‘former golf’ look about them, but he turned up to direct teams that often involved ‘real’ cricketers like St Mirren’s Fraser Wishart (soon to be of Rangers) and John Millar of Hearts, along with mad-keen amateurs like Ian Angus, Bobby Russell, Peter Hetherston and the late Colin ‘Bomber’ Jackson.

Tommy was more our ‘honourable captain’ (and social convener). We’d ask him about how many slips he’d like while we’d be pointing to long-on, or laugh our way through his hurried organisation of the batting order, which usually meant a finger being pointed at you with the instruction ‘put that beer down, your next.’

In one match, the rugby team – that would have had the likes of Euan Kennedy, Jim Aitken, Jim Telfer, Steve Munro and Dougie Morgan in their ranks – needed something like 50 off their last over to beat us.

“Do we have a chance of winning?,” ex-Airdrie assistant (and our vice-captain) John McVeigh enquired of Tommy.

Tommy puffed his cheeks, shook his head and sighed; “This could go to the wire.” I was never quite sure who was kidding who.

When The Herald ran the well-received 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons series at the turn of the year, Tommy Gemmell made it in, not just as a member of the Lions, but, on his own at No.54.

This was for two reasons; firstly, in becoming the first British player to score in two European Cup finals, following up his goal against Inter with a similar long-range effort against Feyenoord three years later. But secondly, for that moment when he decided to chase West Germany’s Helmut Haller and boot him up the backside after the sleekit Juventus forward had clipped oor Tam with a fly kick.

Gemmell’s actions were wrong, deplorable even. But by God, my dad celebrated Tommy’s assault like he scored the winner.

Thursday brought home the sad reality that the pack that is the Lisbon Lions is getting fewer in numbers, although they will roar forever …

Friday

I need to block a few people on Twitter, not because they said anything untoward about me, but, that they wished some of my members of staff were sacked, and/or better still, lost their jobs.

Silly me, I thought that would be one and the same, but apparently not. And the reason for this action? My journalists wrote something they didn’t like about a football team – not their football team, but their arch-rivals. I ask you …

Saturday

Tony Bellew beats David Haye. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know what they were fighting for. Anyway, Bellew won. But in a world which has become accustomed to people telling you that being second is actually the new first (if you can come up with enough contrived excuses to gloss over why you, or your team, or your man (or woman) wasn’t good enough to win the real contest), some would have you believe Haye would have been the winner had he not suffered an Achilles injury.

I don’t buy that; all the boxing books I own only show the end result; a win, a loss or occasionally a draw (although it could read ‘dodgy’). No hypothetical outcomes included. So get used to it, Haye lost, and I’m glad.

For some of his speech-play leading up to the fight should have seen him barred from fighting in the first place. But that was never going to happen; there is no money to be made in the fight game by making an example of folk out of the ring. Defending the indefensible is the accepted norm.

Still, well done Bellew. As for Haye, he talked the talk, but in the end, could only limp …

Sunday

I found myself being chastised just last week for suggesting Brendan Rodgers was perhaps being a wee bit mischievous when he praised former Rangers manager Mark Warburton. I reckoned Rogers was employing a bit of gamesmanship, or, one-upmanship, given the chaos currently down Ibrox way.

Today, after a 4-1 Scottish Cup win, the Celtic boss says St Mirren are the best team he’s faced, domestically, this season. A couple of my colleagues ‘dan saff’, did reckon the former Liverpool manager was indulging in gamesmanship, or, one-upmanship, letting everyone else in Scottish football know their place, in his eyes.

I’m saying nothing …