Socrates' Christmas Message

OLD FIRM FANS – the gift that keeps on giving, so well done to Ra Peepul for giving the rest of us a much-needed pre-Christmas laugh with their howls of protest and outrage after that “goal” was ruled out by VAR at Tynecastle on Sunday. Given the number of “Honest Mistakes” - far-less downright examples of refereeing corruption from which the Bigot Brothers – Rangers in particular - have benefitted over the years, I lang syne have grown tired of their pathetic whining whenever, as is now the case, their hopeless club management gets recruitment wrong and their fans have to put up with watching players being paid an absolute fortune for displays which would get them sent down the road from any reasonably well-run Junior team.

I once worked with a Chief Sports Sub who was definitely on the committee of Lodge Lap Top Loyal. We hacks used to wind him up by always listing the two clubs in the order “Celtic and Rangers”; sure enough, the copy would appear in the paper as “Rangers and Celtic”. He was an expert on all things Rangers, mind you, I suspect the last Rangers team he had ever paid to watch had lined-up: Brown, Young and Shaw, McColl, Woodburn and Cox......

I am somehow pleased for him, that he is not still around to have to, even from the comfort of his armchair, watch the 2025 vintage. I fear he would be saying: “That sort of stuff will get fitba stopped.” I fear for our game and where it is headed.

I WATCHED the Hearts v Rangers game on television, but, I have to admit, the pictures were far better for the following game: Celtic v Aberdeen, on good old Radio Shortbread. The difference – the talking heads at Celtic Park were Willie Miller and Packy Bonner, two old-timers who have been there, seen it, done it and got a lobby press full of t-shirts and dvds.

It was a joy to listen to these two waxing lyrical over the 90 minutes. Miller's incredulity when his favourites equalised was a joy to behold – it was wonderful stuff.

OK, when it comes to sports commentary on the radio, nothing, no programme comes close to Test Match Special, but, while the whole pace of commentary etc is different in Football, when you get, as on Sunday, craftsmen such as Oor Wullie and Big Packy, on-form, it's brilliant entertainment.

I mentioned TMS in that last paragraph; the whole concept of that stellar programme is – it's a bunch of mates at the game, discussing issues as they arise. OK, in the time it takes for each delivery in an over, cricket allows conversation threads to naturally arise and be drawn out. This cannot happen in football to the same degree, mind you, some of my most-enjoyable afternoons in press boxes have come about when the fitba was shite and the press had to amuse themselves.

I still chuckle at the young Colin Paterson of the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, wondering what alternative reality he had entered at Palmerston Park one afternoon, when, in an effort to beat the desire to top ourselves at the futility of the game we were covering, a few of us older hands spent the second half debating the relative merits of the Duke Ellington and Count Basie bands, with a slight diversion into the merits of Bix Beiderbecke. You don't get that level of intellectual dissertation at Ibrox or Celtic Park.

Then there was the serious debate at Rugby Park one afternoon, as to how many of the Kilmarnock team we were watching struggle to overcome a guy ordinary Montrose team would have been let in the door during the Golden Days under Willie Waddell.

That particular debate was ended by one of the great fan interventions. A Killie player went down injured and it took several minutes of Hugh Allen at his best to get him back on his feet. During the intermission, a fed-up home fan in the Frank Beattie Stand decided to give the beleaguered board a few word of advice.

This grew into a full-scale rant as the chorus welled-up behind him and not even the steely glare of Walter McCrae could silence the protest. That board was gone en masse within weeks and while there have been one or two traffic bumps since, that was the start of the club's recovery after too-many years in the doldrums.

I pen these words at the height of the pantomime season. Panto isc, like fitba used to be, cheap and cheerful entertainment for the masses. Maybe it's time we stopped treating it as warfare without bullets and got back to making it entertaining.

Willie Miller and Packy Bonner managed that this week, it's time their example morphed onto the field, among their unworthy successors as players.

Merry Christmas Everyone.