AFTER the referee's strike and the deep freeze, there are signs that, just maybe, we can get back to football on Saturday. Let's hope so, since the level of gossip, chat and discussion during the hiatus has been low.
One of our leading newspapers has this week been running a sports feature: speculating on which players Celtic might sign during the January transfer "window".
I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at the state this major Scottish institution has got itself into. Such is now Celtic's NEED to win, to be Number One in Scotland, that that desperation is in danger of de-stabilising the club.
When Jimmy McGrory was appointed Celtic manager just after World War II, he was arguably "the Greatest Living Celt"; he was a good call as manager, having began well at Kilmarnock. But, during his tenure as manager, Celtic hardly won a thing - in spite of the team being graced by such talents as Bobby Evans, Bobby Collins, Charlie Tully, Willie Fernie, Willie Miller and Bertie Peacock, while the likes of Mike Haughney, Neilly Mochan and John McPhail were capped by Scotland.
But, during this spell THE power at Parkhead rested with Chairman Bob Kelly - who ruled even more absolutely than Mr Desmond, far less his mouthpiece Lord Reid does today.
Celtic won virtually nothing, apart from a watch when they brought a relatively unsung centre half named John Stein home from Wales. As player and captain, he steadied a listing ship, as coach, he got the best out of "The Kelly Kids", young reserves such as Billy McNeill, Paddy Crerand, Bobby Murdoch, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Lennox, John Clark and so on.
Stein went off to learn management at Dunermline and Hibs, before returning in March 1965: to bring the "Kelly Kids" to maturity - the rest is history.
Fast forward 45 years, Celtic has a stack of promising young players in their Under-19, Under-17 and Under-16 teams, they've got some good young players on the fringes of their first team - but, they have a management team which clearly either doesn't rate these kids, or is scared to trust them, because they don't think Celtic could be a winning team with these kids in the side - and they don't think the self-styled "Greatest Fans in the World" would stand for seeing a Celtic team of kids losing.
Well, the expensive foreign mercenaries aren't exactly setting the heather on fire, either in Scotland or in Europe - what, other than a fear of failure, is stopping the club from blooding the kids and getting some sort of pay-back from their investment in youth, which is considerable?
It is noticeable that "cash-strapped" Rangers, still richer than most English Premiership sides, but finally, after Sir David Murray's years of excess, being run with a modicum of sense; have this season managed to blood a handful of young players, without much harm befalling them.
Rangers in recent years have partly through financial necessity rediscovered the methods which made them pre-eminent under Bill Struth: they still bring the odd player through the ranks - in recent seasons McGregor, Adam, Bourke, Smith, augmented by Scots recruited at the right price from elsewhere in Scotland - Broadfoot, Naysmith, Boyd, Whittaker, Thomson, or from England: McCulloch, Weir, Alexander and Miller. Add a touch of Ulster passion - Davis and Lafferty and you've got a team, built along traditional Rangers lines.
OK, some have moved-on, there is a garnish of foreign exotica, but, with the promise of Fleck, Wylde, Hutton and now Cole and McMillan, not to mention as yet unblooded Under-21 caps such as Perry and Gallagher, it might be argued that Rangers have taken the Stein formula and successfully adapted it to their needs and financial situation - while Celtic are floundering through their multi-national obsession, not to mention some rank bad buys.
In the absence of a Stein for the 21st century (Willie McStay maybe), I see trouble ahead for Celtic to a greater degree than for Rangers.
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