Whingeing Poms no more

WHINGEING Poms have now been over-taken by whingeing Ockers, for which the entire Scots nation ought to thank a South African, who even by Saffer standards, which in the arrogance department are very high, is arrogant.

Step forward Kevin Pietersen, Scottish hero. Because, after your double century, not to mention that dismissal of Michael Clarke, you'll never have to buy another drink in Scotland.

Your Adelaide deeds will knock England's World Cup humiliation off the papers as easily as you knocked the Aussie bowlers all round Adelaide Oval - for which: Gaunyersel Big Man.

And after their own knock-back in Zurich last week, it's the Ockers rather than the Poms who are crying into their tinnies.

BTW, did you see the crowd shots from Adelaide? Acres of empty seats, like Ibrox in the pre-Souness years, when the joke was that there was a design fault at the new-look Ibrox: the seats faced the pitch.

Final word on the World Cup bidding. In the Mail on Sunday this week, Paddy Collins broke ranks, by revealing that he was one of a group of journalists, told by FA insiders months ago, that Russia and not England would win the 2018 bidding. They were all sworn to secrecy and kept quiet.

They ought to be sacked - after all, in every newsroom across the country there hangs that quote from William Randolph Hurst: News is information someone wants suppressed - everything else is advertising.

Had they remembered that, published and been damned, it might have saved at least half a Finnish forest in the last week.

Absolute final word: great piece by Boris Johnston in Monday's Daily Telegraph; I haven't laughed so much at English discomfort and pain since the ball played Maradona's hand and went past Shilton in 1986.

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I WORKED briefly for Harry Reid, around 30-years ago; terrific boss, very very supportive of his journalists. So I was delighted to read his piece on Aberdeen's current managerial problems in last Saturday's Herald.

Harry suggested what the Dons required wasn't so much a new Fergie, but a new Ally MacLeod, given the way Ally's brief tenure at Pittodrie lifted the spirits of a club, city and region, before the professionals: Billy McNeill and Fergie, took the club on.

Ally has long been vilified and indeed ridiculed, on the back of the huge disappointment of 1978. But, there is no doubt in my mind, he was one of the greatest managers when it came to making players and fans believe.

A couple of generations hence, when a more-sober analysis of MacLeod the football man is made, I warrant he'll come out of it well.

I remember one late Saturday night "press conference", hosted by Ally at Somerset Park. Ayr had won well, the largesse was large and we were still in that pokey wee office under the Somerset stairs as the clock slipped past eight.

Ally was reminiscing about his spell at Pittodrie and about how he dealt with some of Scottish football's great hell-raisers: Joey Harper and Davie Robb, to name but two. Aberdeen had a crucial New Year Game, which they HAD to win, but Ally knew there was every chance his squad would be out caroussing at the bells.

So, he scheduled a training session for 11.30pm on Hogmanay, at Pittodrie, worked the players into the New Year, got them changed, gave them each a hauf and sent them home - later that day, they won the crucial game.

Ally wisnae that daft.