A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away

AS a boy I was an avid reader of the old Weekly News. I loved Little Stories from the Police Courts, with its regular cast of Rita the Critic and her sparring partner wee Archie, MC at the Okay-Doaky Club and his henchmen. Who, who read the tales can forget too the stories of Invertottie Howkers' star centre forward Wan Fittit, with his prototype WAG, Banda Hope, and his pet budgie Hideghuti; then there was that well known punter and part-time spiv Pythagoras McCuddy.

There was also a cartoon, Setterday Sanny, which provided me with one memory which flashed into my mind as I listened to David Begg's despatches from the Kerrydale Street front line on Wednesday night. Sanny was standing watching a bar room brawl, in which a big guy wearing a bunnet was the central protagonist.

The first caption read: "Whit happened." The question posed by the guy beside Sanny.

The second caption, Sanny's reply, read: "See the big man wi the bunnet oan - ah spilled his pint."

So, who on the Celtic side on Wednesday was Sanny? It doesn't really matter and that makes Martin Bain's input to the post-match debate pretty pathetic.

"Verbal abuse" never hurt anyone, it has been part of sport since it all began and to blame verbals for Wednesday's night's indiscipline does Bain and Rangers no credit. In fact it shows him and his club in a very poor light.

The best answer to verbal abuse is to ignore it; look disdainful and simply carry-on playing your game. Football isn't like boxing or the front two rows of a rugby scrum, places where those going head-to-head face genuine danger of sustaining lasting damage. In there, at the real coal face of sporting confrontation, the right thing, said at the right time, can give you the edge.

I used to play rugby with a total bampot, who kicked and punched everything and everyone that got in his way, team mate or opponent - until the day he told one of the opposition: "If you do that again you're for it".

Next line out, he did it again; our hero punched him and in return received six of the sweetest and fastest left jabs you've ever seen, spreading our man's nose all over his face.

"You win big man", was all our chastened guy said - more so when he discovered in the bar post-match, that he had just received a boxing lesson from a Catholic priest who had once been Irish amateur light-heavyweight champion - a genuine example of robust Christianity at work.

The priest's was a lesson in the eternal truth, actions speak louder than words. To demonstrate another example of this, Ian "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan, the former Scotland rugby captain, now SRU president, was the hardest wee bastard I ever played against. "Beastie", as we knew him, never reacted to verbals, other than to whack his opponent hard and say: "That was your warning, don't do it again".I commend this to Rangers. In future, ignore the verbals, get them back with goals.

Jimmy Johnstone never, as far as we know, called John Greig a d-o-b loud enough to be heard by the crowd as Greig "played keepie-uppie wi' the wee man"; no, he simply came back at Greig, tied him in knots until, after the inevitable booking for repeated fouling of his opponent, Greig had to back-off or be sent off. Advantage Johnstone and Celtic.

After Wednesday, it has to again be advantage Celtic in the race for the baubles and how Rangers fight back from where they have been consigned to will be very interesting.

Rangers can bang-on about verbal abuse, refereeing errors and so forth all they like, thankfully they don't do conspiracy theories - that's Celtic's territory. What they cannot do is shy away from the reality that they got themselves into this mess.

Gross mis-management of the club's finances over a number of years has led to a situation whereby there are guys on the pitch today who are frankly not Rangers' class either as players or as men.

Walter may be a God to my friends in the Lap Top Loyal, he may have won a barrow-load of trophies, but in the real test of a great manager: has he left a legacy? He's a failure.

He is now picking men who cannot handle the pressure of Old Firm games. Diuf may once have been a top-flight player, but, in his thirties now, his pace has largely gone and the mental frailties which have been evident for a decade, his tendancy to crack under pressure, got him into trouble on Wednesday night.

Bougherra is another who is headed for the high jump, after man-handling Calum Murray as he received his second yellow card. OK, maybe one of the yellows was harsh, but, you accept your first, then make it doubly hard for the referee to issue you with a second. "Boogie" didn't do this, so the red card was his own fault.

Ditto Diuf, but, when he was clearly losing it at half time, why was he sent out for the second half? We all knew then, this will not end well for him and for Rangers.

Davie Weir is now being found-out on a weekly basis, even in the turgid backwater which is the rest of the SPL, while the best central defender currently playing in Scotland was allowed to leave for nothing to go back and reinforce Hearts's challenge, which could yet see them overhaul Rangers and go second.

Fair play to little Lennie and the Celtic wind-up merchants. Not only did they win the physical battle, they were winning the verbal one, until Ally McCoist's last second word in Lennie's ear. I don't know what Ally said, but it was clearly, from Lennie's reaction, a cracker.

Those of us who wrote-off Lennon as a cheap appointment as Celtic manager may yet be proved wrong. He's a long way from being statesmanlike, he will perhaps always be an unlikeable character, but he's now a good bet to deliver a first full season Treble and if he does this, we will all have to admire the feat.

Now, final word on Wednesday. South Africa, 1974 - the morning after the touring British Lions have won the third test to clinch the test series. Some of the hung-over players are about to settle down to watch a TV re-run of the previous day's match in the team room. Enter captain Willie John McBride, who looks at the TV, says: "Fuck that, it's history", turns off the set and ushers his men to the bar for a few more jars.

That's how to deal with the aftermath of great sporting events. I commend the idea to the nation.