WELL, here we are, one round of fixtures into the new SPL season and already some are ready to package-up the season 2011-2012 SPL trophy and league flag and despatch them to Celtic Park; simply because Rangers were held to a home draw by the club which finished third last season, while Celtic beat last season's tenth-best SPL club on their own ground.
This flies right in the face of reality - winning a league flag is a marathon, not a sprint and has been shown in the past, being two points ahead even going into the final game of a season is not a guarantee of eventual title success.
I reckon gloating from Celtic fans and wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Ibrox faithful, this early in the campaign, is simply further proof of how hysterical the age-old Old Firm rivalry has become.
Of course, we are still in mid-summer, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue should be asked to send a couple of pumps along to the next games at Ibrox and Celtic Parks to hose the fans down before they get too-over-excited.
As of now (lunch time on Monday, 25 July, 2011) just about all I can guarantee about season 2011-2012 is that, come the final final whistle next May, the league order will not be what it is right now: Motherwell, Celtic, Dundee United, Hearts, Kilmarnock, Rangers, Aberdeen, St Johnstone, Dunfermline Athletic, St Mirren, Hibs, Inverness CT.
THERE has been much comment about Craig Whyte's decision to unfurl the 2010-11 league flag on Saturday. Well, in terms of Rangers: it's his ball and he can do what he likes with it. On one hand, he got out there and showed his face to the faithful, on the other, since he played no part in winning it, it might perhaps have been better had he asked Davie Weir, the winning captain, or perhaps an Ibrox legend such as John Greig, or Eric Caldow or Derek Johnstone - to pluck three names out of mid-air, to do the honours.
I NOTE also, on some of the newspaper websites that the mutual game of tit-for-tat between the Old Firm fans, has started. There have been sharp-eared Celtic fans hearing sectarian singing during broadcasts from Ibrox on Saturday, while Rangers fans with equally-keen hearing could discern pro-IRA chanting and singing from Easter Road on Sunday. It's all becoming tedious. But will the clubs actually do something about it? Not until a (proverbial) gun is held to their heads - you see - sectarianism sells, always has, always will - until somebody REALLY does something about it. But, don't hold your breath.
THERE is - believe it or not - life outwith the Old Firm and Saturday's Ramsden's Cup (great sponsorship by the way - in the SFL any gold or silver hanging around is clearly very old and superfluous to modern living) threw-up some interesting results.
Good to see Ayr United knocking-out holders Queen of the South at the first hurdle. Brian Reid, encouraged by a chairman and board who did not jettison him after relegation two seasons ago, is rebuilding his United side and between the experience of the likes of John Robertson, Martyn Campbell and the ageless Mark Roberts and the products of a somewhat under-rated Youth Academy, he has a real chance of keeping the part-timers in a First Division which is far from vintage this season.
I just wonder when Reid will start to be mentioned once the SPL managerial merry-go-round cranks-up. He would, I venture, be worth a punt to a middling SPL club seeking a manager who could work with little cash. For Queens - I predict a season-long struggle.
GREAT to see Spartans open their new ground with a match against a Manchester United XI on Sunday. OK, it wasn't the result they'd have wanted, but here is a prototype "community Club" which deserves to and surely will, once we get a proper pyramid in place, be an SFL club.
With their reliance on graduates of Edinburgh University, Spartans' teams havde something other sides in Scotland lack - players with brains in their heads, and that should give them an advantage.
I see the club becoming a Queen's Park of the east and it will be great to see them in the SFL, when it happens.
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