Strip Changes - Why?

I received an indignant e-mail, from an old school friend, these many years in the colonies. Having recently retired from a professorship at one of the leading universities in the USA, he has time on his hands to trawl the internet and he discovered that Kilmarnock had beaten Celtic at Celtic Park on Saturday.

 

He did, however, feel that I ought to have texted him with the news - I didn't even know he was a Killie fan, since he's from Auchinleck I had him down as a typical Talbot Bee, oblivious to everything in football not connected with the Beechwood Taliban.

 

He also asked me: when did Killie change their colours from blue and white stripes to red and white ones? This is the cue for a rant.

 

I appreciate that, costs being what they are, it is incumbent on football clubs' boards of directors to attempt to extract as much cash as possible from the pockets of the gullible - aka supporters, by frequent changes of strips. Changes of shirt sponsors also come into play here, I accept.

 

I can also accept the need for clarity of identification between the teams and understand that, back in the days when Scottish football was worth watching, and TV pictures, on the rare occasions they were available to those not at the games, being in black and white - when Celtic, whose colours back then were green and white hoops, met Kilmarnock, who played in blue and white hoops, one team had to change.

 

Fast forward say 57-years, the length of time over which Killie fans had waited to hail a Celtic Park win, and we find that,while Celtic still weat green and white hoops, Killie have, these many years, worn blue and white vertical stripes. This beggars the question: why is it necessary for Killie to change when visiting Celtic Park?

 

The answer to that question beats me.

 

 

 

I SEE Mark Clattenburg is almost rivaling Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter in media character assassination, following Sunday's Chelsea v Manchester United match. It has been hinted at that - rather like certain Scottish officials we couldn't possibly name, with an affection for one of Glasgow's time-honoured Big Two clubs and a disaffection for the other - Mr Clattenburg looks favourably on SAF's side, to the detriment of all others.

 

Maybes aye, maybes naw, as they say. However, he didn't cut off the supply of inuendo to the conspiracy theorists with his performance on Sunday.

 

Some Scots fans have long been calling for cross-border exchanges, to bring English officials up here for some of our big games; of course, the current absence of "Old Firm" games from our schedule perhaps means such calls will be made less often. However, Mr Clattenburg's below par performance on Sunday should remind us to be careful what we wish for.

 

As someone with experience of covering top-level football, rugby, hockey, cricket, basketball and ice hockey - to name but a few of the 50-plus sports I have covered, I long since learned, English referees, across the board, tend not to be as good as our oft-criticised home-grown variety.

 

 

I SEE, strong hints have (yet again) been dropped, that the long-awaited verdict on "The Big Tax Case" is due to be delivered "any day now".

 

If I was an evergreen tree, growing in Scandinavia, I'd be worried.