LIVING as I do on the outskirts of a small former mining village in darkest Ayrshire, I am divorced from the greater excesses of the on-going religious/Irish political side-show in Scottish football. But this week, wee Liam (aka the only pape in the village) has been finding himself unusually popular; one or two of the guys have been buying him drink to celebrate his team's success in reaching the last 16 of the Champions League.
And quite right too. Celtic and Scottish football badly needed the boost which qualification has given them and when you review the list of the seven sides, one of which will be their next opponents, then I don't think Celtic have too-much to worry about. After all, if they can beat Barcelona, why should they worry about Malaga?
As Liam said: "Well I would love to see auld red nose greetin' efter the final" - so yes, let's avoid MU the noo, but, if they believe - why shouldn't Celtic make it to the last-eight, or further for that matter.
SO, the English Premiership is "The best league in the world" - aye right. That typically over-the-top Saxon belief took a hammering this week as Chelski and The Sons of the Desert tumbled out.
As the more erudite of you residents of the blogsphere are well aware, the Sons of the Desert are the members of the world-wide fraternity of Laurel and Hardy fans, and there is something truly comic about the mess Manchester United's noisy neighbours find themselves in this week - bounced out of Europe and set to take-on the Joneses they thought they had overtaken rather than kept up with.
But, give them time and surely the Premiership cheerleaders within the Evil Empire of the Dirty Digger and the assorted red top rottweillers from elsewhere will again soon have lots of people convinced Premiership is best, and this week's showing-up didn't happen.
THE 2020 European Championship finals COULD be coming to Glasgow. Haud me back. IF the proposed dog's dinner of changes do go through and IF the planned move to 12 different venues, prior to the semi-finals and finals being held in a 13th does happen - IF the finals are in the UK, they will be in London. After all, even on Platini's new-look level playing field - money will still talk, loudly, and they've got a lot more up in that there Lunnun than in Glasgow.
However, with three stadiums of over 50,000 capacity and a fitba-daft fan base who would be all-too-ready to come out and party, why not Glasgow?
That said, going to 24 teams in the knock-out stages wasn't in my opinion Wiggy Smith's best idea, and he has had a few belting bad ones over the years. Call me old-fashioned, but I reckon the final stages of the Euros should be for the best eight teams and for the World Cup the best 16.
Diluting the final stages, simply to have more games, dilutes the product too-much. Less is more in my view.
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