IF the recent Referendum campaign proved one thing, it was that the mainstream media in Scotland is not fit for purpose. If this is true on the serious front pages of the papers, it is even more true on the comic pages at the back, where those intellectual giants of the Scottish football Writers Association hold sway.
Back there, the protocol is, basically: "Why bother with opinion pieces, with trying to point-out the many imperfections of Scottish football? That requires thought, dissertation, argument. Better just to find some former Old Firm star who will, for the price of a half-decent lunch, spout platitudes and say nothing.
IF we get the press we deserve - to bow to Glen Hoddle's thinking - we must have done something very bad in a previous life.
Today's Big Issue in the msm is apparently, SuperAlly making it clear - it wisnae me, a big boy did it and ran away. In this instance, the manager of the Tribute Act is having nothing to do with the decision to go ahead with an Ibrox match, against Alloa, which could, under SFA regulations, be postponed, because the TA has a couple of players on international duty.
Let's get into the real world. Suppose you run a big garage, and your best mechanic is a member of the real TA (that's the Territorial Army), and he is called-up to do a tour of duty with the Regular Army; oh, and another two of your mechanics have also been temporarily called-up.
You don't shut down for the duration, not in the real world anyway; you bite the bullet and get on with things. Not, apparently, in the mad world of football.
Even in the entertainment industry, of which we are told modern top-level football is a part. If the main star takes ill, they rarely cancel a show, the understudy steps up. IK, there may be a refund, but, this rarely happens.
Back in the day, when Scotland was a power in world football, even when it came to the match of each successive season - the bi-annual trip to Wembley, it was not unusual for a full league programme to go ahead, even as our brave heroes are doing their bit 400 miles downt he road.
I recall, when writing an anniversary feature about the Wembley Wizards back in 2008, one of the Daily Record's then top writers, NOT sent to Wembley, but rostered to Ibrox for a league game, writing in his report that the biggest roar of the day at the Govan Stadium came when the half-time and full-time scores from Wembley came through.
The Tribute Act of today is but a shadow of the Rangers team back then. The Ibrox club of today doesn't have a player remotely in the same class as Alan Morton, their single representative in the immortal "Wizards", and, I would argue, even back then, far-more influential a player than any one on the Tribute Act's staff today - but, they managed without him.
Also, I would argue that, by keeping the Alloa game on a Saturday, the beleagured Ibrox board are showing a rare example of good sense - on a Saturday, they will surely get a bigger attendance.
Also, if Mccoist cannot cover the absence of one guaranteed starter, Lewis McLeod, and a couple at best bench-warmers; then he isn't much of a manager.
But, we knew that anyway.
IN the interests of even-handedness, I am duty-bound to comment on Celtic's support of Bulgarian Aleksander Tonev, who is facing a seven-game ban for racial abuse.
Celtic are robustly defending their player, however, he has been found guilty of the offence. Better perhaps to aim for a reduction in the sentence, to go down the road, perhaps, of pointing-out, reasonably enough, that English isn't his first language, that, maybe, what he actually said to the Aberdeen player was lost in (mis) translation.
Play the contrition card, grovel a wee bit, but, maybe get the ban reduced. But, no, the rest of us are left, yet again, with the view that at Celtic Park, as much as across the city where the Tribute Act sometimes performs, there is a culture of: We play to different rules, we can do what we like, one rule for the rest of you, another for us, which the outraged claims: "It wisnae me" don't quite make real.
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