Three and in – not just another football blog

“Neil’s keeping a low profile.” murmured Johan Mjallby last Friday to an assorted press pack before Celtic’s – postponed – Scottish Cup tie with Inverness.

Even before the one-sided “Battle Of Parkhead” Lennon had taken to sending his hulking Swedish assistant, or Alan Thompson his affable Geordie first team coach, to conduct media duties.  Why? Most managers would be revelling in their teams relative successes. Especially successes which have seen you out gun your main rivals in the league then dump them out the main domestic cup.

No, Lennon has taken police advice. In the last month he has been woken in the middle of the night by Strathclyde Police three times to be moved to a safe house after credible death threats were received. Numerous internet boards and facebook pages have threads or groups asking for information on his whereabouts so he can be killed or suggesting ways how he can be killed.

Bullets have been posted to him. He is now under 24 hour Police guard.

He probably feels safer sitting in the stand and though that was enforced – he is current serving a 4 match ban which was recently increased to 8 – the police might have instructed him to do this anyway. Lots of wide open spaces on the touchline.

At the recent Old Firm summit, a sickening political photo opportunity masquerading as a purposeful meeting, this was not one of the main agenda items. The Scottish press report but will not condemn the treatment that the Celtic manager is receiving.

Rangers, who the guys issuing these threats are linked with, have been silent also.

The issue is being skirted around because the general feeling that is that Lennon has been passionate, over the top, and mouthy – so basically he deserves this treatment.

In my numerous years watching the game, I have seen Ferguson, Wenger, Muhrinho, Bruce, Pardews and other assorted touchline ranters behave worse than Lennon. I’ve seen them defend their team to the hilt and question perceived injustices. Squaring up to other managers? Aye, tick that box also.

Have they received death threats?

Lennon reveled in his status as hate figure when he was a player. He has done things that he shouldn’t be proud of and I’m sure he isn’t proud of them. His niggling, jack russell round the ankles pest type style of play, added to an unbelievable desire to win was fueled by his perceived image.

He was never a dirty player. He was prone to the odd hot-headed outburst but it’s never been questioned why he was found so despicable that EVERYONE bar the Celtic support in Scotland hated him. The party line was it’s his manner and the way he plays.

Over the years there have been more loathsome men to take to the pitch in Scotland than him. In the last 10 years only three players have been roundly abused in every ground they have visited. Lennon, Aiden McGeady and El Hadji Doiuf. I’ll let you spot the odd one out.

The Old Firm last week got the blame for Scotland’s social problems. Domestic violence, drink abuse and sectarian behaviour was all laid squarely on the doorstep of the clubs. I suppose it’s easier to blame others than take a good look at yourself and ask what can we do to stop this. Firstly let’s start addressing the main issue.

Why does Scotland hate Neil Lennon? There’s a prize for the correct answer.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at The Celtic Blog.

The clock struck 11pm on the, frankly, ludicrous, Transfer Deadline Day and neither the world or Jim White imploded. Much to the disgust of Rupert Murdoch.

Despite Liverpool courting him, Man United rumoured to be sticking thermometers up his behind and Spurs amateurish efforts, Charlie Adam never left Blackpool. I’m glad. The thought of Charlie Adam as a £10m player would tarnish the image he has in Scotland.

We may have to have admit that he is quite good and that wouldn’t do.

Charlie Adam is a joke figure to the football folk north of the border. He is still that youngster who was unfortunately blessed with excess puppy fat, a face that looks like it had been put on fire then patted out with a shovel and teeth that no dentist would touch.

He first came to prominence when he went on loan to St Mirren. While watching Soccer Saturday his name would appear often as he scored 9 goals as St Mirren won the first division. St Mirren that season were a decent coupon bet.

Paul Le Guen then flounced into Glasgow promising Gallic flair, style and excitement. Adam got his chance under Le Guen at Rangers but Le Guen was also the master of his downfall (in fickle football supporters eyes, mind).

As Le Guen struggled to introduce any sort of cohesion to a team that flattered to deceive, the manager accused players of not being great athletes and suggested their diets didn’t quite suit the needs of a professional athlete. He claimed that the players regularly turned up for training worse for wear, drank Coca Cola and ate crisps.

It was christened Monster Munch Gate as everything, you know, must become a gate and not just be an incident.

Adam was the perfect foil for this ridicule. His shorts looked like they were two bed sheets sewn together and he was the prime example of someone who looked like they followed a deep fried diet to almost OCD levels.

From that point on Adam was never taken seriously. The Celtic fans sang songs about his sisters pants (we don’t know if he has a sister), which is still sung to this day, and even Rangers fans saw him as a joke figure.

It didn’t matter what he did on the park. He won Rangers Young Player Of The Year in his first full season and has scored more goals in the Champions League than Kris Boyd.

He fell out of favour at Ibrox when Walter Smith started questioning his work-rate and attitude of the pitch. Another nail in the Adam coffin. A parting of the ways was inevitable.

A loan move to Blackpool brought further mirth on Charlie. A donkey going to Donkeyville and a place where people live on chips and beer. I found it hard not to imagine him standing on the South Pier, eating candy floss and ice cream trying pull passing hen nights in a ‘Kiss me quick!’ hat.

As rumours that he might actually be a player started to surface they were ignored. The Scottish Media stated Smith was right to get rid of this bad apple (or kebab in Adam’s case) and that he was just another in a long line of failed Celtic and Rangers youth players.

How times change.

Last week he was hailed as the future of the Scottish national side and a young player called Jamie Ness, who has played a few games for Rangers, was called the new Charlie Adam.

Though I gasped a few weeks back at a pass he played for Blackpool I still see a fat bloke, with a sometime decent left foot whose sisters pants smell from the east to the west.

That will never change.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found, not eating Monster Munch, at The Celtic Blog

Happy New Year.

It’s been a long time since I’ve dived into the cesspit that is the SPL but I figured that it was about time all you Premier League devotees got some poverty porn. You need to see how the others live without the excess of Murdoch.

Yesterday, it was agreed – in principal – that a 10 team SPL is the way forward for a league that is dying on its arse. It’s not the best solution but, as usual, money dictates. The dissenters who wanted a 14, 16 or an 18 team league have u-turned when, we can only assume, the figures were presented to them.

Dundee United chairman, Stephen Thompson, who was one of the whining voices (he actually proposed that after 34 games the top four should playoff for the title!) said like the Mother Teresa of the Scottish Game: “This is about doing something for the benefit of ALL the clubs in the country. I’m willing to give up a little bit of money for the greater good of Scottish Football.”

The broad agreement is this. A top league of 10 and a second tier of 12. Earlier season starts, winter breaks and clubs outside the ‘Big 22′ playing in regional leagues. There will also be provision for clubs who can afford it for ‘Colt’ teams to be entered in these regional leagues.

Will it work? Unsure. It’s not really a massive change to the top flight of the game. Teams will still play each other 4 times a season. I was all for a larger top league but in hindsight I don’t think Scotland has a large enough pool of decent players to make a 16 or 18 team SPL workable. The Dutch have an 18 team league but they have better players than us.

Do we have enough decent clubs also to make it workable? A look at Dundee’s flirtations with disaster suggests not.

Would you rather see your club play Celtic or Rangers 4 times a season or get a trip to Queen Of The South instead? The TV companies would rather have f0ur Glasgow and Edinburgh derbies than find space in their schedule for Hibs relegation battle with Dunfermline. The big clubs playing each other f08r times is more attractive to the casual onlooker.

The reconstruction is a victim of circumstance brought on by years on neglect. Switching to a 10/12/Regional set up is only the first step to recovery. Even then unless there is a change in mindset, in-terms of coaching at all levels, and also a full clear out of the organisations that rule our game, it’s all just window dressing.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic blog.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was Celtic chairman John Reid questioning their honesty. A former Blairite Home Secretary questioning anyone’s honesty is hypocritical. It’s like Katie Price telling young girls not to get their tits out.

So, the Grade One refs in Scotland have decided to call strike action this weekend. It’s not strike action but a withdrawal of service. They cite fear for themselves and their families after an increase in – unreported – abuse. They have no demands like most strikers have. No manifesto of change that they want to see implemented.

Their strike just seems to be in support of their disgraced colleague and boss who have admitted lying to a SPL manager, falsifying a match report, covering up this lie and only coming clean when it was exposed in a paper. That and they don’t like being told that they are not very good at their job.

The SFA and the SPL were caught by surprise. You see the men in the middle have never informed them of ‘unprecedented levels of abuse’ despite them having regular meetings with the refs. True, Willie Collum did receive some abusive phone calls after the Glasgow derby four weeks ago when he gave a penalty he didn’t see.

They weren’t the death threats that have been reported, Collum has admitted that. Also, the mass media reporting that the linesman involved in Tannadice-Gate, Stephen Craven, resigned due to death threats, again, denied by Craven, are wide of the mark after Craven came out and admitted he resigned due to his treatment from Dougie McDonald and Hugh Dallas in the wake of the Tannadice incident.

The SFA are planning on bringing refs from other associations if an agreement is not reached with the spit-the-dummy officials. This has seen an unprecedented level of vitriol and abuse from the press with the word scab being used to stoke the fire of ill-feeling. A word so outdated it was last used when Aberdeen were successful.

Officials from the SFA and assorted rent-a-gubs have been making sinister quips that this whole thing has sectarian undertones and certain clubs should stop this innuendo. Do you think they are talking about ref’s chief Hugh Dallas who seems to be on gardening leave after being caught sending an e-mail concerning the Pope and child abuse? Or that UEFA have again warned Rangers over their fans witty repertoire?

No, I don’t think so.

Instead of being thanked for having the face to stand up to and point out to the SFA the deteriorating refereeing standards since Hugh Dallas took over as boss – see Craig Thomson’s performance last night in the Ajax v Real Madrid game – plus trying to force the SFA to modernise from the current warren of committees, meetings, lack of transparency in their disciplinary procedures – which saw a referee admit he lied, falsified a match report, cover it up but still keep his job -  Celtic are being vilified in a massive smear campaign that deems them sectarian bigots.

Make no mistake Celtic want blood in all this. Dallas and McDonald must be the first to go. If the refs go on strike this weekend then they should all be sacked for bringing the game into disrepute.

Rip it up and start again.

If that doesn’t happen, can we come and play in England?

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic Blog

As Glasgow – ok, Scotland – does what it does best by feasting over the rotten carcass of the first Glasgow derby of the season one thing seems to be missed.

Rangers are unbeaten in all competitions this season. Only Man Utd and Valencia haven’t lost to them and they are on their best run since 1929. A team on the crest of a wave and their superiority over a transitional Celtic side – who have over-achieved domestically this season – their 3-1 victory shouldn’t come as a surprise. The feeling that if you won a Rangers player in a raffle you would hand them back may have to revisited. They are a perfect example of a well drilled team who are more impressive than their individual parts.

Kenny Miller makes the international "I've scored two goals" gesture

So to the controversy. In typical Glesga fashion it’s paranoia on one-side and selective amnesia on the other. Both managers were asked to comment on the referee Wullie Collum (yes, it does sound like a sex toy). Lennon was rightly critical of the referee after he gave a penalty to Rangers after being caught out by an outrageous dive from Kirk Broadfoot.

What made matters worse, for the green half anyway, was that the referee had his back to the incident. TV pictures quite clearly showed this to be the case. At the time of writing the SFA have not backed the referee as they have other things on their mind (more of that later). Rangers boss Smith advised that Celtic should stopped heaping pressure on referees before these games and by constantly questioning decisions and writing to the SFA for answers . This from a manager who in the past has been known to openly question impartiality without censure. As a linesman called Murphy will testify too.

Lennon said of Collum before the game that the referee needed to be strong as he was making his debut in this game. Nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t heaping pressure on the referee but just stating a fact. You could say more pressure was put on the referee by a paper who stated in an article that they found it ironic that a religious education teacher in a Roman Catholic School was being put in charge of this fixture. Only in Scotland would this have been commented on.

We will never know if the decision not to award the penalty, Rangers were 2-1 up at the time, would have had a bearing on the game. The SFA can’t back the referee on this occasion as it’s clear the decision is wrong. It will be interesting what happens to a referee that was one of the rising stars of the Scottish game.

The SFA are under pressure. They would have wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon after the previous weeks events in Dundee when Celtic were awarded a penalty by Dougie McDonald whom then changed his mind – on advise from his linesman, Steven Craven – and awarded a drop ball that he didn’t allow Celtic to contest.

Tv pictures show that it was a dubious penalty and that the Dundee United goalkeeper did touch the ball before taking out Celtic striker Gary Hooper. There could have also been another penalty award just before that challenge when United defender Gary Kenneth pulled back Hooper.  So what’s the fuss over a referee changing his mind and awarding the perceived correct decision? Well, there seems to be some inconsistencies with the explanation of the reversal of the decision.

Afterwards the players said that the referee said that the linesman told him he made a mistake. When the penalty was awarded the linesman took his place behind the goal. No flag and no attempt to call the referee over. The referee went over after the United players sent him there. Lennon stated afterwards he had asked for an explanation, got one and accepted it. He wasn’t happy and Celtic wrote to the SFA for further clarification.

The twist in the tale is this. The linesman has resigned as a professional referee and dependent on what paper you read it’s either because of the personal abuse he has received since the incident – it’s reported today that Wullie Collum has also received death threats since Sunday – or that he is not happy with the reporting of events and feels that he is being hung out to dry by Dougie McDonald and Hugh Dallas (head of the referees), who is trying to protect his top whistler.

This will either see Celtic vilified or bring down a house of cards for the SFA.

Heh, I haven’t even mentioned the singing about killing the Pope and burning down chapels, the Irish famine, about some Boys Of An Old Brigade or throwing seats at rival fans while celebrating goals.

Glasgow. Smiles better.

I’m unsure what the SPL call their fixtures. Is it ‘Match Day 1′, ‘Week 1′ , ‘Round 1′, or ‘Another Week when Celtic and Rangers are both likely to win’?

Celtic and Rangers both made it 6 wins out of 6. At a time when both are at their most vulnerable the fact that they are winning games with relative ease is worrying for the Scottish game. Rangers won at Aberdeen for the first time in 4 years. While coming back from 2 goals down is impressive for any team, what was more impressive was Aberdeen’s ability to look like they weren’t going to win the game even at 2-0.

“We conspired against ourselves”, said Mark McGhee afterwards. Rangers are as threadbare as Huckleberry Finn and have now faced Aberdeen, Hibs and Dundee Utd who they have dispatched with ease. It’s hard not to be impressed.

Celtic are a team in transition. 15 players sold in the summer, 11 signed in what is their second major rebuilding in 12 months. The performances are the mark of a team in transition. They are inconsistant as the new players take time to gel. Add to that a rookie manager who has admitted that he doesn’t know his best side. Ripe for point picking.

Not a chance. Hibs were dispatched with such ease, in a terrible game, that the Celtic support applauded Derek Riordon’s stupendous goal safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t lead to a collapse and a gift of points to ‘under-pressure’ John Hughes.

The question is now…who will be the first to take points from a supposedly on the wane Big Twa?

Hearts play Rangers next week. They lost 2-0 to Motherwell at the weekend and with Jim Jeffries bemoaning the interference from his chairman, which has seen Hearts re-sign an overweight former cult hero, Rudi Skacel – a player Jeffries didn’t want – over left back Tony Capaldi, a player they could do with as Lee Wallace is out until at least Christmas.

“I tried to solve the problem a couple of weeks ago with you know who but we couldn’t so we’ll have to go with what we have got”, moaned Jeffries after the game as Rudi Skacel walked by resembling a wet bag of cement. Hearts are comedy gold when Vladimir Romanov gets involved.

Celtic face Hamilton. Hamilton drew 2-2 with Kilmarnock after goals from Nigel Hasslbaink – Jimmy Floyd’s cousin – and Flavio Paixo put them two up – but a controversial decision to allow Kilmarnock to re-take a missed penalty for encroachment, both teams had players in the box, saw the game turn.

The winter of much discontent

This prompted a rebuttal from one of Hamilton’s Jedward twins. Jedward have more ability, in fact. The Paixo Twins are like the result of a genetic experiment between pigs excrement and a tiger loaf. “Some people need to show more respect for this club” shouted Flavio afterwards. Hamilton have given away 6 penalties this season. Something to keep an eye on if you’re a betting man, especially with them playing Celtic next.

Dundee United beat St Johnstone 1-0 but the game was overshadowed by referee, Brian Winter’s failure to send off Steven Anderson after two yellow cards. The fourth official and assistant tried to point out his mistake but Winters didn’t issue a red card.

“He cares so much about refereeing that he had to be talked out of walking away from it altogether”,  surmised head of referees chief, Hugh Dallas, a man who has reigned over a steady decline in the ability of the whistlers. Why did we talk a man, who made such a blatant mistake, out of walking away from a job he can’t do correctly? He had the chance to rectify his mistake at the time but didn’t. He is an idiot.

Two goals for Eric Odhiambo – another name for the betting people – saw Inverness send St Mirren bottom of the table. Good point to finish. At the point.

More next week.

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Lord of the Wing can usually be found at The Celtic Blog. If he’s not there try one of Deacon Blue’s legendary parties.

Once again, this seems to be a common theme this season, the state of the Scottish Football nation is being questioned. The picking of the scab came after Rangers ‘parked the bus’ at Old Trafford in their first Champions League outing of the season.

“UEFA are allowing a situation to develop that is wrong. Bigger clubs in smaller countries are being drastically affected by the lack of finance”, Walter Smith said after the game. It’s a point which has credence but a point which is hypocritical coming from him.

The big clubs in the small leagues can’t compete with the financial might of the rich clubs in the big leagues. A look round the first round games proved this. Chelsea and Arsenal strolled to victories while Real Madrid had 40 shots at goal during their game against Ajax. Ajax won the Champions League in 1995. They don’t have a chance now. However, the big clubs in the small leagues will still dominate those leagues  due to the prize money, or turning up money, they get from UEFA.

Laudrup - not as drunk as Gazza

“We don’t feel proud of the fact that we are doing it but there is nothing else left for us”, pleaded Smith failing to see why this doesn’t wash with most.

In the mid-nineties when Smith was in charge at Rangers he could compete with English and European teams in terms of transfer fees and wages. Guys like Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne were signed in a blaze of publicity suggesting that these players would take them to the next level. They even told us that they would have one team for Europe and another for the SPL.

Problem was Smith has always been a pragmatic defensive minded manager. Even with a decent squad, a squad widely regarded as the best in Rangers history, he failed miserably due a failure to loosen his blazer. At Everton his style was loathed by their fans and some call his time in charge the worst period in Everton’s history.

Smith had an out for his tactics last week. He doesn’t have an excuse for his past and I include the UEFA Cup Final run which saw Rangers become, statistically, the worst side to compete a UEFA Cup final by only winning 2 games out of 9. I have no problem with Smith doing what he feels right. Rangers are quite rightly proud of their point. But what does them earning £15m from just turning up in the hope not to get humped in the Champions League mean for the Scottish Game?

Already this season, Celtic and Rangers are 8 points ahead of the teams in third place. Rangers beat Dundee Utd, cup winners and 3rd place finishers last season, 4 -0 at the weekend with United manager Peter Houston bemoaning his sides “very much self inflicted” defeat.

The talk is of two 14 team divisions as the upper tier of Scottish football with the newly formed 3rd division being supplemented with “B” teams from Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen. The reserve league was scrapped last year as teams, Rangers included, couldn’t afford to fund reserve football.

Any set up has to have an emphasis on young players and allowing clubs to develop young players. The problem is that change, if the turkeys vote for it, will take a generation before the fruits are seen and it will get worse before it gets better. The Scottish game doesn’t do patience.

Hibs manager John Hughes tries to play football the right way but Hibs poor start to the season, 1 – 1 draw with Hamilton on Saturday, has seen him targeted by the boo boys.

“Maybe they think we’re better than we are, maybe that’s the problem”, Hughes commented; quite rightly, as I sauntered down the bookies to put money on him being the next SPL manager to get the sack.

As I said the Scottish game doesn’t do patience.

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Lord of the Wing can usually be found at The Celtic Blog. If he’s not there try Sean Connery’s castle.

A Week Of Embarrassment Where Brown And McInnes Should Have Just  Shut Their Mouths.

It’s not unusual for Scots to be embarrassing themselves all over Europe in August. Thousands cringe as pasty faced, usually fat, men and women, waddle poolside with 5 weans and 2 grand-weans in toe and proceed to be lobsterised, get drunk and think that wearing replica kits 7 days in a row along with socks and sandals plus eating nothing but chips is the height of acceptable behaviour.

Problem is for us football fans our teams in Europe are now more embarrassing than them.

Well, Celtic are embarrassing. The only solvent team in the country getting humiliated by a team that finished 7th in the Dutch League, containing clog makers as well as Rocky and Bullwinkle up front. Motherwell, Hibs and Dundee Utd also went out of Europe but they were playing teams that they weren’t expected to beat.

Motherwell could have the distinction of being the only Scottish team to win games in Europe this season after beating some puffins and penguins in earlier Europa League rounds. Yes, I know Rangers have yet to play but the odds of them finishing bottom of their Champions League group, winless, are very short.

This has lead to some serious introspection within the Scottish game. Loads of ideas being bandied about on how we can improve. For me it’s simple. Since it looks like we are going to be playing qualifiers in June then we have to start the SPL early and introduce a  4 week winter break to compensate for this early start.

Those who want to move the full season to the summer have been sniffin Sunny D. The SPL is just a cigarette paper away from the Eirecom League and moving to summer football would mean even less attraction to any Jonny Foreigner who is deemed average enough to play here.

The other thing is lets start producing better players and stop lauding players as the next big thing when in reality if they had been born in any other country in the world they would be working as labourers not well paid footballers. I’m looking at Scott Brown mainly.

The domestic fare shown live on the idiot box has been poor so far. Motherwell and Celtic at the weekend produced a borefest devoid of any football. And I thought the first 45mins of Hibs v Rangers the week before would have been hard to beat for needles in the eyes pain.

Still, at least the weekend games saw managers get the chance to blame the referees for defeats against Celtic and Rangers. Craig Brown allowed ESPN cameras into the Motherwell dressing room during the game with Celtic. Rumour has it he allowed Red Hot Amateur TV similar access to his bedroom.  “It’s easy to give a penalty for the Old Firm with the fans behind that goal” he said of the penalty that gave Celtic victory. He also admitted it was a penalty. Easy indeed.

At Ibrox a man who lives his life under a neon tube in a microwave, Derek McInnes, said of Rangers winning goal: “I thought Alan Maybury was barged to the ground. We just feel a real sense of injustice.”

TV evidence has proved that he is talking a load of head and shoulders. In both incidents the referee called it correctly. The managers should both be looking at the amateurish and sloppy play from their sides instead of implying that the big two in Scotland get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to decisions.

They might find crying wolf could do them more harm in the long run.

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Lord of the Wing can be found at The Celtic Blog

Every week the Lord of the Wing takes time out from his Celtic duties to give us an entirely unbiased and objective SPL round-up. Here’s his first column for Three and in

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Sometimes paying into an SPL game is like paying money to help a national disaster. The game is perceived to being on its uppers. Others see it as the salt of the earth. A league that gives off that sweet smell you get  after a heavy rain shower … if that sweet smell was interjected with winter green and Cheltenham Town reserves.

So the story begins……

Aberdeen are the front-runners. The natives were probably hoping for a BP oil slick off the North Coast to help them get noticed this season but an opening 4-0 Paul Hartley hat-trick of penalties inspired victory over Hamilton has seen a wave of optimism sweep over the Dons. Yes, they no longer want to spit on Mark McGhee.

That wave of optimism will last until the school holidays end this week and Aberdeen lose half their squad. “We’ll take a bit of encouragement from it”, pondered Mark McGhee after the game, while the rest of us ponder if Hamilton will be found out this year and Billy Reid’s media love in will end.

Celtic headed up north to their graveyard of the Tulloch Under The Bridge Stadium. Celtic gave Inverness the chance by playing non-scoring centre forwards, Samaras and Fortune, plus Charlie Mulgrew and Lukas Zulaska in defence and in goal respectively. They still headed home with a comfortable 1-0 victory thanks to a Paddy McCourt wonder goal who then got kneed in the head by Shaun Maloney causing him to go off.

As the league flag was unfurled Rangers don’t have their troubles to seek. The thought of their winter fuel payments getting cut means that they don’t reckon David Weir will make it through the winter and with their first signing in two years, James Beattie, coming with a wide load warning causing a re-think on canteen budgets.

Kilmarnock, who have failed to win in Glasgow for the last 1000 years, succumbed to narrow 2-1 defeat, with Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith scoring the goals for Rangers. Kilmarnock manager Mixu Paatelainen proved that he understands football when he said after the game, “We didn’t add to our points tally.”

Hearts manager Jim Jeffries lived up to his pragmatic and boring tag when he decided not to attempt to win Hearts game against St Johnstone by refusing to play new signings Kevin Kyle and Stephen Elliot. Two goals in two minutes from Callum Elliot and a equaliser from Sam Parkin gave the crowd more entertainment than a street performer juggling balls in the name of art and student grants.

Cowdenbeath, sorry, St Mirren got the Lennon Revolution MKII of a decent start when they drew with Dundee Utd who had a last minute equaliser from the lampost that is Jon Daly to thank for the point. I read that St Mirren would need to survive the loss of players the calibre of striker Billy Mehmet to survive this season. Most think losing that sparrows spew would improve their team.

Last game of the weekend. ESPN covered Motherwell v Hibs in the hope that a repeat of the 6-6 draw at the end of last season was on the cards. 3 dogs, a cat and a budgie watched a 3-2 victory for Hibs who had a good and bad pre-season. Their game in Europe was bad but it was good that Derek Riordon
survived the summer without being arrested.

Riordan got over his Scotland snub by setting up two goals and setting a trend for new neds haircuts.

“I don’t want to be a moaner” moaned Craig Brown after the game sounding like one of his younger beaus when faced with the pot bellied lothario in his thong.

That’s week one over. Thoughts?