By Stewart Weir
Saturday
Scottish Cup Final day when, you would have thought, warnings would have been heeded and best behaviour would have been on show.
Particularly when earlier in the week Neil Lennon, the Celtic manager, said he didn’t want to hear unacceptable songs coming from the club’s followers. In hindsight, maybe he should have been more specific.
Obviously, while he is Neil Lennon, contrary to popular beliefs, all Celtic followers are not Neil Lennon. Perhaps their thinking was that he didn’t like Ten Guitars or Vienna and so there was no attempt to warble them.
However, during the final, there were a few choruses of Boys of the Old Brigade belted out – a catchy tune, but one you are unlikely to find Daniel O’Donnell offering on his Christmas album.
And while there are those who would defend it as being simply Republican, or claim it is nothing more than a political ditty and not sectarian in any way, shape or form, it would appear to fall within that category of chants that politicians, polis and legislators – and one or two BBC commentators – might want removed from Scottish football and society.
Of course, when this rendition was pointed out on the Beeb during the half-time break by Rob MacLean and Pat Nevin, they received hundreds of complaints, and even had Celtic asking for them to explain their comments.
All of which has left a great many people confused by what is and what isn’t a sectarian chant or comment.
On the eve of the final, Stewart Regan, the SFA’s chief executive, stated in reaction to comments from Alex Salmond: “The Scottish FA welcomes the first minister’s pledge today to provide tougher legislation to tackle the problem of sectarianism.
“We look forward to the Scottish government taking the lead to offer clarity on the issue of sectarianism and other forms of discriminatory behaviour within Scottish football.”
As one of my Belfast-based colleagues said, that statement was akin to Chamberlain’s "I have in my hand a piece of paper". A guarantee of peace in our time? We’ll see.
Sunday
It’s arrived. Survival Sunday, or at least it would be for three of the five teams attempting to avoid relegation from the English Premier League into the second tier, or Championship as it’s now more commonly known for marketing reasons only. And for the other two, it really would be Drop Day. And what a day!
After a slow start, you then required the radar system from an Apache attack helicopter and an abacus to keep track of who was staying up and who were about to perish.
In short, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers and Wolves were in danger, while Wigan and Blackpool started the day on the trap-door. By half-time, recalculations showed it was Wolves and Wigan who were headed out of the top flight – but 45 minutes later, Birmingham City were gone, along with Blackpool who for a few glorious minutes had actually managed to climb to 16th and almost mid-table mediocrity.
Apart from that, nothing much happened. The only team receiving silverware for their efforts were Manchester United, whose "weakened" team stuck four past Blackpool.
They collected the Premier League championship trophy, again.
However, for me it paled compared to the award dished out (and I use that phrase wisely) during The Championship, which is BBC Northern Ireland’s weekly offering from the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) football division.
It’s a programme and a network I tune into regularly. Indeed, this weekend’s regional output was first-class, with two shows covering the running of the North West 200, motorcycle road racing at its mental best.
But back to The Championship, and after Sunday’s Ulster Championship match between Derry and Fermanagh, Enda Muldoon was the worthy recipient of the Man of the Match award.
Now, I am not entirely sure or familiar with the significance of it. Or whether there is a sponsor behind it. Or if someone decided to find a more practical use for MotM honours, like becoming presents for mammies and grannies rather than having them become dust-collectors stuck in a trophy cabinet. Or if they arrived at the ground without an award, and the only place open was the nearest Dunelm Mill.
According to presenter Austin O’Callaghan, Muldoon “tends to be a reluctant Man of the Match winner but we persuaded him to accept this trophy.”
Judge for yourself why he might have been reluctant, and how much persuading needed to be done…
Monday
With all the talk of superinjunctions and people being named and shamed in parliament, it was good just to chill and attend the Monday night sports quiz at my local.
The penultimate round of five questions was a mixed bag: some tough, some easy.
First question was which footballer has a record 12 English Premier League winner's medals, followed by "name the Australian who won the women’s singles at Wimbledon in 1970".
We then had to answer which Irish ‘keeper was replaced as Man City’s no.1 by Joe Hart, and name the Arsenal player whose goal at Anfield in 1989 clinched the league title for the Gunners. And the last question was quite a hard one, namely which East German athlete won the women’s 400m at the 1980 Moscow Olympics?
After a bit of debate, we settled on our answers which the question-master duly confirmed. And we celebrated another win.
Oh, and for the record, the answers were Giggs, Court, Given, Thomas, Koch.
As I say, it was good to avoid all nonsense about footballers and their alleged indiscretions…
Tuesday
Barry Hearn’s continued expansion of the snooker calendar sees a ranking tournament scheduled for July in Australia.
A 20,000-mile round trip for what could be just five frames of snooker. I can see the attraction…
Wednesday
In terms of the Tartan Army, they saw fit to send little more than an Expeditionary Force to the Aviva Stadium in Dublin as Scotland contested their second match in the Carling Nations Cup against Wales.
You might have missed the first instalment, which came back in February and was a 3–0 win over Northern Ireland. So by dint of a 3–1 win against the Welsh, watched by just 6,036 (even Wales and Celtic legend John Hartson couldn't find anyone to sit beside him), Scotland will now face the Republic of Ireland on Sunday to see who takes the spoils in this marketing exercise gone wrong.
Let’s face it, the one team we, the Welsh and all-Ireland really would want to play, namely England, can’t be arsed joining in on a Disney production like this, hence the near-empty stadium.
Apathy surrounds this tournament, summed up by how few decided attend the one-time Holy War between Ireland and their northern relations. What does that tell you? Still, it might be different on Sunday for the grand final – at least The Apprentice won't be on at the same time.
However, watching Scotland against Wales, I was acutely aware that something was different, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And suddenly the penny dropped.
How easy was it to work out who was who when Wales played in white shirts with red shorts, and Scotland turned out in yellow jerseys with blue pants?
Way back in 1977, I sat there completely puzzled as to their respective identities when the two nations did battle in that never-to-be-forgotten World Cup qualifier at Anfield, wondering who was who in the colour clash of blue and red. If it hadn’t been for Arthur Montford’s legendary commentary, calling home Kenny Dalglish’s classic winner, I’d have still been sitting now wondering who had won.
It was the same in 1985. If it wasn’t for the fact that I recognised Davie Cooper from my school days at Udston Primary, I wouldn’t have been able to tell who the Welsh were or identify the Scots XI.
So hats off to both nations on Wednesday for wearing light shirts and darker shorts to ease identification. But just what is it with clubs and countries being so desperate to wear second, away or change kit, other than commercial greed?
Thursday
And as if by magic, Celtic launch a third kit for next season. Which begs the question, if the famous Hoops are so famous, why do we need not one but two changes of kit?
Friday
So Fulham will play in the Europa League next season – they were given the spot as Premier League Fair Play winners Chelsea were already in the Champions League.
The Fair Play format isn’t all about yellow and red cards, or a lack of them. Teams are awarded fair play points for each league game played, while they are assessed by delegates who also take in to account factors such as respect towards opponents, behaviour of club officials and positive play.
Not quite an exact science, then, so probably the kind of system UEFA and FIFA would adopt rather than goal-line technology.
– Tweet Stewart Weir with thoughts and comments, @sweirz
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