Jim Thornton's football funnies
Jim Thornton brings you his weekly dose of Scottish football fun.
The Brothers Grimm
They’ve been out of the game for far too long, so it’s good to see the two Johns – Collins and Hughes – back as the new Livingston management team. In fact, you could say their return is just like a fairytale … Beauty and the Beast.
I’m alright, Jack
Peter Lawwell of Celtic, commenting on a possible life without Rangers, is quoted as saying: “We have a stand-alone strategy, a stand-alone financial plan and a robustness hopefully that will take us through that.”
Which translates as: “We’re big and we’ve got bags of money, so we don’t give a monkey’s about all you wee diddy teams.”
How to win friends and influence people
Neil Lennon could surely take anger-management lessons from Swindon manager and former Celtic hothead Paolo di Canio. The volatile Italian is currently serving a two-game ban, his second suspension of the season. So, does he have a pop at the FA and their disciplinary procedures? Does he hint at conspiracies by the men in black? No, he says instead: “I want to thank the Football Association for giving me the opportunity to watch the game from the stands. I give them permission to ban me for the rest of the season. We will win the league anyway.” A loss to the Diplomatic Corps is our Paolo.
Every vote counts
Dunfermline legend Jim Leishman is standing as a Labour candidate in the forthcoming local authority elections. I don’t know if he’ll win, but he’s got a better chance of finishing in the top six than the Pars have.
Killer goals
Every time Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey scores, someone famous dies. At least, that’s the latest theory doing the rounds. Previous goals by the Welshman have apparently done for Colonel Gaddafi, Steve Jobs, and Osama bin Laden. He then scored against Sunderland at the weekend, and sure enough Whitney Houston went for an early bath.
Desperate Dan
It may not have been a sending-off offence, but it was a piece of defending that even a Hibs centre-half would have been embarrassed about. So why did Celtic even bother to appeal Majstorovic’s red card? Surely they aren’t thinking of giving him another game, are they?
Barking mad
I see Carlos Tevez is complaining that he was treated like a dog at Man City. Typical pampered foreigner. You never hear Harry Redknapp’s dog whining about life at Tottenham, do you?
Blarney or baloney
Vladimir Romanov had hardly taken over as El Supremo at Tynecastle before he was being roundly condemned for picking the Hearts team. His critics also said that any manager worth his salt would tell Mad Vlad up which orifice he should stick the job if he kept on interfering. So why did the self-same people suddenly give Kenny Shiels such a hard time for saying exactly the same thing?
Deja vu all over again
I’ve been re-reading the great Bob Crampsey’s 1990 history of The Scottish League, “The First 100 Years”, and it’s interesting to see how little the game in Scotland has actually changed over the piece. Take the following, for example:
"The autumn of 1949 had seen considerable crowd trouble at the first two Old Firm matches of the season, one at Ibrox, the other at Parkhead. In each instance Celtic had expressed themselves very unhappy with the referee and they now asked that the next two scheduled games against their old rivals should be postponed indefinitely, to allow tempers to cool. The Scottish League did not accede to this request nor did they endorse Celtic's wish that in future Old Firm matches should be handled by a non-Scot."
Surely Dougie McDonald wasn’t refereeing that long ago?
Losing the toss
And, in the same book, Bob reports that in the 1928-29 season a Clyde player was ordered off in a match against Rangers for “interfering with the referee”. A case of hand to ball, perhaps?
High hopes
Peter Crouch is hoping that Fabio Capello’s resignation as England manager will help him get back in the national team, the beanpole striker having dropped down the pecking order under the Italian. But isn’t Harry Redknapp supposed to be a shoo-in for the England job? And wasn’t it the bold Harry who punted Crouch to Stoke at the beginning of the season? Don’t hold your breath, big man.
Add comment
