He was all we could ever have wished for

There is something about football that makes fools of men. We walk into stadiums full of excitement or apathy, anticipation or dread and we leave them crushed, infuriated, triumphant, joyful – we never know which beforehand.

We cede control of our emotional destiny, placing it in the hands of a few people we don’t know and we can’t control and who may or may not give a damn. And then we come back for more.

But more precious and more fragile is the hope and trust of the young. When we are children, we need heroes like we need sugar, play and love. We don’t yet know how to live, we watch to learn and try somehow to copy those in whom, in our naïve wisdom, we have invested all of our trust.

Years teach us our errors and in discovering the flaws of those we admire we come to accept imperfections in those close to us and in ourselves. But just sometimes those disappointments don’t arise. On very rare occasions we find that one of those we held in such high esteem really has been all we hoped, they haven’t changed or scorned our admiration.

In a world of empty promises, we take comfort that something good remains true. It is, perhaps, the shred of reality that justifies faith. Such men are harder to find than gold dust in a stream – and far more valuable.

When one of those people passes, so too dies something in those who beheld them with awe, an idly happy part of childhood left vulnerable to the cynical practicality of life and death.

We know that our sadness is nothing to the pain of those close to them, those who really have a right to grieve, but we shed an indulgent tear just the same.

There is one less man whom we know understands when we are suffering. One less whom we know wants what we want. One less to speak for us or to turn to. It is part of a sometimes fearful realisation that we are in a constant state of change in a world we cannot control.

We readjust ourselves to the knowledge that the smiles and the laughter of so many glorious memories will forever be followed with a sadness and a solemn whisper: “too soon; too young”.

At 4am on Thursday, 15th May 2008, the Celtic story changed too, and the hearts of all who believe in it. A boy from the Calton who had become the bearer of a million dreams, the champion of a people’s ideals, closed a beautiful, glorious chapter in Celtic history called Tommy Burns.

He was all we could ever have wished for.

UEFA must investigate corruption at the heart of Scottish football

In 2005, Robert Hoyzer shook German football to its foundations with the revelation that he had been involved in match-fixing in the 2nd Bundesliga.

Hoyzer had sent off SV Hamburg’s Emil Mpenza and awarded two penalties to Paderborn who had been trailing 2-0 at the time.

Hamburg’s players’ complaints of bias were vindicated.

In 2004, Czech club Synot were fined 15,000 Euros and docked 12 points when the club were found guilty of bribing referees. The crisis worsened when 17 referees and club officials were charged with corruption.

Some of the biggest clubs in football were found guilty of corruption in Italy and punished severely.

Today, Celtic should call upon UEFA to investigate corruption in the Scottish game.

With an SFA Chief Executive who has not even pretended to be impartial, and whose comments, submitted prior to his appointment but which were published afterwards, did much to question his capacity for objectivity, it seems unlikely that any such allegations in the Scottish game will be taken seriously by our authorities.

The SFA decision to respond to charges of sectarian singing at Rangers with “no action” closely followed Smith’s appointment and since then their fans have been guilty of disgusting racism at home and away matches without censure.

However, the performances of Mike McCurry in Rangers matches, notably against Dundee United today, demand special attention.

With Dundee Utd 2-0 down, McCurry failed to award a clear penalty that should also have resulted in a red card for David Weir.

Later in the same game an own goal by Weir was disallowed for offside.

A few moments later, the Rangers player Daniel Cousin received only a yellow card for a head butt.

None of these decisions can be justified in any context. The fact that they all favoured Rangers who are challenging for the SPL demands attention.

If the Italians, Germans and Czechs can acknowledge corruption, why should we suppose that it does not exist in the Scottish game? And if the Scottish authorities will not take action, UEFA must be asked to investigate.

Craig Levein on the match

The words of shame that Scotland ignores

Today, before a ball has even been kicked, Rangers supporters can clearly be heard on Setanta singing their "Famine's over song" at Easter Road - the one that self-appointed social commentators like The Herald's Darryl Broadfoot and PA Scotland's Ronnie Esplin (who supplies a large chunk of the Scottish press with reports) think do not merit condemnation. These same people who supplied endless columns and reports on Artur Boruc's T-shirt and told us, falsely, that Celtic would face a UEFA investigation for alleged "sectarian" singing after a journalist sent Youtube clips to Europe's governing body, think this latest song unworthy of mention.

In case anyone is in any doubt, here the words are printed in full.

Why don't they go home.

I often wonder where they would have been
If we hadn't have taken them in
Fed them and washed them
Thousands in Glasgow alone
From Ireland they came
Brought us nothing but trouble and shame
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?

Now Athenry Mike was a thief
And Large John he was fully briefed
And that wee traitor from Castlemilk
Turned his back on his own
They've all their Papists in Rome
They have U2 and Bono
Well the famine is over
Why don't they go home?

INSTRUMENTAL

Now they raped and fondled their kids
That's what those perverts from the darkside did
And they swept it under the carpet
and Large John he hid
Their evils seeds have been sown
Cause they're not of our own
Well the famine is over
Why don't you go home?

Now Timmy don't take it from me
Cause if you know your history
You've persecuted thousands of people
In Ireland alone
You turned on the lights
Fuelled U boats by night
That's how you repay us
It's time to go home.

Rangers 2008 - Scotland's shame. The Scottish media and football authorities - complicit by your silence.


Update: In Monday's Herald, near the bottom of Darryl Broadfoot's piece calling for a knighthood for Walter Smith and demanding unstinting praise for Rangers (with an ill-considered swipe at the Celtic of Tommy Burns) carried this comment :

"Intense rivalry makes the Old Firm unique. Intense loathing and religious intolerance makes them a national embarrassment.

"For example: the 2200 fans inside the Artemio Franchi stadium were impeccably behaved yet spoiled a magical trip to Florence with a drink-fuelled chorus of Why Don't You Go Home - a reference to the Irish famine - at 3am as the players and backroom team attempted to board the charter home."

Although it is not clear that the term "impeccably behaved" is appropriate, at least, coincidentally, the issue has now been mentioned by Broadfoot, albeit arguably "shoehorned" into a piece of unbridled sycophancy, perhaps as an afterthought. Now, will the issue actually be addressed in the manner of the Artur Boruc's T-shirt which was linked to a death on Sunday night and an assault on Aiden McGeady with Boruc caricatured as a bringer of mayhem? We watch with interest.