we hear that...

Record all at sea (not)

Those of us who are continuing to boycott the Daily Record will be heartened to hear that Stena Line, Stranraer have stopped taking the scurrilous rag as well. The ferry company used to have a contract with the Record & Sunday Mail. Stena would supply customers using their ships with a free copy of the Record if they wanted one.

That contract is now finished and to date, after several weeks, has not been renewed. Going by the large amount of papers that Stena had delivered each day, it must have been a big financial loss to the Record. I don't know the ins and outs of why the contract was not renewed - and frankly I don't care - but I'd like to think that maybe it's because Stena is Swedish and they don't like the rubbish being printed when it involves three of that fine country's favourite sons!

Phil award

It's official, and it's in the Guardian so who am I to argue? After an extensive poll carried out by the newspaper, Phil O'Donnell has been awarded the accolade of the most injured player ever, hobbling off with the prize having fended of the likes of Darren Anderton and David May.

Who's the psycho in the black?

Here we were thinking our distrust and antipathy towards referees was just another symptom of the paranoia we have all been collectively diagnosed with. But now we can relax. It is OK to hate referees after all.

According to the British Psychological Society, 'referees exhibit anti-social tendencies that would be frowned upon in polite society but which make them uniquely suited to the job.' They suffer, apparently, from 'illusory superiority', which means they think they know better than everyone else, even their fellow referees. 'Illusory superiority denotes an odd group of people,' said Dr. Nick Neave of Northumbria University, who recently presented a paper on referees to the society's annual conference in Bournemouth. 'Most people show it to some extent but all referees do. It is the sort of thing you would expect to find in traffic wardens and politicians.'

Some 42 referees outside the English Premiership were asked to fill in forms immediately before and after games. Despite the verbal and even physical abuse received from fans and players, they emerged unstressed. 'They tend to externalise everything,' said Dr. Neave. 'They put any hostility down to people not understanding the laws, or being biased, rather than blaming themselves... ' And each considered he was superior to other referees (see Dallas, Hugh). 'If they didnÕt have that confidence they would wilt,' said Dr. Neave. 'Their characteristics may be anti-social but they are necessary... to do their job properly.'

Dafty Goram

As you may have read in one of the tabloids, cash-strapped Andy Goram is having his own benefit dinner in Belfast, arranged by Donald Findlay (good to see he's steering clear of any whiff of sectarianism after his last karaoke sketch) and for all the Huns attending there will be a lots of Goram's football memorabilia up for grabs. This includes Amoruso's farewell to Rangers shirt, and a Porto shirt from the UEFA Cup Final signed by the full Rangers squad! Makes a bit of a mockery, does it not, of Alex McLeish's statement about not helping Stuttgart when they played Celtic because he wouldn't want to 'betray a fellow SPL team'.

A puff for Goram's do appeared in a Belfast newspaper together with a number to phone for ticket information. It was billed as 'MR Promotions'. But guess who answers the phone? Andy Goram!

He might not be the sharpest tool in the groundsman's shed, but to put your own mobile number in a Belfast daily paper to sell tickets for your own benefit dinner!

more celtic celebs

Driving to work this morning I heard Maxwell Caulfield, star of 'The Colbys' and 'Grease 2' with Michelle Pfeiffer, who was on the Fred McAuley BBC Radio Scotland show talking all about his latest role in Casualty. He mentioned he was going to see Chelsea play Spurs as he supports them. He then said he also supported Celtic and started to talk about Celtic gubbing the Huns in '69 and went on to actually name the team; Fallon, Gemmell, NcNeill etc.

McAuley then says, 'We have just lost 1/2 our listeners' to which Maxwell replied that he was half Jock and Celtic have always been his favourite Scottish team.

On the same show McAulay spoke to friends of 'Jungly Barry Haplin' to find out whether he and Lord Lucan are one and the same. Mike Harding (folk singer/comedian) says no way, as Barry, born in the south of England was an Irish Republican, albeit with a small 'r' and wouldn't have liked to have his name linked with the likes of Lucan!

so farewell then bammy...

We hear that when the dearly departed Barry Ferguson signed his last contract at the Death Star, his new mega salary (stop laughing at the back) would be paid in increments, starting this the season. Lord Murray , we hear, didn't envisage the bank insisting that all new salary transactions were to be frozen until their spiralling financial situation stabilised. Forget the McCann deal, the bank were waiting on the money as soon as the ink hit the paper!

This may sound strange but Murray did once mention how he 'pays' the salaries at Mordor and used Reyna as an example of how the transfer fee and the salary were accounted for. What we seem to have now is a situation were Rangers were effectively unable to pay Ferguson. Therefore they had no alternative but to sell him!

Forget the £6 million from Blackburn. We hear that Rangers had to pay Ferguson in the region of half this before he would go! You couldn't make it up, I believe is the phrase.

missed caption

Surely when the nutter ran on to the pitch at Pittodrie to attempt to land a kung fu kick on Fernando Ricksen picture editors all over the country missed what might be their once in a lifetime opportunity to accompany the now infamous picture with the caption, 'When the fan hits the shit ...'

Ach, please yerselves.

Toodloo the Noo

EARWIG

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