If there's one time you'd think it would be safe to buy all the papers in order to bask in hungover glory at the exploits of the Hoops it would be in the wake of a Cup Final win that sealed a glorious treble. But this is Scotland we're talking about here, and, more specifically, Celtic. And if it's Celtic there must either be a full scale crisis underway or, if not, one expected any minute.

The Sunday tabloids weren't actually too bad for once. The News of the Screws had an 8 page supplement covering the final with a further three pages of coverage in the sports section. The only sour note was a full page given over to a "defiant message to Martin O'Neill and his treble winning hoops players" from none other than Bammy Ferguson. "Let's see how you handle being the top dogs now", was Bammy's defiant message.

"A damn sight better than you did", would be NTV's equally defiant answer.

The Screws' rival in the Two Bald Men Fighting Over A Comb division, the Sunday Mason, actually had 13 pages of match reports and interviews following the final but completely spoiled my breakfast by including two pages featuring the Hunfest in Belfast between Linfield and The Rangers Heroes (The Sons of William v The Other Sons of William), complete with Rangers Heroes team picture.

The battle to keep down my Frosties was lost at the sight of John Brown, John McGregor, Dave MacPherson, Graham Roberts, Davie Dodds, Fraser Wishart, Ally Dawson et al, who between them must have collected more bookings than the Kings Theatre.

Incidentally, a quick skim read of the aforementioned team sheet might well have you asking what kind of player is regarded as having achieved heroic status round Ibrox way. But let's not digress.

The opinion slot for that Sunday's Mason - a new feature which seems to have been concocted specially for the occasion - was given over to Mark Guidi, he of the swooping managers. Rather than dwell too long on Celtic's achievements, i.e. 24 hours, he put forward the view that "Celts may have treble (geddit??) in holding on to Martin", suggesting that if O'Neill didn't get cash from the board he'd be off to Manchester United.

The Mason also carried an 8 page "Tribute to the treble champs", which was little more than an article by Hugh "Bonkers" Keevins comparing O'Neill with Stein (get the albatross ready Hugh) and an article on Celtic's team spirit by Euan MacLean padded out with some pictures.

As tributes go it was worthy of Marc Antony at Julius Caesar's funeral.

By the Monday morning it was as if the shock of Celtic winning everything was already beginning to wear off. The Daily Retard's sports section was almost entirely given over to that great Celtic man Keith Jackson who gave us a back page "Don't mess Henrik about" article in which he informed us that, "Martin O'Neill has warned Celtic's dithering directors that he's ready to become personally involved in Henrik Larsson's contract talks."

What? A manager involved in a player's contract talks? Whatever next?

Jackson's double page spread on the inside was headlined "O'Neill lives in fear of repeating Gers flop", which could easily be rephrased, "Jackson lives in fear of Celtic repeating treble win."

The Retard's 16 page football pull-out was all about the Cup Final and was the usual post-match interview stuff apart from a piece by Ewing Graham about why Celtic should give Henrik Larsson whatever he wants (let's reflect on the wisdom of that for a couple of nanoseconds shall we?) and James Traynor's predictably moribund column which he used to echo Guidi's Sunday version. "Keeping O'Neill is Celtic's next test... He has soared to the top of the managerial pile (that's Otmar Hitzfeld put in his place then - ed)... having conquered Scotland he wants to try Europe and if Quinn and Sheehy don't help him someone else will."

Traynor, it was, on Radio Scotland who listened to an interview in which Martin O'Neill denied any interest in moving to Old Trafford then said, "What was interesting there was not so much what Martin O'Neill said as what he didn't say."

The more things change eh?

The attempts to take the sheen of Celtic's silverware with the protracted kite-flying about Martin O'Neill and Henrik Larsson about to leave for Manchester stand in stark contrast to the constant stream of good news emanating from Ibrox this summer.

Not only do Rangers now have a training pitch that will seemingly be churning out a conveyor belt of new Bammy Fergusons in about ten years time (Oh help, I'm shitting myself with trepidation - sarcastic ed) they have replaced their star midfield players witha couple of elderly rakes and somebody called Nerlinger, who has swapped the treatment room at Dortmund for the new one at the Huns' training ground.

Having promised no more signings over the age of 30, Murray unveiled Latapy and Caniggia - or 'kineejit as he will henceforth be referred to in these pages. The portrayal that Latapy was plucked by Advocaat from under the very nose of Martin O'Neill will almost certainly go down as the best bit of business done by the Wig since he first pulled that stunt with Dariusz Adamczuk (who he? ed).

Advocaat's announcement that this summer's spending spree was now officially over will come as bad news to the 29 players linked with amove to Ibrox recently. These included Kanu of Arsenal, for whom they were allegedly about to pay £9 million - you can just picture the bank manager's face can't you? - Fonseca, Tamuda, Henchoz, Berger, the other De Boor, Harry Potter...

Of those whizzing away from Ibrox without the assistance of David Murray's non-existent private jet, the transfer of the Hammer back to Hamburg was reported almost like a death in the family. Colin Duncan of the Daily Retard (22nd May) even went as far as to say that Albertz had enjoyed "five glorious years at Ibrox".

Which I suppose he has, if you conveniently neglect to count this one. Or the year Wim Jansen's team did the double. Or the fact that he was part of the Huns team that made their own piece of history by being the first British team to be knocked out of Europe twice in the space of a month.

Another one to split was Tugay, who lifted the lid on the cliques within the dressing room at Ibrox. far be it from us to suggest that this story only broke in the tabloids once there was no chance of Rangers catching Celtic in the league, or indeed that if the same scenario had happened at Parkhead the story would have kept the Retard's graphics department in constant overtime reveamping the old Celtic crest torn assunder.

HACKWATCHER