WELL that was one rubbish week.

It began with the news of Billy McNeill dealing with dementia, the middle bit was taken up by Alex Young, Scotland’s golden vision, passing away and then Tommy Gemmell left us on Thursday.

As Basil Fawlty once said; “Thank you, God. Thank you so bloody much.”

Of course, during such dark times it is important to remember the fun – and both Lions had plenty of that.

Indeed, big Billy told a story about an Old Firm game at Ibrox under the floodlights when Tam was marking the Rangers winger Willie Henderson, a brilliant player who was blighted with terrible eyesight.

Willie wasn’t having the best game and could tell he was being shouted at but had no idea what was being said.

“Tam, what are they saying to me,” asked the man in blue.

“They want you to go over to them in the dugout,” replied his ‘pal’ in hoops who pointed the short-sighted superstar to where he should be.

And as Willie wandered over, with eyes squinting, he eventually came face-to-face with Jock Stein who told him where to go, much to the Celtic player’s amusement.

As a cub reporter, which is newspaper speak for being young and stupid, my patch for a while was covering Albion Rovers when the great Gemmell was manager. He saw no harm in offering the teenage hack a large whisky in his tiny room after the match had finished.

Actually it was usually more than one. Actually I usually missed my stop on the train.

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To egg chasing now and Finn Russell, Scotland's superb stand-off, held a media event at his old school in Bridge of Allan this week to launch some running events in Scotland.

All well and good until it was revealed that Russell would not be talking about rugby.

Here is a hint to PR people. See when you book a famous sportsperson, the ideal way to get publicity is to get them to speak about their sport.

Although I’m told Russell’s take on Ricky Tomlinson’s claim that late Countdown presenter Richard Whiteley was a MI5 spy was interesting.

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We did like the best football hooligan story of the week.

Vandals attacked the Crystal Palace team bus and by vandals we mean it was Crystal Palace fans.

You know things are bad when the transport gets it.

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Reader George Burchick liked a piece on Hampden Park and the rather dismal state of a once grand football ground.

“At Celtic Park there are separate doors marked ENTER and EXIT. At the national stadium there is only one door so, at half time, it's like the painting The Battle of Stirling Bridge as punters push past each other. It sums up Scottish football nicely not knowing whether it is coming or going."

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Now this is cruel but we can’t ignore it.

After it was revealed that Rangers’ less than convincing defender Rob Kiernan’s red card against St Johnstone would put him out of the Old Firm game, an appeal was immediately put in by Brendan Rodgers.

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For Neds who find Clyde Super Scoreboard too intelligent, there is always talkSport.

On Wednesday some guy called Jason Cundy put down Celtic and Scottish football as a whole because that patter does very well with the little Englanders who can’t accept that India is now a sovereign country.

Cundy is a man whose face looks slapped but that wouldn’t stop you from punching him.

He said: “I’ve looked on Twitter about how many people follow football clubs. Newcastle United have one million followers, Celtic haven’t got half of that. There are some Championship clubs and I reckon even some League One clubs that have a better Twitter following than Celtic.”

And then added: “What else are you going to do in Glasgow? It’s either drink beer or go to football.”

Adrian Durham is also an employee. He once wrote a column on why Ryan Giggs didn’t have a good playing career.

To be fair, it’s good that society’s mouth-breathers get their own radio station.

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From the Evening Times this week: “Rangers director Mike Ashley poised to slip into lingerie market.” Thank the good Lord that sentence didn’t end a word sooner.

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Tweet of the year so far came from the official account of Aberdeen while reporting on a reserve match.

“62' Aberdeen change – Chicken on for Henry #DonsU20s.”

We hear he’s good at crossing.