Empty feeling at end of another Hibee horror show

WHAT can I say? You were probably expecting a football match or somesuch exotica. But to all the armchair fans who subjected themselves to Hibs-Ayr United - sorry.

I can see how it happened. You watched the first CIS Cup semi-final between Celtic and Rangers the previous night and you were seduced. More specifically, you were charmed by that winsome Barry Ferguson. You knew all Scottish football couldn’t possibly be this exciting, but you decided to give the second semi a go anyway. You’re mental, you are.

It could have been worse. You could have paid your 18 quid admission and been sitting in my seat at the exact moment my mate Rab dropped his pie onto my lap in astonishment at what’d he’d just witnessed. "Crikey," he gasped, "I didn’t think it was humanly possible to hit the ball that high over the bar." Believe me, you’re the lucky ones.

If there was an alien hovering above Hampden in a spacecraft en route from Pluto - not to be confused with Jarko Wiss’ shot, which is still hurtling in the opposite direction - then he must have scratched his little green head and wondered how two matches just 24 hours apart could possibly have belonged to the same sport, never mind the same cup competition. But, hey, that’s why we love the game so. It’s full of surprises.

One scenario few could have predicted a wee while back was the gladiatorial contest currently being played out for what some would claim is the highest office in the footballing land - that of darling of the Ibrox legions, high priest of all Govan (OK, forget the priest bit). It’s the story of a Scots nyaff and an Italian stallion, and for the neutral, it’s been soap opera, grand opera and Oprah Winfrey: two men, one captain’s armband - you decide.

Our story began when Lorenzo Amoruso swanked into Glasgow, smelling sweetly, his hair all Love God long and luxuriant and his heavy-hung saddlebags bursting at the seams with reports of his heroics in Italy’s mighty Serie A. Then he took to the field and we all know what happened next.

But only Lorenzo truly knows why he attempted those fanciful interceptions and impossible shots and - in his daydream - which side of Florence’s famous Ponte Vecchio bridge he was posing on in wraparound shades, a camel-coloured suit of fine linen and loafers worn without socks when he should have been marking up at free-kicks in the SPL.

THERE was a match playing in Amoruso’s head but it bore no relation to the blundersome one happening out on the park, and the Rangers faithful weren’t best pleased. In fact, they were revolting. Il Big Diddy-o wasn’t fit to be their captain; they wanted Bazza.

Barry Ferguson was one of them - less of a stallion, more an Alsatian called King missing its tail. Glasgow has always loved flash, but Amo plainly had too much of the stuff. The punters had drunk their fill of Valpolicella - they wanted Sunny Delight. Bring on the wee shaven-headed guy in the shellsuit. "We are Rangers, super Rangers, no-one likes us, we don’t care ... " But the chant had barely subsided when Bazza’s form went oot the windae, too.

Suddenly, and for no reason, Amo’s performances started to match his looks. Then at Pitoddrie he braved a barrage of 1p coins to quell a riot. Where was Ferguson? On the Daily Ranger Hotline, his name was mud. If he was going to England, he should go now. If he wasn’t, he should hand the captaincy back to Amo.

But on Tuesday, Bazza played the game of his life. He may have been provoked into this response by the front page of that day’s Daily Ranger: "Girls, get the poster everyone’s talking about!" Inside was Amo, smouldering in a kilt. Whatever, it did the trick.

There was the ebb and flow of the match, then within it, the ding and dong of Amo vs Bazza. The balance of power shifted with every bear-trap tackle from Bazza, every dying-swan lunge from Amo. In the end, Amo was good, but Bazza - who finally stopped passing sideways and learned to make ones that hurt - turned the tie Rangers’ way.

It was a stormer, even by Old Firm standards. I thought about it a lot the following night. I thought about the hole in my kitchen floor.

And I thought about how much I wished I’d chosen to spend the night filling in my tax return.

I thought about anything, in fact, rather than Hibs letting me down yet again. Sometimes, you know, football isn’t surprising at all.

Taken from the Scotsman