TIME FOR DIVING INTERVENTION FROM SFA OVER SKACEL

THE antics of Rudi Skacel and Didier Drogba has brought diving under the spotlight again and I believe we must take action to stamp it out of our game.

I watched the highlights of Hibs' match with Inverness Caley Thistle and I was interested in the debate over the penalty won by Barry Wilson for the visitors.

Wilson teased a Hibs defender into a rash tackle and won his side a spot-kick.

That's a world away from someone like Skacel diving all over the place to get opponents into trouble.

His form of cheating is unacceptable and tarnishes Hearts' good name so far as I'm concerned.

It's up to his manager to sort out that kind of personal defect and if he can't do that the SFA have to make Skacel's type of offence worthy of an automatic red card.

That would soon eradicate the problem.

Ican assure you if there was a Kilmarnock player who was guilty of blatant diving we would be hammering his wages until he saw the error of his ways.

The foreign players in Scotland have brought lots of good things to our game but diving isn't part of our football culture.

The quicker the problem is nipped in the bud, the better it will be for all of us.

Sadly we'll be without a long-standing The foreign players in Scotland have brought lots of good things to our game but diving isn't part of our football culture.

The quicker the problem is nipped in the bud, the better it will be for all of us.

Sadly we'll be without a long-standing supporter when our season resumes against Hibs at Easter Road next midweek.

John Simpson was 72 and had been a lifelong season ticket-holder at the club. He travelled with us as usual when we played at Tannadice last Saturday.

But John took unwell at the game and on Monday he lost his fight for life after suffering cardiac arrest.

Jim Jefferies, myself and everybody associated with the club wish to pass on their deepest condolences to John's family.

When Jim and I first went to the club it was said we didn't fit in. We weren't from Ayrshire and we were perceived as being "Hearts men".

But I can assure you we're the biggest Killie fans you'll find. We give everything we have to the club and the fact we signed ex-Hearts players when we took over is of no consequence.

It used to bug me we were regarded as interlopers but now I content myself with the knowledge I feel happier than I have done at any time since Hearts won the Scottish Cup in 1998.

We have changed the club's playing style into the one Jim and I want and it shows signs of working.

we'd have gone to play Dundee United away and been praised for getting a 2-2 draw there.

It's a measure of the progress we've made as a club that people can say how disappointed we must feel about losing a two-goal lead.

Now we're glad of the break this weekend and the opportunity it affords us to recharge our batteries before the game with Hibs.

Taken from the Daily Record