Lennon more sinned against than sinning

Is this not the most peculiar business involving Neil Lennon, Rudi Skacel, Hearts, The Sun newspaper, and now this ludicrous Hearts banning order?

For sure, from Lennon's point of view, it is just one more bewildering episode of life in Scotland for the Northern Ireland internationalist. And all because a Hearts player tried to spit at him.

Following the Hearts-Celtic match on Sunday, Lennon was adamant that Skacel had aimed a spit at him, although he refused to go on the record about it. Skacel's spit, he told one or two people in private, had "flown right past my shoulder", which was the reason for the Celtic captain rounding on Skacel so furiously in the game and, in the process, being booked.

After the match, when Lennon's allegation became known, a few reporters went after Skacel to check out his version of events and were issued with a straight denial.

"I didn't do it," said Skacel. For Lennon, the denial once more left him being depicted as the troublemaker, the streetfighter who would get into a scrap almost for no reason.

The hours following that Sunday game at Tynecastle were pretty depressing for the Celtic captain, especially as Setanta's television images, from the camera angles available, appeared to vindicate Skacel.

Going by TV evidence, there appeared to be nothing that Skacel had done wrong, despite the Czech having "previous" with spitting controversies.

But then The Sun produced their startling image of Tuesday morning: a damning image of Skacel's saliva flying in Lennon's direction. From this, you would think, there could be no doubt whatsoever, though a legal argument is now doing the rounds whereby, technically, in terms of proof of guilt, Skacel could be said to have not been aiming at Lennon at all.

The final daft chapter in this saga falls into the category of the classic football huff: Hearts, playing the role of the piqued tinpot dictator, have banned The Sun from Tynecastle. In this, a classic "shoot the messenger" reaction, all Hearts have served to do is clarify for the rest of us who is innocent and who is guilty.

Meanwhile, the arguments about Lennon rage on. He is no innocent on a football park. On the contrary, he loves the smell of cordite, the whiff of danger. In games against Hearts and Rangers, especially, he thrives on the aggressive atmosphere of the crowd (mainly aimed at him) and positively plays up to it. The last thing Lennon is on these occasions is some kind of Kofi Annan emissary for peace and harmony.

The Celtic captain, though, has once more only narrowly escaped being made the fall-guy in the whole episode.

Ally MacLeod in his own words

Following my minor paean last week to the late and lovably colourful Ally MacLeod, I was touched to receive the following anecdote from Brendan Ferguson, who once met Ally in a pub in Ayr just weeks before he and Scotland jetted out to the scarring Argentina disaster of 1978.

"Like everybody else I have no idea if, where or when Ally actually said that Scotland would win the World Cup in Argentina," writes Brendan. "However, on this occasion in 1978 Ally walked in to the Ferryboat Bar on Racecourse Road in Ayr. The bar was packed with young people who went crazy when Ally entered with a pal.

"The assembled throng chanted his name and queued to shake his hand (me included). Somebody shouted: 'Is Scotland going to win the World Cup, Ally?' I recall his response precisely because I was standing only about six feet from him at the time. Ally replied: 'Given a fair wind in our sail we have as good a chance as anybody.'

"Years later I got to know Ally and I reminded him of this incident and he recalled the occasion. I reminded him of what he said and he replied: 'Aye, you know that's as far as I ever went, but nobody believes me.' "

As a postscript to this I must add that, like most people, I have no doubt about Ally's natural inclination for hyping things up. Back in 1978, though, there is equally no doubt that many prominent Scottish sports pundits of the time nourished just the same view as Ally about Scotland's chances.

And, by golly, they rounded on MacLeod when fate made them look silly.

Taken from the Herald