WHY GREEN IS NEW MAROON

ACCORDING to one of those mind-numbing fashion experts who popped up on morning telly yesterday (a light-on-his-loafers character, naturally, who made Julian Clary look like Julian Dicks) it seems brown is the new black.

In Scottish football terms, however, I'm beginning to wonder if green is the new maroon.

In last week's column, I correctly predicted Celtic would beat Rangers and I tipped Kenny Miller to finally get the monkey (or should that be King Kong?) off his back by scoring his first goal for the Hoops in the Old Firm derby. Not that I'm crowing or anything, you understand.

But I missed out on a weekend treble by also forecasting Hibs were about to become serious title contenders.

Just days after a scintillating performance against Rangers, the Hibees lost 1-0 at home to Falkirk and that's exactly the sort of frustrating result their Edinburgh rivals appeared to own the copyright to last season.

The Jambos got off to a flyer last year and I still vividly remember Radio Scotland legend Alastair Alexander sounding as though he'd overdosed on Viagra while commentating on a stunning Hearts display at Rugby Park.

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Music to my ears as I'd already stuck £50 on the Jambos to win the SPL at 22-1.

Sadly though, just when it looked as though the Premier League trophy could be set to leave Glasgow for the first time in 21 years it all went tits up for Hearts and I fear Hibs (easily the best footballing side in the SPL) could be about to follow suit.

Don't know if there's something in the Edinburgh air but, just like their old enemy, Hibs appear too keen to blame any defeat on the match officials.

Listening to the post-match ranting and raving at Easter Road, you'd be forgiven for thinking Alan Freeland had actually scored Falkirk's winning goal.

Okay, the referee undoubtedly had a hellishly bad day at the office and, if John Prescott can publicly apologise for his cock-ups (an unfortunate choice of expression), perhaps a word or two from Mr Freeland wouldn't go amiss.

But listen, unless everyone from the ballboys to the chairman at Easter Road is actually accusing the much-maligned whistler of being acheat - and that would be bang out of order - I think you'll find he was equally horrendous for both sides.

So why don't Hibs just get on with it? I'm utterly sick of Scotland's match officials continually getting it in the neck (always from the losing team, of course, as highlighted by big Yogi Hughes' rather two-faced take on last week's events).

How come there's never a demand for SFA enquiries when managers or players make dreadful, costly mistakes? When it comes to important points dropped, they're easily the most frequent culprits.

Anyway folks, Hibs and Hearts have been drawn together in the quarter-finals of the CIS Cup and I'm already slabbering like a poacher's dog at the prospect of this live telly clash on BBC1.

There's been far too much guff over the past week about the seven-point gap between Celtic and Rangers.

How come they've overlooked Hearts (the only SPL side to beat Celtic this season) in second place?

I'd love to see Hearts winning the SPL title (and I'm still not ruling out a decent challenge from Hibs) but they'll have to perform much better than they did against Sparta Prague on Thursday night.

For some bizarre reason, they only seemed to have a real go when it was far too late and all that ridiculous patter about it being a "courageous" performance is surely only based on the fact Steven Pressley played most of the game wearing a head bandage.

My man-of-the-match award would be shared between the noisy travelling support who created a great atmosphere.

Vladimir Romanov failed to name-check the media men he accused of spreading muck on his crops. But, according to a couple of crystal clear post-match ditties from the Hearts fans behind the goals, it would appear the worst two offenders are Andy Walker and Charlie Nicholas.

Wouldn't it be great fun if Vlad stopped the cryptic, long-winded speeches and simply started dismissing his critics as "w*****s"?

Let's hope these loud chants didn't upset any viewers on Thursday night.

Tell you what, though, 48 hours after the match, I remain in a severe state of shock.

Can you believe Hearts still haven't blamed their failure to win on the referee?

Taken from the Daily Record