28th November:

People who have no interest in Scottish football, please look away now.

A deal is a deal. A gentleman's word is his bond. A contract is a contract. Until, apparently, it isn't. Which is usually when a bigger (i.e more lucrative) club have made enquiries as to your availability and you can see the Pound signs floating in front of your eyes. In which case, fuck any piece of paper that you may have signed - you're off.

Walter Smith turned his back on his country and quit the job of national team manager to return to his 'beloved' Rangers. Right at the time when things were going rather well. And the press and the public let him away with it. By and large. This week comes the news that Big 'Eck (a man whose managerial track record perfectly epitomises the word 'mediocrity') has only gone and done the same thing. And before anyone starts getting all pissy, please bear in mind that he achieved absolutely nothing at Motherwell (a triumph of journalistic spin and plaudits over facts - the statistics speak for themselves) and inherited a premier league side at Hibs just as they were going down. He then got bounced from Rangers (where he was clearly mollycoddled until it suited David Murray no longer) and was still staring at his P45 when the SFA came calling.

So the message is clear - you can take the post of national team manager when you've been out of work for a while and you can stand in front of the cameras telling everyone how great an honour it is and you can even sign a bit of paper saying you'll be in the manager's seat for the next 3 years. But as soon as there is the slightest sniff of a proper job coming your way, you'll be straight out of the door. And to hell with contracts, honour, decency, doing the right thing and the aspirations of all those members of the tartan army who happily spend large chunks of their salary following the team around the globe, wherever they may go.

How Messrs Smith and McLeish can even look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me.