Dad’s the way to do it Jamie
BY EWING GRAHAME KILMARNOCK keeper Jamie MacDonald has revealed he was almost caught out by two late deliveries at the weekend.
The 32-year-old was beaten by David Bates’s 85th-minute header at Ibrox – and then heard his wife Roxzannah, who was nine days overdue with their third child, had gone into labour after the game.
MacDonald faced a frantic dash to make it to the hospital in Edinburgh in time for the birth of baby Levi.
He said: “It was a fairly straightforward labour. I wasn’t too sure about playing at the weekend.
“We got to Saturday and she told me to go and said she was fine. I played the game but had a text waiting for me when I came off the pitch.
“It said the contractions had started. I phoned her and she said we were nowhere near it yet.
“Then 10 minutes later I got a call saying to go straight to the hospital because they had dropped to three minutes.
“It was a mad dash to the hospital in my Killie tracksuit. Roxzannah held off and the baby was born at 9.50pm – she timed it very well!
“It’s been a good year for us and now I’ve topped it off with a new baby.
“It’s been sleepless but with the season ending on Sunday I’ll be able to catch up on some sleep.”
Injury-hit Killie won’t get much rest at Celtic tonight. But boss Steve Clarke remains confident his side can earn their first post-split point.
He said: “We’re going to the champions with a positive attitude. We’ve been competitive in each of our three post-split matches – with a little luck we should have had some points.” SCOTT BROWN reckons his reputation as a hardman midfielder is making him a target for his rivals.
But the Celtic skipper insists they are wasting their time because he is no longer the enforcer he once was.
Brown was the victim of a challenge from Steven Naismith which Hoops boss Brendan Rodgers described as “shocking” at Tynecastle on Sunday.
Craig Levein yesterday tried to defend it, insisting Hearts will appeal any ban, but Brown reckons the Jambos boss is trying to deflect from his side’s 3-1 defeat.
While no action was taken, Brown has also been on the end of crude tackles from Aberdeen’s Sam Cosgrove and Ross County’s Andrew Davies that saw both sent off.
Ahead of tonight’s clash with BY GAVIN BERRY Kilmarnock, Brown believes players want to prove a point against the former Scotland skipper who had a fearsome image in his early days.
At 32 he has adopted a different role under Rodgers and said rival players are doing Celtic a favour by lunging into him and risking reds. He said: “I don’t care about the tackles but
it’s always going to be like that as people think I’m a hard tackler, unfair and lunge into challenges. “But that really isn’t my game any more. My game is to get on the ball, keep a hold of it and dictate play and play other people in. “I cover positions and look after everyone on the park sitting in front of the back four. I break up play but I stay on my feet and don’t lunge in, slow the play down for my team-mates to come in and help me.
“But keep letting the bad tackles happen. The more people that get sent off the better. It will help us. That’s if they get sent off !”
Brown laughed of Levein’s defence of Naismith but insists he doesn’t have an issue with his former Old Firm rival and Scotland team-mate. He said of his ex-Scotland boss: “Craig’s banter is getting better as he gets older. If he was younger and had this sort of banter I’d have been buzzing. “Craig can say what he wants. It’s all speech play to deflect from the result and how well we played them at our own game and the fact we beat them on a shocking park. “I get on brilliantly with Naisy and still will to be fair. It’s one tackle. I’ve had a lot worse from a lot of other people and still speak to them. “We both want to win. He was playing in a No.10 role and I was sitting in front of the back four so something was going to happen. It is what it is. He wants