DAVID McCARTHY
Our personal lives have changed. Working from home and from Monday working with the kids bouncing around full of beans, before boredom sets in after about say 35 minutes.
Nipping out for a coffee is difficult with cafes shut. A pint in the pub? There’s more chance of finding a packet of penne pasta on the shelves at Tesco.
Almost everything, it seems, has changed ... but I needn’t have worried about filling the pages you’re reading because one of the few things that doesn’t change, never changes, is Scottish football’s ability to generate interest, debate and at times utter bampottery.
It’s great. We might not be the best at playing the game but our stories are world class.
Last week all hell was breaking loose about whether the leagues should be declared null and void because there’s every likelihood the campaign won’t be played to a conclusion. Celtic fans were up in arms at the suggestion – Rangers supporters thought it was a great idea.
The opposite argument was debated just as vehemently. The league standings when the curtain came down should be declared the final result.
That got a huge thumbs up from Celtic and the opposite reaction from across the city.
Hearts were raging as well, threatening lawsuits if they were to be relegated when they were just four points from safety. We’ll come back to
Hearts. But just as that row was bubbling over, UEFA decided coronavirus will be over and done by June.
What other assumption can you make when they’ve pencilled in the ScotlandIsrael Euro 2021 (yes, that’s right) play-off for that month? The SFA were jumping up and down about that enough to keep us sportswriters busy for another couple of days.
Just as that one was subsiding our own Fraser Wilson broke the news Ann Budge was ordering Hearts players – and everyone else at the club – to take a 50 per cent pay cut or they’d be handed a severance package. Just another day of madness and mayhem and before you know it it’s Saturday and a week without sport has flown by.
That’s not to say next week will be just as mental but you wouldn’t bet on it. Actually, you wouldn’t be on anything because there’s nothing to bet on. Poor bookies, as nobody anywhere ever said.
In our sports-mad wee country the loss of what for many of us is a lifeblood is a huge blow. But we can and will keep talking about it, keep arguing over it. It’s what we do.
And you know maybe before we get locked down completely rather than sitting on our backsides watching others play sport we could do a bit.
Get out for a run ... I’ll be doing that with my boys and the social distancing thing won’t be a problem because I’ll be miles behind them.
If you’re a golfer there’s nowhere better to escape the world than by getting the sticks out in the open air. And when you’re finished go home. Grab a shower and a cup of tea and pick up a Daily Record.
Go to the back 17 pages and you’ll see sport’s never cancelled. Well, 16 pages will prove that and the other will be this one, filling a space by writing about how sport is never cancelled.