McGhee snapped. Now tough calls lie ahead for club and country

MARK McGHEE fell victim to a modern curse on Wednesday night. A virus for which there is no

cure. Smart Alecs with smartphones. In Alex Ferguson’s Pittodrie pomp, volcanic dugout eruptions were captured for posterity by newspaper snappers. On a bad day, the Sportscene cameras might be in.

Four months short of his 60th birthday, McGhee now finds himself caught in a 21st-century managerial storm.

These days, everyone is the director of their own movie. And players and managers become the stars whether they like it or not.

In the midst of a 7-2 humbling at Pittodrie, the Motherwell boss was filmed being sent to the stand after a touchline meltdown.

Listen, he lost the plot. His team were being regally walloped by his former club.

Fourth official John McKendrick had turned up for work wearing his finest jobsworth finery.

An on-fire Aberdeen had rattled in four first-half goals and were showing no mercy. And with abject humiliation hovering on the horizon, a gasket blew.

The camera kept running during the whole fall-out. As McGhee trudged up the stand stairs (pictured), one moronic voice close to the cameraman brands him a ‘f ****** clown’.

Placed in a situation as unpleasant and demeaning as this, many of us would go a bit Francis Begbie.

The temptation to take the phone and ram it where the owner might need a surgical procedure to remove it would be strong.

In those moments, the stress which makes every manager a walking heart attack was captured unsparingly by Pittodrie’s very own Martin Scorsese.

In response, McGhee pulled a ‘youtalkin’-to-me?’ pose Robert de Niro might have stood up to applaud.

A highly intelligent man, he suddenly looked like Rab C Nesbitt’s angry cousin. A man who might have found it easier managing Donald Trump’s Twitter account than leading a team of demoralised Motherwell kids from the relegation zone.

Let’s not get too sanctimonious. There was a comical side to the images. A voyeuristic, masochistic streak in Scottish life loves nothing more than a public meltdown.

It’s one of life’s guilty pleasures; the reason telly trash like Jeremy Kyle and Celebrity Big Brother survive and thrive.

McGhee’s reaction became an internet sensation. Photoshop artists got to work, transposing his angry face on to mocking images.

There was little or no sympathy for his plight from the Aberdeen crowd — and even less from Celtic and Rangers fans online.

A divisive figure these days, McGhee fell out with staff at his old club Celtic before a game at Fir Park.

He was close to tears after a 2-1 cup defeat to Rangers he branded one of the worst of his career. This despite 9-0 and 7-0 defeats by Celtic at Parkhead.

And the scars of that nine-goal loss while in charge of Aberdeen, in particular, have never left Dons punters.

The vengeance wreaked on Wednesday night was sneaky and absolute. Had it been a simple trial by smartphone, McGhee might have secured a slap on the wrists from the SFA. But his postmatch comments place him in the dock with no sign of an alibi.

To brand the fourth official ‘disgusting’ was strong. Claiming McKendrick had an ‘agenda’ against Motherwell, he then threatened to call a lawyer instead of referees’ chief John Fleming.

From the Motherwell manger, this is inflammatory enough. From the assistant manager of Scotland, it is a real problem.

One which places the SFA in an invidious, awkward position. Because now they have no option but to punish of one of their own employees for showing a flagrant disregard for the men they pay to enact the laws of the game.

McGhee has already served a two-game touchline ban this season. Publicly questioning McKendrick’s behaviour — a fellow SFA employee — he will be hammered again.

A manager employed by the SFA is expected to uphold a higher public moral code than others. Yet the incident also illustrates an awkward conflict of interest.

If Scotland fail to overcome Slovenia in a World Cup qualifier next month, it may not be an issue much longer.

Gordon Strachan will almost certainly be gone — and so will his assistant McGhee.

Another thrashing at Celtic on Saturday and the pressure could come from a different angle.

Motherwell are now just three points off second-bottom club Hamilton in the league.

They can ill afford to have their manager sitting in the stand for a month watching his team star in their own relegation snuff movie.