Let’s hear it for the bhoys

As Foul Play basks in a demeanour of the most unbearable smugness, mere hours after Celtic skipper Paul Lambert lifted the Scottish Premier League trophy at Parkhead on Saturday afternoon, there could hardly be a better time to hark back to the epigram that surely defines their glorious 2000-2001 campaign — a deathless bon mot that doubles as the worst opening sentence I have ever read in my short life.

It was the first paragraph from a match report in that fine newspaper, the Daily Record, last September, and the game in question was a grisly 2-0 win for the Celts against, spookily, St Mirren.

The overall piece was about how great it was that Martin O’Neill had Celtic grinding out the routine victories again, rather than getting beaten 1-0 after playing like gods. (By way of context, I should also point out that the match took place at a time of great unrest between Israeli and Palestinian forces in the West Bank.)

This monumental work of journalism read as follows: “As the tension mounts and the bodies pile up in the Middle East, there is only one obvious solution… send in Martin O’Neill.”

Comment is superfluous.

But if you try hard enough to get inside the hack’s ravaged psyche, you can almost (I said almost) work out why he penned that immortal sentence. Martin O’Neill has worked a miracle in the east end of Glasgow this year, and among his many achievements has been to ensure that this summer, for the first time since 1996, Bhoys fans won’t have to suffer the ritual humiliation of having their latest manager unveiled to a hopeful crowd outside Celtic Park on a hot July afternoon.

Back in July, when the season got underway with a tentative 2-1 win over Dundee United, the consensus among fans was that we would settle for O’Neill getting to within five or six points of the Gers by the end of the season, rather than the ridiculous margin of 21 points that they won by last year.

We were, and are, reasonable men, and we demanded merely a restoration of respectability, rather than a domestic treble of the league, Scottish Cup and CIS Insurance Cup (Christ, I feel almost delirious just typing it). Instead, O’Neill and his brave boys have annihilated all opposition with the minimum of fuss.

How nauseous the Rangers fans must feel as they gaze upon O’Neill, his serene demeanour barely hinting at the murderous determination concealed within the placid blue eyes behind his spectacles.

This is the man who is going to make their lives pure hell for the next four or five years, mercilessly condemning them to an annual scrap with Hearts and Hibs for the second Champions League spot, and don’t they know it.

The sense of an era closing and a new one beginning is only strengthened by the sight of Dick Advocaat fuming incoherently across town. As his season has slowly turned to shit, the Rangers supremo has proceeded to lose the plot in ever more spectacular fashion.

He reacted to the 6-2 Old Firm bludgeoning last August by signing Ronald de Boer, despite the fact that the inside of the Dutchman’s knee is like melted cheese. When the clearly injured de Boer failed to produce the goods, Advocaat spent twelve million on Tore Andre Flo, who at the time of writing has scored six league goals since arriving in November.

He kept picking the psychopath Ricksen, the clown Amoruso and the cart-horse Konterman, with disastrous consequences for the players concerned and Rangers’ goals-against column. (Ricksen’s drink-driving case was delayed last week when his barrister broke both arms in a bizarre domestic accident. Does the guy carry a curse, or what?)

And when that didn’t work, Advocaat blew another million on Wimbledon’s Marcus Gayle, a player notable for nothing more than being allegedly well-endowed enough to earn the nickname “Chunky Kit Kat” in the Crazy Gang’s dressing-room.

None of that is the concern of O’Neill. There has been something almost supernatural about the way that each of his signings, apart from the merely competent Rab Douglas, has worked like a dream; about the manner in which he has turned around the careers of men like Bobby Petta, Chris Sutton and Johan Mjallby; about the style in which he has presided over one of the most amazing turnarounds in the recent history of British sport. Hell, he could probably have even got a few goals out of Tore Andre Flo.

And in response, all Advocaat can do is bleat about injuries, virtually implying that this season’s league table should be viewed as null and void because of the number of crocked players he has on his hands.

The Huns have indeed suffered mightily from injuries this season. Why, just the other day, they were forced to field a team containing only nine full internationals against Dundee United…

As I write, Celtic enjoy a 22-point lead over Rangers, in comparison to the aforesaid 21-point embarrassment of last year. Now, Foul Play is no mathematical genius, but even he can tell you that this represents a 43-point oscillation from one side to the other.

That is not so much a shift in the balance of power, as a comprehensive destruction of the old order. Christ, where’s Peter Snow and his election-night “swingometer” when you need him?