Oh the pain. The horror on their faces. The barely concealed fury and hurt.
When Hunter S Thompson wrote his notorious “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved” – sometimes erroneously known as Fear And Loathing At The Kentucky Derby – what made it glorious was not the commentary on the sport, but on those watching it.
It was not a sports piece, but a brutal takedown of the spectators and what they symbolised for Thompson; everything that reeked and which had gone wrong with Richard Nixon’s America.
I could talk about Sevco’s performance today, about how it was one dimensional and flat-footed and how Gerrard had no idea how to change it and about how Jack Ross had the measure of him and made better and more telling alterations … but that would be standard stuff and a lot of people, if they are being honest, will make those same points.
All of it is true, of course. Gerrard was found out again today, and his tactics and his management style were exposed for all the limitations we’ve long pointed out.
He is a dreadful coach, with nothing to redeem him at all.
Hibs are the first team this season to push up and get in their faces, and they scored twice doing it in a performance that frankly should bring shame to those who played Sevco before them and swallowed the hype whole, with Derek McInnes held up as a particularly egregious example.
Once again, Gerrard has emerged from a big test having dropped points and shown himself up as a blubbering eejit looking for excuses wherever he can find them. Today it’s the officials getting it in the neck, as though they are responsible for his lack of motivational skills and tactical nous.
Let him whine and wail. Our business is with the commentators.
Have you ever heard, in your life, such a pitiful shower of hopelessly gushing fan-boys when things are going well, and whining bitches when things aren’t?
Even at half-time it was nearly unbearable listening to Kris Boyd as he suggested that half the Hibs team should have been playing Hunt The Soap long before the incredible three minutes of added time at the end, in which Morelos scored his goal.
At times his bitterness and lack of objectivity is jaw-dropping, and today the petted lip was on full display during the break and at full time, as he went over every decision which might have got the Ibrox club an underserved win as if it was the Zapruder Film and he was going to solve the sixty year old mystery of the Kennedy Assassination by himself.
Boyd cannot hide what he is, and on days like today, seeing him almost trembling with frustrated anger, I am grateful for his place on the telly. When he’s writing his spiteful columns I’m sure he has that same look on his face sometimes, but it makes my day to see it.
Today he lost a debate with Andy Walker. That’s just not bad that’s “chuck it and try a different line of work” awful. That’s how abysmal he was.
But it was McCoist who made me laugh. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why anyone thinks we want to hear his pearls of wisdom.
His managerial record is the stuff of comedy DVD’s, not football productions.
Since he left Ibrox he has not one job in the game, not one offer, even in a country where someone thought Lee McCulloch was managerial class.
He was dreadful today, but the highlight for me was his gibbering nonsense over the pass from Hagi which led to Sevco’s second goal, which he even had the Sky team replay several times so he could drool and marvel over it. I have rarely heard such incontinent rambling in my life, and certainly never over a straightforward side pass, even if it did lead to a goal.
But to hear McCoist this was a moment of genius, of world-class brilliance and vision instead of ABC stuff. I waited, with baited breath, for similar gushing wonderment over Boyle’s beautifully timed, almost exquisite, chip for the Hibs equaliser; it did not come.
It is odd that I find myself most overjoyed with the state of the commentary team, and the obvious pain being felt by McCoist and Boyd, but I guess I’m a bad person who takes an inordinate amount of satisfaction from the misery and suffering of others … or maybe, like all Celtic fans, I’m just sick and tired of the Ibrox hype machine and all involved in it.
These pieces are called Fear And Loathing, in recognition of Hunter S Thompson and his work. But they’re also because that’s what sums Sevco up best to me and always has. Their entire club is driven by those twin emotions, and today both are rampaging on their forums and elsewhere.
It was Dean Rusk, who famously said during The Cuban Missile Crisis, “We were eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked.” Well, Sevco was gleeful when we dropped points at Killie and then got two games postponed.
Today they’re top, but they know they aren’t going to be there for long, and when we get this game in hand out of the way the gap will two points minimum in our favour.
If we really were eyeball to eyeball with Sevco I’d say the other guy just shit his pants.
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