30. Referee rage . . . once again

Every single year, or season as real people call it, those whose job it is to make sure players abide by the rules are abused, threatened, and blamed for everything from a dodgy throw-in to the Great Fire of London. Ach, it brings all communities together.

Craig Thomson sent off five Motherwell players, three of them were rescinded, Ryan Jack got three red cards, two rescinded, Andrew Dallas annoyed everyone and Kevin Clancy had Neil Lennon spitting feathers. Yup, it’s all the ref’s fault. Never a professional footballer. Oh no. 

Conservative MSP Douglas Ross, a linesman in his spare time, missed a vote on universal credit to officiate at a Champions League game. He got £1400 plus expenses instead of taking part in a debate on poverty.
Oddly, and this may be the sign of the apocalypse, Willie Collum more or less stayed out the headlines. And ref of the year? Bobby Madden by a country mile.

29. Scott McTominay’s rise from nowhere

Manchester United used to have two, sometimes three, Scots in their team back in the day. Then they got really good.

Darren Fletcher carried the torch for a while at Old Trafford but he left and we wondered if any of Jock Tamson’s flock would ever play for that club.

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Step forward young Mr McTominay. The midfielder played a couple of games and that prompted him to be hailed as the new Graeme Souness. We do love heaping a lot of pressure on the shoulders of a wean.

However, he played well, won Jose Mourinho’s player of the year and declared himself, in a very English accent, to be Scottish. Well played our kid.

28. The young stars to emerge

For the first time in a long time, Scottish football began to feel an emotion that was feared to have been lost. Hope.

There is the aforementioned McTominay, Lewis Morgan of St Mirren (pictured) who can kick the ball with both feet, Allan Campbell at Motherwell, Aberdeen’s Scott McKenna came from nowhere to show himself to be a fine defender and Ross McCrorie at Rangers had some terrific moments. And, of course, Kieran Tierney continues to be brilliant.

All of a sudden there are a clutch of players under 25, John McGinn being one and Callum McGregor another, who are extremely talented and exciting to watch. 

Winning the World Cup four years from now is surely a stick-on . . .

27. Neil McCann hates St Johnstone

And quite a lot of people as well. For such a wee guy, the Dundee manager has no problem with taking the man and not the ball. 

There is barely a journalist in Scotland who hasn’t had an angry phone call. He fell out with Scott Bain. He had a serious go at referee Don Robertson. He also took aim at Bruno Alves for what was admittedly a shocking challenge on Craig Wighton.

But the moment he and St Johnstone keeper Zander Clarke squared up was a highlight. The video footage did suggest McCann slapped or at least made contact with Clarke. Not that he was having any of it.
“Handbags,” was his summary, which incidentally is also the name of a nightclub in Dundee.

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But it was his beef with Tommy Wright which everyone remembers. The two rowed over that Clarke incident and no dust was allowed to settle.
When asked if he would speak to Wright after a game at Dens Park,

McCann said: “Absolutely not. I have no intention to speak to him at all. He is not welcome around here. I have read his comments, so no.”

You’ve sort of got to admire that.

26. Old Firm ticket saga
 

For decades, Rangers fans got a certain allocation for Parkhead, and it went the other way when the famous old rivals met at Ibrox.

But no longer.

Rangers cut Celtic’s tickets from 8000 to 800 and it smacked of manoeuvring the goalposts to help their own fans.

It was nothing at all to do with getting season book money in right now, and at the same time getting one right up their city neighbours.
Celtic responded in kind. And it remains to be seen whether the restricted view tickets handed out to the Rangers fans at Parkhead will cost a grand, as has been rumoured. 

For those of us not 12, it does all seem a bit petty and will take away from the atmosphere – although that might not be the worst thing to ever happen in history.

25. Kris Boyd is a goal machine so let’s hail him as some sort of God

Do you remember that tubby bloke, a bit of a dodgy hairline, who used to play for Rangers?

If you recall, he was written off as a has-been who had got his teeth done in preparation for a career in television. Instead, the now 34-year-old scored 20 goals last season. His 15 in the league surpassed anyone else. That’s 284 career goals for him so far. Not only that, but he’s emerged as a really good pundit.

24. Conor Sammon glumly holds a pizza
 

Is he smiling? Isn’t he smiling? What does that look mean? And by that I mean really mean?

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I am, of course, talking about Conor Sammon, a man who generations from now will be thought of as Maryhill’s very own Mona Lisa.

The image of him, looking like he’s just been told Christmas has been cancelled, while holding some posh toast and cheese, is arguably the image of the season.

23. Hearts’ weans end Celtic’s run
 

Brendan Rodgers’ side reached December without being beaten at home. Even when they were average, they somehow found a way.

Nobody expected Hearts would be the side to stop this run – all 69 games and 585 days of it – but they did so with gusto and some style.

Sixteen-year-old Harry Cochrane was the star of the day. He scored a terrific goal in a performance which had everyone’s jaws dropping.

Cochrane isn’t old enough to vote or drive a car, but that afternoon he destroyed the best team in the country, helped by the performance of Celtic’s defence which, with Jozo Simunovic especially guilty, had a Sunday to forget.

Craig Levein told us all on his first day back as manager that Hearts had the best young players in the country. Cochrane is far from the only kid with a chance but is the one who really looks the part.

22. Celtic’s European highs and lows
 

There was never any boredom when watching Celtic in Europe. 
Goals flew in left, right and centre. Alas, most of them went past Craig Gordon. 

It all began in Buckfast, sorry, Belfast, when thoughts of sectarianism were set aside for a day or so as Celtic fans were banned from attending the game. Eventually, they did get in and it was all very friendly. Ahem.
Celtic beat Astana in the group stage qualifier 5-0 in Glasgow and then did their best in Kazakhstan to give their supporters heart palpitations by flirting with disaster before going through.

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The group was an easy one. PSG and Bayen Munich. Both fairly average teams . . .

We shall skip over the PSG games, just 12-1 to the Frenchies over two games, and concentrate on their only points which came courtesy of a win away from home, gulp, against Anderlecht.

That was enough to get them into the Europa League where they met Zenit St Petersburg.

A 1-0 win at home set them up nicely for, ahem, a 3-0 defeat in Russia, a trip which had one highlight and that was Scott Brown walking down the street in a T-shirt while completely ignoring the sub-zero conditions.

21. The sad decline of Graeme Murty
 

Poor Murts. He was put back into the job on a temporary basis when 
Pedro Caixinha, to the surprise of nobody, proved that being the 
fourth best manager in Qatar wasn’t really what Rangers were looking for.

Murty was only supposed to be there until Derek McInnes showed up in Govan, but that all ended in the style of a dog’s dinner, and so he had to step up for the rest of the season. 


Undermined by Dave King and unfancied by some of the players, the promoted youth coach soon found himself up a certain creek without a certain implement.

Murty sat in the last chance saloon going into the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final. Celtic cantered to a 4-0 win then Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace went over a line in the manager’s eyes.

Then Rangers lost 5-0 at Celtic Park. Truth be told, it could have been 10. Celtic won the league. Never has losing a job been so welcome.