And having read it again personally I wouldnae bother but hey-ho enjoy (I think):

I shall begin with a faintly patronising guide to understanding the SPL...

After the financial doping at the turn o the millennium, the SPL has returned to being a highly predictable league.

At its centre we see the loathsome indistinguishable twin empires of the OF, around them is the 2nd tier containing ourselves and the Reekie Twins.

Below them comes the mid-table mediocrities (Killie, Well, Caley and Arabs), who are the most volatile of the groupings as annually one side will shoot into the orbit of the 'Top 6' and one side, or to give it its scientific name Dundee United, will plunge into the relegation battle with the bottom feeders.

The bottom feeders are footballing plankton (Pars, Falkirk, Livi) and serve no purpose other than to allow the others to run up their goal difference.

This year however, in an best Alec Guinness style voice...there has been 'a disturbance in the Force, Luke'. The Buns have imploded and the Yams led by Mad Bad Vlad Vader have been quite good. This has lead many to speculate on the emergence of the mythical but completely pointless 'Third Force'.


Baws. Let us not forget the Tims had the league sown up on New Year's Day and for all their woes the Huns ultimately fell a point short.

The wise money would therefore be on a return to the status quo next season. Whether Mad Bad Vlad realises this is a different matter, Hearts this season had a notable but ultimately not great achievement of splitting the OF for the first time in over a dozen years, but as we know from splitting the OF for a generation, you can never beat the OF merely force them back for a short time as they always come back at you stronger and with more resources than last time.

We managed it for so long as we were a stable, well-run club....something I don't think even the most rabid Mad Vlad apologists would dare claim about Hearts.

This season has also been unique in the fact we had two key members of our Greatest Ever Side managing the Unmentionables, as I said earlier in the season as disturbing for Dandies as coming home and find your Grandparents involved in a kinky S+M ménage-a-trois wi the home help.

So what of them ?

Well first up the Genius formerly known as the Ginger Prince. If you ignore the cups, his first year in the job was almost perfect. He's well on the way to reshaping the decrepit yet untouchable side Martian O'Feel left him with, however he's savvy enough to know he cannae rest on his laurels and that next time out he'll face a real test.

The most satisfying thing has been he has refused to play the 'Greatest Fans in the World' card....mainly because he's fully aware they're not and at best they're a melodramatic fickle bunch of numpties and he knows fine well from the experience of Eck that those praising him at the mo will quickly turn on him if the team struggle next season.

And now onto Mr 'Dignity' himsel...Big Eck.

Tongue in cheek when he was appointed we referred to him as 'Agent Orange' and said his task was to bring them down from within....JOB DONE!

The big question wi Eck for Reds is how/if we should welcome him back into the flock. Personally I'd have now problem with it...I never bought the 'a Bluenose fae a family o Bluenoses' shite he spouted anyway...I mean if that were true why did he almost sign for Celtic in 1989 and he expressed similar childhood attachments to Hibs and Well?

Would I have him at Todders as boss? Er...aye, provided we punted him after 18 months, for on past form that's when it all goes Pete Tong for our Eck.

If, for example, we flounder early doors again and Tango and Sash are under pressure, Eck's record of revitalising demoralised squads is almost perfect and I wouldnae hesitate to make the change.

And now onto the rest of the dross....

Only in Gorgie would finishing a very distant second 20 points and scrapping past a Second Division side on Penalties to win the Cup be viewed as success. As mentioned above the OF are unlikely to be as poor next time out...Hearts had the best chance in almost a generation to win the title and naturally bottled it. As I've maintained since day 1 it's a question of when not if it all goes tits up doon Gorgie way. Sure we'll have to put up with their rather tedious cyberspace warriors telling us how great they are and how we're shite but then a few years back we were hearing the same thing from Dundee, Dunfermline and United fans....we saw them off and we'll see off the Gorgie mob as well.

Media darlings and on occasion rightly so as any side which can go to Ibrox and run up back to back 3-0 results is obviously more than just media hype. Just like last season they ran out of steam completely in the run in and once again just managed to keep their noses in front of us on the line.A lot now depends on whether Mowbray stays or goes, and whether they can survive without both Riordan and O'Connor.

Jeffries is I suppose one of those managers who has to be at your club before you like him. Personally I find him to be an irritating whingin bawbag...but considerin he was told in August he had to keep them up or risk administration and had to sell his best asset...dispassionately there is some respect and credit due for managing to pip us for 5th. Having said they showed definite signs of struggling post Boyd and like Hearts maintaining this season's form may prove exceptionally difficult.

The James Blunt of the SPL but their anything but Bewooutifoauwl, jaw achingly boring and bland but some how successful. Dah get me wrong I'm happy the Hee'landers are now an established top flight side and it shows how narrow minded and central belt centric Scottish fitba was that the Sneck didnae have a league side for over a century...it just their far too bloody nice. Great clubs are a bit rough and ready, offensive and darn right rude...I find there's is something slightly disturbing and unnerving about a club that's whiter than white.

I despised Terry Butcher as a player for obvious reasons but I cannae help but have a wee begrudging respect for what he's done at Well. He's lead them out of administration and had them playing some pretty good stuff at times too. I'm not saying Scottish fitba would be a poorer place without him but credit where credits due he's played a major part in helping save a historic Scottish club.

There's the same stench of decay hovering around Tannalump that used to hang about Pittodrie at the turn o the millennium. Hardly surprising given Granville of Arkwright stores is following the same plan we followed....bring in overpaid piss artists to construct the most expensive pub side in the world, change manager on a regular basis, leave to fester and then pour away with disgust.

Tragic (well not really) that the only joy the Arabs got last season was in the off-season when Lee Miller 'snubbed' us, well of course he didnae but fuck it Lovell outscored him anyway we'll give them that wee scrap if it makes them feel better.

This lyric been rattling round my head for days now I'm 90% certain it's 'Freak Scene' by Dinosaur Jr. [Correct - Ed Gambaccini]

'Sometimes I think I'll kill you,
But don't let me fuck up will you,
Cos when I need a friend it's still you'

I only mention this cos I have nothing really to say about Falkirk apart from the fact we swept them.

Pars

As interesting as black and white snooker.

Goodbye and good riddance. The phrase 'worst ever side in the SPL' is used on an almost annual basis...we were the original holders of this dubious title. However that this year Livi under the great communicator Paul Lambert and great white wank John Robertson have redefined shiteness...and a source of embarrassment that we only beat them once and failed to score twice.

Anyway goodbye, farewell....now f*ck off and don't come back.

I recently heard Adrian Chiles ranting that anyone who referred to a fitba club as a franchise should be immediately banned from being involved in fitba (ditto the word 'soccer' for me and anyone who refers to a shot as a 'hit'), so I take great satisfaction that the 2 franchise experiments in British fitba at Livi and MK Dons (a franchise so vile and embarrassing its town insists on being identified by its initials) have slide back down the league this year to where they belong and with any luck to financial meltdown and extinction.

Fitba clubs cannae be built like a IKEA flat pack, they're like a fine malt - they mature over time into institutions. Livi are best summed up by the following pointless anecdote that I've probably bored you with before.

A few years back, we were down in Livi at Xmas and as you'd expect regally rat arsed, the Barman's kinda brother-in-law, an 'Appy 'Ammer, was up and we asked him what he was making of it so far and he said..."I've been 'ere 3 fackin hours and ain't seen a fackin Livi fan yet what the fack's that all abaht?" We were sitting in the Granary Bar 100 yards from Almondvale at the time.

Onyways, same time same Red Channel end of July for mair of the same shite.

The Red Avenger