OF THOUSANDS of press conferences and post-match briefings attended down the years, a few remain in the memory. One is from the Coventry City training ground one Friday morning seven years ago.
Gordon Strachan was Coventry's manager then, struggling, ultimately in vain, to keep the Sky Blues in the Premier League.
But he was in good form on this morning, talking about how before the start of a season a manager surveys the landscape and thinks optimistically. Strachan pretended he had some binoculars for this particular anecdote.
It was once the ball began to be kicked that the view changed and at Coventry Strachan's hand gestures showed he felt as if the binoculars had been turned around the wrong way. Cue much blinking a la Benny Hill, and laughter.
One imagines that since arriving in Glasgow as Martin O'Neill's replacement, Strachan has again had difficulty with perspective and this week has brought an earthquake to hamper assessment of where Scottish football is at the beginning of another SPL season.
The enormity of Rangers' defeat at FBK Kaunus in Tuesday night's Champions League qualifier was revealed in coverage that likened it to 1967 and the infamous Scottish Cup loss at Berwick.
Celtic fans, as they have done before, were so galvanised by Rangers' exit that planning has begun for the first Old Firm derby - at Parkhead on August 31st - when sombreros and any other garment deemed continental will be worn by Celtic fans to demonstrate where their Rangers counterparts will not be this season.
Yet in the midst of this hilarity no one in green seems to be mentioning the term "Artmedia Bratislava". Remember that? Remember them? July 28th, a mere three years ago? Second qualifying round of the Champions League: first leg score 5-0? It just happened to be Strachan's first match in charge post-Martin.
"Disappointment would be way down my list of adjectives," Strachan said that night. "You are talking about 33 years in football, but this is new to me."
No Europe that season for Celtic, but at season's end, an SPL title. Two more have followed since yet Strachan's future has been debated daily, particularly in defeat, but even in victory. Strachan may have equalled Jock Stein in that league regard and surpassed O'Neill in guiding Celtic to the last 16 knock-out stage of the European Cup, but he remains admired rather than loved in the manner of Stein and O'Neill. Not one of us.
Walter Smith, conversely, is one of us to the Ibrox faithful. During last season, 68 games long and featuring a first European final for 36 years, Smith became admired and loved. One catastrophic result later and he appears neither.
They're all off to Falkirk this lunchtime. The league season has not yet started and Smith must feel already as if he's looking through Strachan's binoculars, but the wrong way.
