Smash hit

Though support for his sanguine prognosis would seem to be implicit in the proposal of the Bolton chairman Phil Gartside that there should be a two-tier Premier League, there are many, in Scotland as well as England, who think O’Neill’s forecasts are simplistic. They question whether either playing or economic success would be automatic for Celtic and Rangers as a result of competing directly with English clubs, insisting that the financial consequences would be far more complex and problematic than the crusaders recognise.

The objectors raise another issue associated with the traditions of the Old Firm. What would be the impact, they ask, if the two great Glasgow clubs fared so unevenly in England that they were in separate leagues for several years? Less trouble from sectarian hooliganism would be one short answer. But a lot of decent people might own up to regret over the quietening of Glasgow’s tribal pulse.

Despairing over Gazza and Daly

There was a time when compassionate hope could put up at least a brief fight against sad scepticism in the public’s reaction to stories of reform and rehabilitation emerging from the chaotic lives of John Daly and Paul Gascoigne. But for years now the only tenable response has been to wait for the optimistic tales to metamorphose rapidly into accounts of dishevelled relapse. It seems almost shameful to harbour such a doomladen presumption that the pattern will continue but experience makes it inescapable.

As the winner of two major titles, Daly achieved more in golf than Gascoigne did in football but the Geordie’s career, though foreshortened, made him a national figure and could have guaranteed a financially comfortable and unexacting life. However, both men have long been better known for the troubles created for them and others by their wayward and addictive personalities than for their past feats as sportsmen. The latest reports of recovery have a familiar ring of conviction. Daly has lost 55lb and is currently playing in the Spanish Open, Gascoigne says he’s been off the booze for five months and is writing poetry to help him understand his emotions. It would obviously be hard to identify which one of them has the more precarious foothold on the redemption trail but, perhaps surprisingly, it may be Daly. “I didn’t lose weight to think I was healthy or anything,” he said last week. “I couldn’t care less about that. I want to lose weight to get better at golf.”

People always wanted him to give more respect to his gift for playing golf. But even when there is evidence he is doing that its main effect is to supply frightening proof of his skewed priorities.