THE more observant amongst our non-paper readership – or “electronic avids” as I like to call them – may have noticed certain changes to The Herald website over the past week.

Such changes are not without the usual glitches and the latest update to our online offering has indeed had the odd faux pas along the way.

The most noticeable, for me anyway, was that some of the photo bylines were being rather generous when it came to delaying the ageing process of our correspondents.

While some head shots were from a few years (and a few stones) ago, others looked as if they’d been downing copious amounts of hair products (don’t try this at home), turning their hair colour from the grey most of us see daily, to a much darker hue. In some cases, the follicles have even been replenished. Remarkable.

Keeping the family photo album up to date is never easy, especially when receding hairlines are involved, but it can – and has – had some amusing consequences in the past.

Twenty-odd years ago, the chief sportswriter of our sister paper, the late Alan Davidson of the Evening Times, went through various transformations in the space of a few days. Alan was being rather obstreperous this particular day, to such an extent that on a Tuesday morning, one of the sub-editors and he had a serious falling out over the phone.

Having appeared in the paper on the Monday with shorter hair and wireframed glasses, by Tuesday, Davidson had emerged with a fuller head of curly locks, and different specs as the slightly delinquent sub used the first picture that came to hand. On Wednesday, ‘The POD’ (Alan went by that nickname, or ‘Prince of Darkness’ to give him his full Sunday title) was somewhere near his old self again, but by Thursday, the errant page maker was still in the huff and used a photo of Alan, where he appeared to be wearing Alan Whicker’s glasses (one for the teenage readership there), and a rather full Zapata moustache. By Friday, a completely different photograph was in the paper.

If viewed in sequence, Big Al’s transformation looked like a scene from Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ video.

At that point, the sports editor binned all previous likenesses of Davidson, and marked a new set as ‘must use’, which were indeed bang up to date for all of five days – until Alan revisited his optician and ordered some new designer frames.

WATCHING the English Championship play-off on Monday, I was struck by a line about Reading goalie Ali Al-Habsi, who said that God had been the biggest influence on his career. And the second biggest influence? John Burridge (right). Although I bet God didn’t watch Match of the Day wearing his goalie gloves.

I RECALL once looking over one of the late Bill McLaren’s legendary crib sheets, a wealth of information, statistical records and interesting facts, covering everything from clubs to caps, points to injuries, meticulously hand-written by the voice of rugby in order that he could deliver the best and most-informed commentary possible.

It was what set him apart and he did that for every game, club or international, even though incredibly, he would only use about a quarter of the information he had prepared.

His mantra was simple; fail to prepare, prepare to fail. No winging it.

The same may not have applied to the Premier Sports commentator calling the Henrik’s Heroes v Lubo’s Legends charity match last Sunday at Celtic Park. When John ‘Yogi’ Hughes took to the field, he marvelled that this member of the Lisbon Lions squad was still able to play, aged 74. Of course, it was John Hughes – but the Mk II model, the ex-Inverness and Hibs boss, and Celtic stopper from the 1990s who had taken to the field at a slightly less remarkable 52 years-old.

My favourite case of mistaken identity around an ex-Celt, however, came on Radio 5 Live a dozen years back when someone rang Tommy Boyd to talk about an Old Firm game. Tommy sounded a bit confused, then confessed that he was out of his depth when it came to Scottish football. If only the radio presenter asked him about the children’s TV shows of the 1970s, especially ‘Magpie’ …

FINALLY, John McEnroe threw a cat amongst the pigeons the other day when during commentary on the French Open, he said he had never heard of Hibs, the team that Andy Murray follows, adding he could name only one Scottish club.

Glasgow Rangers, I think that’s as far as know,” he admitted.

John Patrick Jnr, how could you?

Because he was born in Wiesbaden, in what was West Germany, perhaps?