Here we go, here we go ... it’s time to welcome back Scottish football

I love the game, though my late Dad found it deplorable: “Twenty-two grown men chasin’ a wee ba’, ken?” Oh, I ken, I ken. And yet … there are few things more exciting in life than a goal being scored. Think about it. Two minutes to go. The game drawn so far. One of your chaps picks up the ball on the edge of the box. Come on! You will him on. Please score! He goes past one. He goes past two. He crosses. The big centre-half heads it in. Unalloyed joy! Chaps – and many women these days too – hugging each other with unerotic elan.

On very special occasions, you might see grown men struggling, and in many cases failing, to hold back tears (Hibs winning the Scottish Cup in 2016). A crucial goal at the football is way more exciting than anything you encounter at the cinema or in books or even at the bingo. Football isn’t one of these daft games where the score is counted in hundreds.

That said, these days, the game can be as dull and incomprehensible as cricket. It’s all possession football, passing the ball back and back and, very occasionally, forth. There’s much tripe talked about tactics.

“He’s moved from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2.” “Has he, aye?”

All I ever see is chaps wandering around willy-nilly, barring the fact that some are on the left and some on the right, and some up front and some at the back. Tactics? Such a lot of nonsense. Just get the ball booted up the park (my fellow Hibs fans cringeing at this point).

One manager said: “The ball is round – it’s meant to roll along the ground.” No! The ball is round. It’s meant to bounce.

However, we’re straying into the technicalities of the game here so let me bring the discussion, if not the ball, back down to the earth of politics, sociology and culture.

In the run-up to today’s kick-off, fans have been warned that bad behaviour won’t be tolerated this season, amidst a crackdown on throwing objects, lighting up flares or indulging in sectarian singing.

Why anyone would take a flare to a football match is beyond me. They must set off for the games, patting their pockets and going through a checklist: “Match ticket, wallet, phone, scarf, hat, napkin for half-time pie, flare.” It’s like these hooligans setting off up town on a Saturday night, getting to the door and saying: “Oops, almost forgot my samurai sword.”

I suppose flares are supposed to create a visual spectacle, when all they create is a stink and an obscuring of the pitch. They’re also potentially dangerous but, then, so is eating the pies at some grounds.

There’s definitely an atavistic element to football crowds. The chanting is like warring tribes of old squaring up for battle, even if I can’t imagine Vikings or Picts or whatever singing football’s most prevalent chant: “My side, cha-cha-cha!”

Several clubs are upgrading their CCTV systems, which makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been with away fans and had police filming us all with large cameras, which I regard as an impertinence.

At which point, of course, we should all sit back and remind ourselves it’s only a game. “Is it, aye?” Well, aye, it is. I remain of the view that we should applaud decent passages of play from the other side, unless it’s Hearts.

We should isolate and shame the coin-throwers and sectarian bigots. And, as I imagine all the singing and shouting must put the teams off, it might be better if we all remained quiet for a change, allowing the players to concentrate and get on with the game.

These are just a few of my ideas that you might like to kick skywards or, if you prefer, to pass back and forth. ++++

ISN’T technology marvellous? Voice at the back: “Naw!” Well, it is but.

It’s improving all aspects of our lives, some important, some not so much. Among the most important is getting served at a busy bar. I’m better at this than I used to be.

In my youth, when I was a shy, diffident loser, I could never get served, partly because I looked at my feet all the time. I’m sure I was Finnish in another life (you know the one about a Finnish introvert looking at his own shoes, and a Finnish extrovert looking at other people’s shoes).

I’m also too considerate of other people, letting them in first but, worse still, not wanting to bother the staff or make them uncomfortable: “But he won’t like being stared at.”

Now, technology has come to the rescue, with a facial recognition system that logs customers on camera and tells staff the order in which to serve them. Trials of the the coupon scanner indicate that, if all Britain’s 48,000 pubs used it, bar staff could serve an extra 78 million pints a year.

And that can only be good for the nation’s morale in these trying times.

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A SHOCK study has found that human toddlers know right from wrong instinctively. American researchers forced infants to watch a teddy bear puppet show in which the “wrongdoer” took all the toys.

When the “leader” failed to punish this, the nippers looked on aghast. But when the leader took action, giving toys to any bear who missed out, they looked away, apparently contented that justice had been done.

The researchers, led by the University of Illinois, say this proved the bairns were hardwire to expect the leader to right the wrong.

But, surely, if infants knew right from wrong they wouldn’t be pooping in their pants? The implication is supposed to be that, rather than need schooling to learn right from wrong, they know it instinctively and life – or other infants – knocks it out of them.

Hmm. Might make sense, right enough. I was raised a nice little boy, believing the world a happy and decent place, until I went to school. Encountering ruffians and ne’er-do-wells, I distinctly remember thinking: “These people are evil nutters.” The feeling has stayed with me into adulthood, when I long once more to be the age of four, when all was right with the world.

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PEOPLE’S champion Boris Johnson has been subject to unconscionable levels of hostility since being selected as Prime Minister of England and the Other Bits. He was made unwelcome this week when he visited one of the Other Bits, Scotland. But, really, the cruellest blow in a bruising week came when an opinion poll found that only 16 per cent of punters would be happy at the prospect of his becoming their son-in-law, while 57 per cent would be sad.

That gave a “net happiness” rating of minus 41, his only consolation being that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn scored minus 63 and Donald Trump minus 69, though the US president is past his prime.

This must have made sobering reading for his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, never mind for her pop. Undaunted, the couple have ordered furnishings from John Lewis for their new Downing Street home, and Boris continues to see the sunny side of life, moving from O to B, that is to say from optimism to boosterism, his new mantra for the economy.

Given his Wodehousian mien, one might also say he has moved from Bertie Wooster to Boris Booster.