APPARENTLY one of the lesser known benefits that has come from the coronavirus pandemic is that the M77 has been extended south to take in the new Glasgow suburb of Malaga.
How else can you explain Celtic player Boli Bolingoli’s 24-hour trip to Spain after all the players were explicitly told not to leave Glasgow during the player’s short break last week.
Surely nobody can be so stupid as to take a three and a half hour flight to Malaga to spend one night on the Costa del Sol during a pandemic which requires a 14-day quarantine on returning.
So there must be another simple explanation for Bolingoli’s actions.
Maybe, like Alice, he simply fell down a rabbit hole and when he emerged on a beach he mistook the Med for the boating lake in Strathclyde Park and the sumptuous villas of Marbella for Motherwell.
It’s an easy mistake to make after all.
Perhaps Bolingoli simply decided to do what generations of Glaswegians have done and went ‘doon the watter’ for a short break and went further south than he intended.
Rounding Portugal in his boat may have been a giveaway, but then the Rock of Gibraltar could be mistaken for Dumbarton, while the distant Atlas mountains in Morocco could resemble Arran in a heat haze.
On his return, too embarrassed to own up, he kept his adventure all to himself and failed to inform Celtic where he’d been.
Only he was rumbled when the Mad Hatter and a Barbary ape from Gibraltar turned up to training to check he was OK and manager Neil Lennon hit the roof.
Now while all of these scenarios are completely preposterous, they all have more credibility than the truth and is why Bolingoli is unlikely to play for Celtic again.
Scottish football has been put firmly on the naughty step by the actions of Bolingoli and the ‘Aberdeen 8’.
The clubs have had to postpone all their matches this week and both are extremely fortunate to escape without losing any points as they clearly should have done, and I write that as an Aberdeen fan.
Ironically, one of the fixtures postponed is Saturday’s match between the two teams. Future games between Aberdeen and Celtic should be known as ‘El Covido’ in homage to the past week’s events.
Let’s hope no other player decides to fall down a rabbit hole in the coming weeks.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel