Hugh Keevins: Perspective Not Per Usual

I put in a call to my son's mobile telephone on Sunday morning and got a continental ring tone in reply. He was, unbeknown to his mother and father, in Paris in his capacity as a reporter working on behalf of the New York Daily News.

No parent likes to think of one of their offspring being in a place where a national state of emergency has been declared and three days of mourning have been put in place in the immediate aftermath of the desperate tragedy which claimed the lives of 132 people and critically injured 96 others.

You're concerned by your kid operating in the febrile atmosphere created by a terrorist atrocity, even if your 'kid' is due to celebrate his forty-fouth birthday next month.

For one thing, it causes his dad to wonder about the worthiness of him prattling on about football while the civilised world comes to terms with the presence of barbarism in its midst.

But football was caught up in the horrors of Friday night in Paris and football will respond in the only way it can throughout the days ahead.

The French national side will be accorded an ovation when they play England tomorrow night in a friendly match at Wembley.

Germany will face Holland after their players spent Friday night into Saturday morning in the Stade de France while coming to terms with explosions and deaths during the match with the host nation.

And the game in general will do the only thing the game can do, which is to stand up to the threat to its continued well being.

The game will go on, and that will annoy the Hell out of those whose intention was to make all of us fear that it would not.

Football, its grounds and its spectators. comes under attack because terrorists understand its importance to the culture of whichever country they are trying to harm.

Football is about a shared sense of togetherness, whether people are gathered together in the name of a club side or an international team.

God forbid we should ever have to show that unity is strength in the context of anything having happened inside a Scottish football stadium. But we can show solidarity with the game in a global context as it sides with France in rising above terrorism.

And we could do it here by showing a re-awakened appreciation of the game itself.

Our game has been hijacked by those who would overlook events on the park to dwell on off the field matters which are an obsession for them and, at the same time, anathema for others who despair of football life ever getting back to normal.

Let's cut to the chase and examine the debate over whether Rangers should, or should not, be stripped of titles won while the club used EBTs to reward players in their employ between 2001 and 2009.

I said flippantly that I once believed this story would last me up until the point of retiral, but I now think it will last until the post-mortem.

There's nothing like a bit of gallows humour, I always think. But humour has been extinguished in our wee world. And along with it reason and logic.

John Hartson wrote a very fine newspaper column at the weekend in which he, as a former Celtic player, explained why he wanted nothing to do with the argument that EBTs had won Rangers league championships at his former club's expense.

The Welshman cited the example of the day at Motherwell when Celtic's front three comprised Hartson, Craig Bellamy and Chris Sutton.

Celtic, on the last day of the season, had a one goal lead and minutes left to play when the roof caved in and two goals were conceded which handed the title to Rangers.

Hartson would describe that as Celtic's fault and Rangers' good fortune, and he'll get nothing but abuse from those who once idolised him as a consequence.

And the rest of us will be forced into going over the same old ground relative to this matter, possibly until the end of time. Or at least that is how it's beginning to feel.

We're in a dark place in Scottish football at the moment while a debate ensues over why we no longer produce good players.

And why our national side has failed to qualify for the last nine consecutive international tournaments of any importance.

And, while we're at it, why our club sides perform so inadequately on the European stage.

But don't let any of that get in the way of what really matters, which is a parochial dust-up in the middle of the game showing universal support for anybody trying to protect it from harm.

Let the courts decide what punishment, if any, Rangers should suffer for mis-mangement in the boardroom. And can the rest of us get over ourselves in the meantime and honour the memory of the game that was mercifully spared a much greater tragedy in human terms at the Stade de France on Friday night?