Hugh Keevins: Rae of sunshine in a dark place

Some people will obviously go to any lengths to avoid keeping my company, even going to the extent of asking to grab the poisoned chalice that is the job of managing St. Mirren.

Who would throw themselves at a club where three managers have left in the last two seasons, and where relegation from the Premiership last May is in serious danger of being followed by demotion from the Championship next May?

A Paisley team who have yet to win a match at home this season and who have accumulated the not so grand total of two victories from the sixteen fixtures they've had up until now, the Winter of their discontent.

Who would even consider taking on a job like that when the fans are in understandably surly mood and will need to be convinced that the next man into the manager's office has their best interests at heart?

My Superscoreboard colleague, Alex Rae, for one.

There I was expecting to meet Alex at the staff Christmas party on Thursday night and now there's a possibility he could be asked to interview for the job of replacing Ian Murray with the Buddies at a time when Saturday's match at Alloa has taken on cataclysmic proportions.

Lose to the bottom club and just one point will separate St. Mirren from the place in the table where the flames lick your troubled feet.

They're a great club, St. Mirren, populated by decent people from the boardroom to the man who makes great tea in the press room on match days.

I know from long chats with chairman Stewart Gilmour and his number two, George Campbell, that they have a family-styled affection for the place. But they have been trying to lighten their personal load, and financial liability, for years without being able to attract a suitable buyer.

Now they're like men being held against their will by a loved one while trying to avoid the catastrophe to the business plan that would be a sequence of steps in a downward direction.

It is the chance to shine a Rae of light into a dark place, as it were, that would probably appeal to our Alex.

He and his lifelong friend David Farrell worked wonders under similarly daunting circumstances when the pair worked at Dundee, taking a club who were second bottom of the league when they started and replacing mediocrity with the scent of ambition before boardroom change brought two P45's to the table.

He, or they, can speak up if, and when, the opportunity presents itself. But it isn't the old pals act in operation to say Alex has the managerial experience and the native cunning to do the kind of job St. Mirren require.

In any case, it'll give us something to talk about while topics of debate are in short supply elsewhere. The date has been set for the Premiership title decider, for instance.

That'll take place at Pittodrie on February 3, when Celtic are the visitors. A win for Ronny Deila's side on that day will, along with their points advantage and vastly superior goal difference, mean that the outcome of the title race is a foregone conclusion.

Sunday's win at St. Johnstone gave Celtic a perfect ten wins out of ten in matches following European ties. It is an outstanding achievement and a continuing conundrum. Why is domestic football so dependable where Celtic are concerned while Europe is so disjointed?

I can only think back to the time my wife hired a car while we were abroad, drove it up a narrow street and systematically took the wing mirrors off several parked vehicles before my pleas for the car to stop were finally answered.

Driving at home ? The woman is perfect. On the continent ? I'll just get the bus, thanks all the same. Either you can do it on foreign soil or you can't. The Celtic fans with a special devotion to Deila will take exception to the comparison and even argue the manager's record is not as bad as it would appear.

But I understand that St. Mirren's outgoing manager had words with the representative of the local paper after Saturday's loss to Dumbarton, accusing him of being a "disgrace" for suggesting in print that his job might be in jeopardy.

The written observation was surely a clear cut case of stating the bleeding obvious, particularly when jeopardy became reality in jig time.

The stats in black and white can't be contested, whether you're St. Mirren or Celtic.

Saying Rangers will win the league by fifteen points is another matter.

My prediction has been ridiculed, rubbished and regurgitated for fun ever since Mark Warburton's team took a wee wobbly. But the big day comes on December 28, when Hibs go to Ibrox.

If Alan Stubbs' team win, I'm in trouble. If Rangers win and move several points clear of Hibs with a clearly superior goal difference there may be a chance that he who laughs last really does laugh longest.

Either way, it's all good clean fun. Until the phone rings between six and eight o'clock on a weekday night.

What's not to love?