I am the first to admit that we maybe need a more interesting way to draw the various rounds of the Scottish Cup but a drunk 72 year old man putting the often argued case that we aren't a nation of drunks back 40 years maybe isn't the way to do it.
Of course if you question Rod Stewart's antics at the Scottish Cup draw on Sunday 22nd January you are setting yourself up for social media backlash in a digital minefield consisting of comments like: "Och.. It's just Rod Stewart and that's what he does", "You are obviously a Rangers man with nae sense of humour", "We aw get pished watchin' fitba' sometimes "and of course "#lighten up"
I did smile at the dive bomber hand and the Eric Morecambe finger point to the master of ceremonies as Rod did what a former hell raising rock star is supposed to do but we can only hope Penny tells him he disrespected his hosts (which were actually Albion Rovers FC not Celtic) and failed to realise that if any ordinary fan had done what Rod had done they would have been universally ridiculed and probably sacked from their job. Rod may have come across as a man of the people ("look he's just like us") but rock royalty is unlikely to be taken aside by anyone and told: "you are behaving like a bit of a twat" because they are..well, rock royalty!
Those in organisations that combat the scourge of alcoholism and ordinary Joes who would jump through hoops (no pun intended) to draw their team out the William Hill drum would have face palmed at Rod's rather lame attempts to be anti-establishment. It is unlikely Rod will get any sort of reality check from the fall out from his TV Gold / Car Crash TV (depending on your opinion) moment but then again he exited the world of the mere mortal probably around the time Do Ya Think I'm Sexy was a worldwide hit.
This is not a personal attack on Rod The Mod (Downtown Train is one of my favourite songs) but as Scottish football struggles to attract major sponsors and enjoys a reputation, outside those fading few who stick up for the game up here, that is about as favourable as a fart in a spacesuit (I'll thank another Celtic fan that used to be a Partick Thistle one Billy Connolly for that one) this is just another slightly depressing cringe worthy moment and all this after we had got rid of draw balls that break open or are hard to open in the first place.
I wonder if football loving Rod has ever thought about helping to support the game in the homeland that is meant to mean so much to him outside of grabbing 30 seconds of 'cut to Rod in crowd' TV time every time he turns up for a big Parkhead European night? He of course has absolutely no obligation to extol the virtues of Scottish club football outside turning up to enjoy the hospitality at Celtic and Scotland games but it's just a pity he appeared, to these eyes at least, to slightly take the piss at what should be a showpiece moment in the domestic football calendar but then again a pissed man is likely to do that.
Rod may have been a comedy aside up here in a moment of officiousness but you can rest assured he's been crossed off any list of any future FA Cup draw 'guests' and you have to wonder if Rod would have been tanked up in the first place if it had been Man United and Liverpool coming out the hat instead of Dunfermline Athletic and Ayr United or Queens Park!
I am the first to admit that we maybe need a more interesting way to draw the various rounds of the Scottish Cup but a drunk 72 year old man putting the often argued case that we aren't a nation of drunks back 40 years maybe isn't the way to do it.