Opinion

It was all too good to be true. Just when Scottish football appeared ready to leave the cringe factor in European competition behind, Kilmarnock provided another deeply unwelcome entry to its hall of shame on the continental stage.

If anyone needed a reminder of how inflated the transfer market has become in England, it was provided this week by Sheffield United’s eye-watering £15 million bid for Swansea City’s Scotland international striker Oli McBurnie.

Most of us would, I hope, hate the thought of the Six Nations being regarded as preparation for a World Cup rather than as the great tournament it is, but the Southern Hemisphere’s Rugby Championship has neither the history nor the allure of the Six Nations, and there’s no doubt that all four countries – New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Argentina – see the truncated Championship which kicks off today as, principally, an opportunity for preparation and experiment. There’s more reason to regard it as such because it is of course that much nearer to the World Cup than the Six Nations was.

Like everyone else I had mixed feelings on hearing the news that the club had been bought over. I was delighted to hear about the very welcome investment in the club, it’s been badly needed for years. On the other hand, I was very disappointed when I realised that HSL had fallen short on our principle aim of achieving a 25.1 per cent ownership stake.

Today is Bastille Day, or, as it’s more simply and literally known in France, le 14 Juillet. A day of celebration and hand-wringing, especially as it always falls during the Tour de France, which the French have not won since 1985.

M egan Rapinoe has become one of the most recognisable faces on the planet following the women’s World Cup.

It is the time of year when most of the news is about things off the field. Yesterday one learned that John Jeffrey has just been appointed chairman of the Six Nations Committee,on which he has served for a number of years, as indeed on World Rugby and the SRU itself also. JJ has come a long way into the ranks of the Great and Good since, along with his mate Finlay Calder, he was described as a “scavenger” by England’s coach, Geoff Cooke. A long way also from that night when he and England’s mighty No 8 Dean Richards indulged in some passing practice up and down North Bridge with the Calcutta Cup instead of a rugby ball. I don’t really know what the remit and powers of the chair of the Six Nations Committee may be, but I trust that JJ will greet proposals for change with a healthy Borders scepticism, offering our characteristic defence of the status quo: “it’s aye been”.

Angelo Alessio got off to a winning start in his first competitive match as Kilmarnock manager in the Europa League against Connah’s Quay in Wales on Thursday.

Former Charlton Athletic manager Chris Powell has joined current incumbent Lee Bowyer in disparaging the quality of the Scottish Premiership and its existence as a stepping stone to the English top flight.

There are more taxing testing grounds than the Victoria 
Stadium in Gibraltar, 
regardless of what has befallen Scottish sides on this patch of synthetic turf in the recent past.

Thirty-five years ago a 23-year-old Colombian, Luis Herrera, won the Queen stage of the Tour de France on the climb of Alpe d’Huez. As Herrera approached the summit on his own, having attacked and dropped the French heroes Laurent Fignon and Bernard Hinault, the Colombian stock exchange suspended operations to allow the whole country to watch the conclusion to the stage.

It may be Wimbledon fortnight and the return of Andy Murray, in doubles anyway, but with the Scotland squad training hard in Portugal, the Rugby World Cup no longer seems far away.

D on’t you just wish you could sometimes be in two different places at once? This week is a perfect example because I’d love to be heading to Lahinch for the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, but that’s not possible due to Open Championship final qualifying at Fairmont St Andrews then Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open qualifying at Longniddry taking priority over the next few days.

David Turnbull, everyone agrees, needs support right now. Good people around him. Family, friends, team-mates. Motherwell and, you would like to think, the wider football community. And of course the surgeons who will hopefully enable him to resume a career of high promise, relegating this on-off-on-off transfer saga to the status of odd interregnum.

It is in character that Ross Ford should have announced his retirement in a dead week of the close season. One would have liked to see him take his leave after sixty or seventy minutes of an international match at a packed Murrayfield so that he could receive the grateful and admiring applause that he deserves. But he has never been a player to seek, let alone hog, the limelight .For him, a match has always been about the team, not himself.

The angst among Celtic supporters facing the prospect of Kieran Tierney’s departure from the club this summer is understandable.

The only surprise about Jim Goodwin’s appointment as St Mirren manager is that it didn’t happen 12 months earlier.