Ayburdeeen to Ayrshire to “AYA BASTURT YE, Mr Sebian Polisman!!”

Anorak heaven in Aberdonian hell last night troops.

Absolutely beautiful drive up to the Granite Shitty as the Scottish late August sun shone bright on Perthsire and Grampian’s bountiful … erm, hills and grass and trees and stuff.

Aye - it was a nice drive up.

Tartan Army silliness not as prevalent, even per capita among a crowd of less than 14,000 - a crowd which made the selection of Pittodrie as a venue more than justified. The Sheep bowl was perkily busy, whereas Hampden would have been echoing to the sound of cats being liberally swung.

Saw a kilted, bunneted freak show arrested for refusing to sit on his tartan arse in the auld section Q of the South Stand. Everyone who’d been unable to see the game for his “I’m pyoor patriotc, me” pish cheered aloud as those lovely North Eastern coppers led his replica-jerseyed 45-year-old beer gut out of there.

There was a nice buzz of interest among the crowd. They’re thrilled in that part of the world just to have an international on their home patch. But no-one was pretending this was anything other than a friendly - people just wanted to sit and watch and take a passing interest. The “passion” we’ll save for the actual qualifiers.

If you wanted a brilliant game of football or a “mental” atmosphere you were at the wrong place. But if you wanted to see Scotland’s first home friendly win in 11 years, our first win over an African nation since Zaire in Dortmund during the 1974 Wiorld Cup or if ye wanted to see more Bundesliga players on show than there probably were at Wembley last night THEN Aberdeen was the place to be.

I also discovered, when he rattled the baw in to the top corner via the inside of the woodwork, just how much I wanted to see (a) Scotland win and (b) Kris Boyd score. Alan Hutton was smashing going forward, as usual, but the real Rangers interest was in seeing Boyd do the biz. He’s retaining his legend-in-the-making record of goals at both club AND international level. And he’s obviously simmering just nicely as we look ahead to a long domestic campaign and, hopefully, a strenuous European and international year.

It was a friendly, you’re allowed to have selfish interests - as long as you politely applaud the rest of the men in Dark Blue.

Kris smacked the winner home and ran briefly towards the section of this old ground I’ll be sat in on December 22nd, when I hope he’s doing much the same, in a slightly lighter shade of blue.

Parked the car along the promenade, walked across the sandified grass to get back there, took three hours to get home and felt really glad I’d gone - and really sad that Aberdeen will never be anything other than a dump to me. Having to buy my ticket from their club shop in the back of the Dick Donald stand was one hellishly strange, uncomfortable moment … walking past a blazered-up Gordon Smith as I headed along past their old Main Stand was even stranger … South Africa having a player in their line-up with Christian name McBeth was positively spooky.

Their fans were lovely - a bit different from what travelling bears may experience next Monday-Tuesday.

Be safe, Bears. Be safe. Kenny Scott is giving out all the warnings and, while absolutely no offence is meant to Serbian football fans in general, there is potential for a real culture clash - especially in the policing methods experienced by Belgrade football fans - and I really hope there’s no trouble at the Red Star game.

Perhaps if we can complete the proposed signing of Dejan Stefanovic from Portsmouth before then, it’ll help smooth out any final possible animosity between the two sets of fans. Dejan’s an ex-Crvena Zvezda player and, as well as being a testament to his quality - even if ‘Arry Redknapp’s not giving him a game at present - it might take any edge out of the off-field situation.

Not that there has to be any - even if Red Star players are targetting Alan Hutton’s obvious hot-head and making all sorts of promises about what they’ll do to him in tuesday night’s UNBELIEVABLY VITAL second leg.

Talking of smoothing thins opver - can you believe we’d ever do Peter Grant a favour??!! Well the world’ most desperate-to-be- known-as-a-Celtic-man man today landed one Ian Murray for nowt but his wages. After getting the final touch on the goal which won us the league at Easter Road on 22nd May 2005, Ian had a hard time at Ibrox, mostly due to really cruel health problems. We wish him all the best at Carrow Road … playing in green-and-yellow … under Peter Grant … who used to bless himself on his knees in front of the Broomloan when Terry Butcher scored own goals!! Naw, naw - Honest - Good luck Ian. Talk to Delia - she’s a Rangers fan (no shit - she is! Fact!)

Sebo, Sebo, Seeeeeeebooooo has gone. On loan. To the club who chucked the game which discredited Marseille’s 1993 Champions League triumph after they’d pipped us to a place in the final.

Big Fil was always more likely to be going to Valenciennes than Valencia but it’s still a better move than I ever thought he’d get - even on loan. Ligue 1 is certainly a better league than the SPL and, even if it is with a relegation candidate (they did beat Lyon the other week though) anything he can do there would certainly merit us bringing him back to Govan at the end of this year-long loan.

But ye mostly think he won’t come back, don’t ye. For me, the sheer chantability of his name is what led to his “cult” status. It actually became embarrassing, patronising, demeaning to both us and the man himself to get so wound up about him when he was so shite. But I couldn’t help liking it. It was as if teh Bluenoses tried, in one fell swoop, to compensate for all those decent Rangers players who’ve been booed and harangued by the Ibrox crowd down the decades.

But he really just didn’t have it - ANY of it. And it really isn’t the biggie disaster some folk would have us believe.

Every big club signs a handful of players each season. There’s always a big money name who flops and a low-key signing who shines. Man United have Juan-Sebastian Veron versus Eric Cantona - we have Filip Sebo versus Sasa Papac.

And Sas may be about to be unduly puished for his good form of late. Either Stevie Smith will soon return to left back after injury or Dejan Stefanovic will arrive from Fratton Park to leap into the same spot. Or will they? Seems like we’re building two teams at Ibrox right now. Papac definitely deserves to be in one of them.

Didn’t make the AGM. Don’t know any of the goss or scandal or lack thereof - relying on you Shareholders out there to keep me informed on that.

All I know is that we’re off to lovely North Ayrshire and the tiny, tiny seats of Rugby Park this Saturday. HOW CAN A STADIUM WHICH SELLS THE BEST PIES IN FOOTBALL ALSO HAVE THE SKIMPIEST SEATS???!!! IT’S AN EXPONENTIAL HEALTH AND SAFETY DISASTER JUST WAITING TO HAPPEN. (”the crowd was just under 12,000 - but it weighed closer to 24,000″!!!)

Four consecutive league games on a Saturday afternoon. What the fu….! I could almost start believing in football again at this rate.

Nothing to say except, we must win, win, win, win. Everyone of our strikers - not those on loan now! - are scoring and I just hope the scoring of seven goals when we only needed four doesn’t mean we won’t get the three we need to beat comeback kings Killie. They’ve only dropped two points this season but they’ve yet to take the lead in any of their three league matches! So if we go a goal down on Saturday I’ll be cheering. If we go a goal up, I’ll be sweating until we make it 2-0.

Oh yes - I’m talking all sorts of superstitious shite. So it must be exciting times at Ibrox right enough!