Cathal Dervan, Editor
There are two tricks of old school journalism that you won’t find on any third level curriculum teaching modern day communications for influencers, content creators and their like in a world where print is a thing of the past.
The first ‘old’ trick of the trade is to always talk to the taxi driver when you hit the ground in a foreign land. Trust me, nine times out of 10 they know more about their football team than most people in the vicinity.
And you can always quote a taxi driver as a local source if you’re struggling to make a deadline - more than one transfer rumour started in a black cab over the years! Some of them even came true.
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Quick step or waltz…
The taxi trick normally only works away from home mind you. Most media owners in my day expected their football writers to know more about the game on the ground than those working in the transportation industry! And I’m sure that hasn’t changed.
The other trick beloved of the old schoolers works home or away and it doesn’t cost as much as a taxi journey. Whenever a game doesn’t go the way your target audience wants it to go, just look up the TV schedule and find a listing to match the story and the sentiment.
Now I wasn’t in Glasgow yesterday for the Old Firm derby so I had to make do with the Sky Sports broadcast of the biggest game of his second coming from Martin O’Neill.
So when Roy Keane appeared on our screens, live from the Director’s Box at Parkhead as Celtic continued to chase a 1-0 deficit, it was time to have a look at the schedule on the remote control.
And there it was on BBC One - Songs of Praise live from the Harvest Festival in Somerset and hosted on a farm with faith at its centre.
Bingo.
By the time the last hymn sheet was consigned to the history books, Rangers had seen out the 1-0 win and O’Neill was explaining a third defeat of the week, two of them against Celtic’s bitterest rivals.
In an instant, the Songs of Praise were nowhere to be heard in the East End of Glasgow. The taxi drivers, I can only assume, were talking about the removal of O’Neill as manager. Even the man himself admitted afterwards that he would consider all options over the upcoming international break.
And Roy Keane could now be the Keane the Celtic fans are looking for - having ran the Robbie one out of town the minute it was claimed that he was on his way over the summer.
Roy of the Keanes has never made a secret of the fact that he still fancies a crack at management despite all the money he is making on the Overlap and on an endless talking tour of Ireland with Roddy Doyle.
And if there is one thing that this Celtic squad clearly need at the moment, it’s a leader who can turn their season around, quite a demand considering the fact they are still two points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership after seven games played.
The fact of the matter is that Celtic have looked rudderless this past week, against Rangers and against a Ferencvaros side largely put together by Robbie Keane.
Martin O’Neill performed a miracle worthy of a Song of Praise last season when he snatched the league title from under the nose of Derek McInnes and Hearts.
But the same McInnes, and his new Rangers team, have regrouped and recharged their batteries - they looked more like title contenders than Celtic on Sunday and that has to be a concern for a Board that didn’t have the conviction to see the Robbie Keane appointment through in the summer.
They might have seen enough on Sunday though to go for a different Keane second time around. And they might get lucky at the third time of asking - seeing as how Roy turned Dermot Desmond down twice previously when it came to the Celtic job but was there on Sunday to see for himself the task at hand, the sort of task he would surely relish.
Stranger things have happened in football - just ask your local taxi driver!
The Coaching Corner is close to home this week as Larry Mahony joins editor Cathal Dervan to discuss the ever improving League of Ireland from a coaching and playing perspective - including some penalty shoot-out tips from Larry that apply across the game. You can follow Larry at www.bigpicturecoachingireland.com.
The full episode is available on site now and you can watch all the previous Let’s Talk Football episodes now on TheSportsHacks.com
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