There was a distinctly healthy, or maybe that should be unhealthy, spirit of schadenfreude abroad at North Lanarkshire education committe last week, with Rangers and their Dutch manager on the receiving end.
Dan Sweeney, head of quality and support services (ugh - Ed), was the first perpetrator. Reviewing the events leading up to the authority’s proposals for greater curricular flexibility for secondary schools, he could not resist a dig at the Ibrox team’s recent lack of success. “As Dick Advocaat would say, what an amazing difference two years make.”
The theme was taken up by former council leader Harry McGuigan, mysteriously dubbed Harry Potter by a colleague, during a later debate about a football development programme in the authority.
Responding to a claim that leading European coaches favoured a “competitive but non-trophy winning” approach, he said he was not sure whether Meinheer Advocaat still came into the leading coaches category - although, another speaker added, his team was certainly “non-trophy winning”. Ouch!
