Coronavirus: Are Hearts really going to get relegated because of a sick bat? – Steve Cardownie

AS a Hearts supporter, I am pleased to see that Anne Budge, the club’s chief executive, has threatened to go to the courts to seek redress if the leagues are frozen in their present position and the team is relegated.

The Premier League competition comprises of 38 games and although Hearts are currently four points adrift at the bottom, there are still enough games left to offer the prospect of a higher position, thereby avoiding the drop or the play-off.

There is no easy solution but in my opinion, the only one that could fairly accommodate the aspirations of most clubs is to abandon relegation from the top flight and promote two clubs from the Championship and so on thereby increasing the Premier League’s numbers from 12 to 14 which would be no bad thing.

I don’t think that I can swallow the prospect of the Jam Tarts being relegated by a bat from Wuhan, nearly 5500 miles away from Edinburgh (or from anywhere else for that matter!).

Beware your words don’t betray you

Usually when a councillor gives a story to a newspaper with the strict stipulation that they will not be identified, it is because they are criticising their own political group and do not want to expose themselves to potential disciplinary repercussions. Members of the opposition have no such concerns and can say what they like.

It was interesting to note in Monday’s paper, therefore, that when commenting on the board of Edinburgh Marketing’s decision to resign en masse last November in protest at the council’s decision to withdraw funding “a senior council insider” was quoted, accusing them of throwing a “hissy fit” for taking that decision.

This “insider”, desirous to be shielded behind the cloak of anonymity, may have made a bit of gaffe however and given the game away. In all my time on the council there was only one councillor who regularly used the term “hissy fit” both in writing and, more often, in debate, in which he needed very little encouragement to join and give us all the benefit of his tuppence worth.

The odd thing is, if I am right, this councillor has not always been so slow to disassociate himself from criticism of the administration of which he is part.

If I am wrong then the pints are on me but I somehow think that I will not be required to rush to the bar any time soon – “What’s new?” I hear my mates saying.