Times' football writer, Graham Spiers - who has a column in sister title, the Sunday Times Scotland - had perhaps not heard Radio Scotland's Off the Ball football programme on Saturday, where presenters Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove were more than happy to take Rangers manager, Walter Smith, to task over a series of disappointing results by his team.

But that didn't mean he was entirely mistaken to repeat a comment by a reader of The Times, who wrote: "The sound of his BBC Radio Scotland apologists, blaming the players, not the manager, ...was agonisingly sycophantic to listen to."

Says Spiers in his Sunday Times column: "Dearie, dearie me, chaps....what is going on here? Don't tell me our infamous newspaper grovelling to Walter is now being extended to our broadcasters, too? Come on, who were the guilty men? I think we should be told."