TV View: You'd have to wonder, when he reflects on the footballing weekend just passed, what Roy Keane makes of it all. In his absence the Manchester United revival gathered pace at the Pirelli Stadium where they dug deep to hold Burton Albion to a scoreless draw in the FA Cup, while his new employers were humbled by the Bully Wee in the Scottish Cup.
"You said earlier in the week that Roy Keane was hiding his excitement well - can you see his excitement now," asked the Sky Sports man before the game.
"No," said Gordon Strachan.
After the game? Well, Keane was probably excited alright, in an excitable kind of way, but perhaps not quite in the way the Sky Sports man had meant.
It's not always easy to read Keane's face, but the words were clearly printed yesterday: "Tell me this isn't happening".
There were some folk out there who commented that if Keane had problems with Rio Ferdinand's defending, "wait 'til he meets Bobo Balde". But Bobo couldn't be blamed yesterday, largely because he wasn't playing.
This was a team effort from Celtic and, together, they managed to defend much like American Samoa did the day they lost 31-0 to Australia.
One assumes that their number 16 will not be invited on to Celtic TV to analyse the performance.
By our calculations, after 35 minutes Clyde had scored twice, had two goals disallowed (and they looked alright to us) and had a penalty saved.
If you tot up all the ifs, buts and maybes that could have been Celtic 5-0 down at half-time. Not good, by any calculations. As commentator Ian Crocker put it, "everyone is rather gobsmacked".
Defender Du Wei made his debut for Celtic too, lasting 45 minutes before Strachan decided enough was plenty.
If Keane thought the nature of Du Wei's debut was familiar he was right - he, after all, was in the Irish midfield the night Paul Butler did a Du Wei against the Czech Republic at Lansdowne Road, his first cap ending at half-time because Jan Koller was taking the mick. Déjà vu all over again, as they say.
Anyway, The Debut proved to be a bit of a dampish squib. And no one was more surprised than Clyde manager Graham Roberts, who appeared to believe his team was up against 12 men. "If you mention Roy Keane you have to mention their other 11 players," as he said pre-match.
So, perhaps Keane's faraway hills were green and white hooped. If he'd resisted the call he might well have been at the Pirelli Stadium yesterday. Ah yes, the magic of the FA Cup. Ronaldo v Burton Albion. And only one part of that equation is a circus act.
"Would your dad have been proud," Burton manager Nigel Clough was, inevitably, asked of the late Brian. "He'd have been happy with the clean sheet," he replied, choosing to leave it at that. He'd probably have been happier than that, although Nigel once remarked, when he started out in management, "I was told I wouldn't be as good as Brian Clough - and most of the time it was dad telling me".
Burton goalkeeper Saul Deeney was the hero, making a more than decent save in the dying minutes. "England number one, England, England number one," sang the Burton crowd in praise of their Derry-born former Republic of Ireland under-21 goalkeeper.
"Saul Deeney? It's Houdini," the commentator swooned.
The FA Cup highlight of the week, though, was that Istanbulesque Liverpool comeback against Luton, but we were marginally more enchanted by The GAA: Out In Africa earlier in the week. Seven GAA mega superstars, past and present, joined Tracy Piggott in Malawi where they saw, first-hand, the work of Self Help, an Irish development agency.
Joe Cooney, Brian Whelehan, Robbie O'Malley, Jack O'Shea, Eoin Liston and Henry Shefflin spent much of their brief stay in the country coaching a group of 130 teenagers in hurling and Gaelic football and such was their success - you should have seen the camogie final - Malawi will very probably be contesting an All-Ireland final in the not very distant future. Like this year. What a surreal and very lovely thought.
A charming film it was too, not least the moment Liston stood up and addressed the kids. "Hello, my name is Bomber," he said, and they giggled. Nervously. But he soon put them at their ease. By day two one of the young fellas, resplendent in his GAA club shirt, with Scruffy Murphy's emblazoned across the front, was soloing up the red and dusty African soil, like he'd been born and bred in the Bomber's Kingdom. Tyrone v Malawi next September?
