The Diary hasn’t appeared for a couple of days, and I haven’t gone into hiding.

Thats because I’m not Chris Graham.

Two days away attending to a couple of urgent matters-okay, I was out on the beer and not being used to it I suffered terrribly- and look what i come back to.

We’ll get to Chris Graham shortly, hopefully before any fundamentalists do, which would mean I’d have to start all over.

Although if he has opened the door to a chap in a somewhat bulky vest by the time you read this, he was a lovely man , respected by his peers etc, etc.

We’ll start with Celtic, because after all, its the Celtic diary.

Today sees the appearance of Virgil van Dijk in front of the disciplinary panel to appeal his red card for violent conduct against Dundee United. Scott Brown, despite earlier fears, won’t face any further action, and neither will Calum Butcher, who was lucky enough to be mistaken for Paul Paton after the fracas, and thus avoided any punishment.

Van Dijk could have his card downgraded, and a cynic might say that if he is awarded a yellow, and Paton has his red rescinded, then thats the trade off the club have agreed with the League, in order to avoid Brown being summoned. That way , we can all forgive and forget Butchers part in the incident, and more importantly, there’ll be no witch hunt for talentless linesman Graham Chambers, who seems to get a lot of things wrong a lot of the time.

Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, his part in the affair has been largely swept under the carpet, as the Referees close ranks around one of their own.

Thankfully, Chambers is not on duty for the Cup Final on Sunday.

Its Bobby Madden instead, who no doubt will be mature enough not to hold any grudges after he was denied the recent Celtic -Second Rangers game when it was pointed out publicly he might not be all that impartial.

Well, thats a relief.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh here, because its obvious Madden doesn’t like Dundee Utd, and we’ll get a few favours from him.

Consider his reaction when United scored against a lower league side in the cup a while back;

whereas we should count ourselves lucky we haven’t got Craig Thomson again, who seemed a little slumped when Leigh Griffiths equalised on Sunday;

Still, we should be thankful its not Willie Collum, seen here promoting the benefits of monitoring you blood pressure

and seen here making sure that it goes through the roof.

What are van Dijks chances of starting  the cup final ? Fair to middling, to be fair.

His chances of finishing it ?

To be fair, the club have come out swinging in van Dijks defence, and issued a statement which left no doubt about how they feel with regards to Butcher no being punished.

CELTIC Football Club notes that no action appears to have been taken in relation to Calum Butcher of Dundee United.  

It seems completely illogical and fundamentally unfair that, in an incident where mistaken identity has been claimed, the Dundee United player now identified clearly as being involved in the incident appears to have no case to answer – and would be available to play in the League Cup final and the Scottish Cup replay between the two teams – while Celtic’s player may potentially miss both of those matches.

Celtic Football Club and Virgil van Dijk maintain their position that no red card offence was committed by Virgil.

Virgil will appear at Hampden to put his case on Thursday and we will fully support him in this appeal.  

 Which is very noble, but still looks a little like plea bargaining has taken place, and thats just paying lip service.

I hope I’m wrong.

 The other incident which should have been examined from the game concerns Aiden Connelly, the Dundee United forward who went down to win their penalty. He dived, that much is clear to anyone who has seen his jinking run to nowhere, and thats cheating, and punishable.

Was Anthony Stokes, the villain of the piece,  surprised no further action is being considered? :

 “I was a bit because I know for a fact I have not touched him. I was going to make a tackle and, from one of the camera angles you can see, I have gone to put my foot in but I have pulled it away. He was already on the way down.

“It’s a strange one for me because there was no contact. I remember a similar incident with myself against Kilmarnock, but the boy has caught me. I might have gone down easily, but I think if you make contact in the box then you run the risk. I didn’t make contact. He has tried to read the tackle and gone down too early.”  

 Our exclusive picture, taken from a different angle, shows exactly how high he leapt before gracefully landing on the ground.

 It seems that despite the absence of the establishments favourite club, they are prepared to back any horse in a race against Celtic.

Except probably Hibs, and if the two sides clash in the final, expect Health and Safety issues to close the ground and the trophy to be held over for twelve months.

Incidentally, the draw for the Scottish Cup semi final pits the hoops against Inverness, the strongest side left in the tournament, which means if Celtic do win the trophy, it couldn’t really have been any tougher.

 Although plans are already underway deep in the bowels of Hampden to invite Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid as guests in next years tournament, as back to back trebles is unthinkable.

Its a bit early to be dwelling on Sundays final, and a lot isn’t certain yet. Nir Bitton is another who is doubtful, and a worse case scenario of no Bitton and no van Dijk could be a problem, but we’ll have to wait and see.

What else has happened in the two days the diary has been away ?

 Jeremy Clarkson, the cult presenter of kids tv programme Top Gear ( I think I read that right ) has been suspended by the BBC, so it must have been something really serious he did, considering what most of their presenters have got away with over the years.

Chelsea have exited the Champions League, wonderfully summed up in this French cartoon;

And Second Rangers have got a new manager, taking the current tally of master tacticians on the payroll to three.

Stuart McCall, presumably in a last ditch attempt to keep Motherwell in the Premier league, will take over at Ibrox until the end of the season, and we hear he’s already not happy with one or two things over there.

 He reckons the diet of the players needs to be looked at;

Discipline needs to be installed,

And perhaps the biggest change is the appointment of kit man Jimmy Bell as his assistant.

 Former Old Rangers hero John “Bomber ” Brown, seemed happy with the choice-after claiming it was his idea;

“I know people talk about Derek McInnes but for me Stuart is the ideal one because he’s available so it doesn’t cost you compensation. But that’s not to say you’re getting the cheap option. You’re getting a top-class manager who I’m surprised nobody has picked up on. 

 And so to Chris Graham.

For those unaware, Graham is a Rangers fan.

A big Rangers fan.

And they made him a director.

Not surprising really, as the new custodians haven’t looked properly into the business they have just taken over, so its a bit much to expect them to check out the history of a new director.

That Jack Irvine tweet may have come back and bitten him on the arse.

In fact, it seems there will be  a lot of tooth marks on the poor chaps behind.

You may remember this, his thoughts on the ramblings of Charles Green, when Ol’ Big ‘Ands referred to his “little Paki friend “

Actually, this one has taken a huge chunk out of his arse;

Rangers are investigating after it emerged that a newly appointed director at Ibrox apparently tweeted a sexually explicit cartoon of the prophet Mohammed.

The message was sent from Chris Graham’s Twitter account to radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary on the day of the Charlie Hebdo attack.
Mr Graham was appointed as a non-executive director at Ibrox on Tuesday.

South African businessman Dave King took charge of the club last week.
Barely 24 hours after his appointment, Mr Graham is at the centre of controversy about his activity on social media before he joined the board.

On 7 January, shortly after two gunmen had shot dead 12 people at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the radical Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary sent a message on Twitter which read “freedom of expression does not extend to insulting the prophets of Allah, whatever your views on the events in Paris today!”

Homosexual act 

Mr Graham replied by sending a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed engaged in an explicit homosexual act.

Part of the message accompanying the drawing read: “You probably won’t like this one…then”

Mr Graham, who is 38-years-old, is well known among football fans for representing the Rangers Supporters Trust and running the Rangers Standard website.

His Twitter account is now restricted from public view.
A spokesman for Rangers said: “We are unaware of this but we will look into it.”  

It might not be just twitter he takes a break from. Cartuja on KDS has seen something of interest….

There are a couple of Rangers supporters who vie for the affection of the wider group. We need to clarify who is who. On the left, its Chris Graham, on the right, its Mark Dingwall, who also wants to be a director. Perhaps he’ll get the nod as Grahams replacement ?

With all the shennanigans at Ibrox these days, its no surprise to se such a public faux pas.

Or is it a deflection ? Has Graham been set up to be the fall guy ?

Sandy Easdale feels vindicated as probe into his activities at Rangers is dropped

Just a coincidence, no doubt. No suggestion of any impropriety by Easdale, but perhaps he knows where there has been some….

Theres still no sign of a NOMAD, we believe they have twenty three days to nominate one, and apparently there is a South African company interested. Which is interesting, because given Kings track record over there, it would take a very courageous firm to back any of his business interests.

Give it just over a fortnight, and no doubt King will be saying he wants to de-list from the stock exchange.

His past suggests he is not the sort who likes a lot of regulatory interference in his day to day business.

The scandal of Graham’s tweet, and it is disgusting, is making headlines nationally, and will probably go global. Its hard to see how  the Ibrox board could not have foreseen this.

So one has to assume they did……