Sober start to the year as Scottish football mourns

The past week has, of course, been overshadowed by the death of Phil O'Donnell last Saturday. Suddenly, football has not seemed so important.

This funeral today was a mark of the respect held for the man in the game, with hundreds of mourners paying their respects. Now life will go on, but the repercussions from his death will continue for some time.

Firstly, Phil O'Donnell is not the first footballer to die from sudden heart failure, and while the player's union has advocated mandatory screening for players, others, such as Gary Caldwell, have asked for research into the food supplements and additives that are now widespread in the professional game.

Yet the truth is that, if a athletic young man dies suddenly, and the cause isn't suicide, violence or and accident, heart failure is often considered as the next alternative. It's rare, but not unheard of. It would seem it will take significantly more research to find out why.

Secondly, the authorities need to look at themselves, and ask why they accepted Celtic's request to postpone their game this week, but refused Dundee Utd's. While there were valid arguments for carrying on with the fixtures, or postponing them all, the compromise reached was disgraceful. It seemed to say that Celtic's grief for an ex-player was more important than that of the Dundee Utd team, who had watched a fellow player drop down dead in front of them 4 days earlier.

Motherwell won't play this weekend, either, but for the rest of the SPL, it's back to business.