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So yesterday was a day without Wikipedia.
How did we all cope?
Maybe by using the various workarounds that let you bypass Wiki's self-imposed protest blackout. Or
whiling away the hours following STV's #fitbawiki chat on Twitter.
Or you could have gone old school and picked up a book.
Outrage reigned last month when the idea of removing promotion and relegation from England's top
flight was discussed.
The Guardian reported Richard Bevan, chief executive of the League Managers Association, as
saying:
"There are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of
promotion and relegation in the Premier League, If we have four or five more new owners, that could
happen.
It's almost ten years since Franck Sauzée left Easter Road, a turbulent 69 days of management
bringing a passionate Leith love affair to an end.
Yet he's still revered by the green and white hordes (not all, but a hefty number). Gone but ever
more cherished.
Why?
Over the course of Ted Brack's account of the Sauzée era many observers – teammates, his former
manager, Hibs legends and ordinary fans – try to get the bottom of what it was in the
relationship between the veteran and the faithful that convinced so many supporters that there was
indeed only "one Sauzée.
There is an argument to be made that Gordon Smith is the forgotten giant of Scottish football.
Although his memory lives on with those lucky enough to have seen him play, recognition for his
exploits as a player and for his unique acheivements seems to have slipped away.
Yet his was a remarkable career: five league championships with Hibs, Hearts and Dundee.
Not technically the Fringe this one. Rather the Edinburgh International Book Festival in the
capital's posh Charlotte Square.
The stars: Stuart Donald, author of
On Fire with Fergie, and Daniel Gray, writer of
Stramash: Tackling Scotland's Towns and Teams.
The format will be familiar with anyone who has visited the annual orgy of literature before.
Football lends itself supremely well to the pursuit of counterfactual history.
Maybe that's particularly true of international football in Scotland with our litany of perceived
hard luck stories and our decades old theme of being governed by diddies.
There is an argument that counterfactual history is little more than a distraction to the real
study of history, a parlour game that shouldn't detract from more serious business.
Ayr, Alloa, Cowdenbeath, Coatbridge, Montrose, Kirkcaldy, Greenock, Arbroath, Dingwall,
Cumbernauld, Dumfries and Elgin.
Twelve towns offering a fair snapshot of Scotland's social and industrial history in the last
century.
And twelve towns that keep the ever threatened flames of lower league football in Scotland just
about alight.
