Results tagged “Jim Murphy” from Glasgow Politics

FORMER Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously once said that "a week is a long time in politics".

He was right. But in British football a year is an eternity. And this year it has been all change in our national sport. I have written before in the Glaswegian about Scottish football and so today I wanted to write a wee bit more about football down South.

And what a year its been. But it is how the game has been played out in the boardrooms and back rooms more than on the football field that has made the headlines. Perhaps it is because results - barring the stunning Cup final upsets - were predictable several weeks ago.

The one thing that has been surprising but is perhaps now just part of the sport is the way in which managers are instantly dispensable. Tune into any radio phone-in and the talk is all about the manager and his tactics. Today personalities seem to dominate football more than ever before.

I HAVE never been so exhausted in my life and it is not because I've reached 46 years of age. It was the 26 miles of last weekend's London marathon that did it for me. I've written before for the Glaswegian about getting ready for the run and now that it's done I think Glasgow can learn from it.

I managed to get round the route in 3 hrs 31 minutes and 44 seconds, not bad for a first-timer, but I'm filled with a wee bit of "if only...". If only I had trained harder, if only I hadn't been injured before then maybe I could have taken 1 min 45 sec off my time and gone below 3 and a half hours.

But life is full of such thoughts and a much better way of looking at it is "I'm going to...". For me that means I'm going to run another marathon.

ON the 21st April I will be running my first ever marathon in London. I decided to do it after meeting a group of soldiers injured in Afghanistan.

I thought what more could I do outside politics to support them and that's when the idea of running for the Soldiers' Charity came to mind.

There a lot of surprises about getting ready to run your first marathon. Firstly, just how much time it takes up; it's about 12 hours a week of additional time you've got to find to train. Where exactly do you get that from? In my case it's often very late at night or very early in the morning, either after everyone else is in bed or before anyone else is up.

THE shops are filling up with heart-shaped chocolate boxes and it can mean only one thing - Valentine's Day is fast approaching.

On Valentine's weekend why not go for a walk in the park? Not any old park, but Rouken Glen.

For one weekend only, from February 14th to 17th, this beautiful park will be lit up in a way that has never happened before.

A SCHEME first launched by Labour five months ago has now been rolled out by the government across the UK.

Everyone will agree it is wrong that someone who has served in Afghanistan is expected to join the back of the queue at the local job centre. With thousands being sacked during the recession, this government's actions are making things harder for UK veterans.

But the expansion of Labour's scheme - the Veterans' Interview Programme (VIP) - based on co-operation between myself and ministers, could make a real difference.