WELL THAT was the week that was Maradona. Not since Batman emerged in Gotham City has an individual so captured the attention of a city and a country. If Che Guevara, his fellow Argentine whose tattooed likeness adorns Maradona, had staggered alive out of the Bolivian jungle four decades on there could not have been more of a sensation. Diego Armando Maradona came to town, and provided some unforgettable lustre to an otherwise miserable November.
Glasgow has always been Gotham, swaggering and gallus, with a dark underbelly. This Batman might have been only five feet five inches high, with suspiciously lustrous dark locks and a tracksuit instead of bat-eared body armour and a cape, but by the
time he had swatted aside the Joker Butcher – who he? – and the Riddler Burley, whose team he tied in knots, Batman owned Gotham. They made a good match.
Not since Mike Tyson – curiously, he also has a Che Guevara tattoo – arrived to beat up both Lou Savarese and referee John Coyle at Hampden seven years ago has Glasgow seen anything like the wee Batman's circus. But unlike Mad Iron Mike, at least Maradona stayed off car roofs.
This is a small country, occasionally given to small-mindedness, but when a genuine world superstar of sport arrives on our doorstep, Scotland and Glasgow know how to respond – by lying on our backs and having our tummies tickled just by being in his presence.
From the moment he arrived – note 'he', as Carlos Tevez, Javier Mascherano, Gabriel Heinze and co were mere Robins – at a chaotic Glasgow Airport, Maradona was the centre of all focus. He knew it, and played his part to perfection, even getting the notoriously hard-nosed Scottish media to eat out of his hand.
He gave just one press conference. More than 29 years since I watched him destroy Scotland at Hampden, I was lucky enough to be in the same room as Maradona, who looked healthy and not at all what one would expect of a man who allegedly consumed whole acres of Colombia's biggest export. Intimate conversation wasn't possible, as I was surrounded by about 200 other media types – 29 camera crews when Tyson only had 23 – plus the legendary Osvaldo Ardiles and the great Ricky Villa, and I don't use those adjectives lightly. What would those two and Maradona have been worth if they were in their pomp now? Enough to buy several banks, you could say.
The Scottish media roared with laughter when Maradona, his face like a panto baddie, kebabbed an English interrogator who had dared to refer to the Hand of God incident as cheating. "Your goal in 1966 wasn't over the line" was Maradona's mischievous reply. Cue much spluttering in English accents.
Inside the conference, Maradona spoke of his love for his fans, especially those eccentrics who make up the Church of Maradona. In a side street outside the Radisson SAS hotel, four Scottish members of that Church – Robert Smith, Steven McGill, Barry Deans and Ronnie Young – waited patiently for the object of their worship to heal the sick... sorry, to sign their Saltire flag. The side door opened, and with six bouncy steps, Batman was on the Park's of Hamilton batmobile and ignoring his disciples' pleas. Suffer the fans to come unto me, as it says in the Gospel according to Diego.
The match itself was not so much fun, especially for the drunken Scottish fan who lit up a fag and swigged his booze in the main stand. Didn't need Batman to arrest him.
And poor Claudio Caniggia got himself ambushed coming out of the Hampden loo. He posed for pictures happily. Happened to him all the time at Dens Park, so I'm told.
So is Scottish football going to be any better off for the visit of Maradona? Probably not, but hey, wasn't it fun to be centre stage again, albeit in the shadow of Batman?
Maradona may or may not have been the greatest footballer of all time. For my money, Pelé is the holder of that title, but I can understand why anyone who was not alive and watching the pictures from Mexico in 1970 could favour Maradona. Having been fortunate enough to see Johan Cruyff, George Best and Maradona in the flesh, I go for the latter as the best, though he was not the best dribbler of a ball – to me, Jimmy Johnstone was superior in that category, and the two of them were equally gigantic in courage as they withstood the assaults of lesser men.
That he ended his international career as a drugs cheat at the 1994 World Cup should automatically disqualify Maradona from any adulation, but football can be a very tolerant sport and fans of the wee wizard have long since forgiven him for his aberrations, on the understandable grounds that the moments of sublime entertainment which he provided far outweighed the criminality of which he was undoubtedly guilty.
At the end of his brief sojourn in Scotland, something happened which put all the foregoing nonsense into perspective. Maradona's troubled humanity was there for all to see as he left after the match to dash to the side of his daughter, Giannina, who was experiencing complications in her pregnancy. He had earlier sent the unborn child's father, Argentina's star striker Sergio Aguero, to his daughter's bedside.
All the hype and hoopla is trifling piffle compared to the health and welfare of your children and their children. Maradona is learning this the hard way, so let us all wish him and his family well.
Hopefully, I'll be in Maradona's presence again the next time Scotland play Argentina, preferably in the World Cup Final of 2010. Well, any man who has his own church can surely work miracles for his new pals.
