"When I took the job [as Celtic manager] I thought I had an idea of the magnitude, but the reality was mind-blowing," Strachan said yesterday. "I'm guessing the same will apply [to this game]." Never before have former team-mates managed against each other in a Rangers-Celtic match, and if Strachan or McLeish think there is some middle ground available to them - enemies for 90 minutes, mates afterwards - then they are out of kilter with the rest of Glasgow.Acne cream, rollockings, domestic trophies, European glory and two World Cups. From boys to men, wannabes to winners, Strachan, 48, and McLeish, 46, shared them all as players, first with Aberdeen under Alex Ferguson and then with Scotland.In management their paths diverged, Strachan with strugglers Coventry and Southampton before taking a plunge into the deep end at Celtic. McLeish stayed closer to home, making challengers of Motherwell and Hibs before being lured to Rangers in 2001.Distance did nothing to dissipate a 28-year friendship. Now, for all their protestations to the contrary, proximity surely will. Either that or one of them will not be in a job long enough for it to happen.Because just as their 1980s mission at Pittodrie was to break the Old Firm duopoly, now, as Glasgow's Godfathers, the aim is to break each other. It is what the fans demand."In my na?ty, I thought we'd be socialising a lot when I moved here, but we haven't yet, not once," Strachan said.
He added that time constraints were the main factor, but acknowledged that their jobs will introduce a new dynamic to their relationship. "Someone has to lose [in the battle for Old Firm supremacy] and how to handle that could be difficult."Ferguson has said: "I have been in San Siro for the Milan derby, in Barcelona for the visit of Real Madrid, I have seen Benfica-Porto and all the big games in England and, believe me, there is nothing, just nothing, to compare with the atmosphere of Rangers-Celtic."Strachan versus McLeish puts the knobs on, not just because these Ferguson prot?s are facing each other as managers for the first time.Ferguson has always been more of a mentor to "Big Eck" McLeish, a fellow Glaswegian and his one-time centre-half colossus, than to Strachan, the Edinburgh "wee man" who could dazzle in midfield but about whom he sniped acidly in his autobiography: "This man could not be trusted an inch ... I would not want to expose my back to him in a hurry."McLeish has arguably been the more Ferguson-esque as a boss: tough, sometimes aloof, big on discipline, a builder of sides founded on strength at the back.Strachan has tended to be wittier, cheekier, more inclined to put an arm round the shoulder and ask his men to play for the badge than rage in their faces. Also - and this is meant positively - he is more of a dreamer, a manager who you sense would take no greater delight than moulding a tricksy, entertainment-driven side if only the pesky matter of needing results was not such a priority.His desire to provide an outlet for creativity is embodied by Shunshuke Nakamura, his Japanese playmaker, one of several foreigners on each side likely to have a baptism of fire in their first Old Firm matches today They will emerge as heroes or toast. Dylan went walking with Herbert and a favourite destination was Fferm Wernllaeth This translates as "Milkwood farm" and... the rest is literature.The Harbourmaster's youngish owners are Glynn and Menna Heulyn. They have no previous experience in the hotel trade, so are happily without the brainless and lazy prejudices that still contaminate so much of the hospitality business The best word to describe The Harbourmaster is "fresh".
Fresh paint; seagrass; good fresh linen; bright, modern bathrooms with good towels. The fire doors have nautical portholes and the rooms are named after boats built in the local shipyard. There are no concessions to vulgar concepts of luxury, but the Heulyns have somehow hired and kept four chefs who cook with imagination, precision and - yes - freshness. Apart from sea-fishing, drinking, fornication, reading and walking there was not much else to do. Yet the poet said the Aeron valley was "the most precious place in the world". His friends were Dewi Evans, proprietor of the electrical shop, and the vet, Thomas Herbert. Dylan and Caitlin Thomas lived in Aberaeron from 1941 to 1943.
