The influence of Chinese sage Lao Tzu on Scottish League One football

Back in the sixth century BC, when Babylonia fell, the Persian Empire rose from its ashes and toga-wearing Greek philosophers first started to look quizzically at tortoises, the Chinese sage Lao Tzu delicately laid down the first few brushstrokes of the Tao Te Ching, the text that would go on to become the bedrock of Taoism.

Lao Tzu had faith in the duality of the universe. ‘When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly,’ he declared. Yin and yang. Each thing must, by its very nature, have an opposite.

So perhaps that in order to have that mouthwatering Old Firm derby drawn out of the hat on Saturday evening we first had to sit through this: 90 minutes of the most tedious, excruciating football imaginable […]

- Callum Baird reports on a 0-0 draw between Morton & Airdrieonians, The Herald, quoted in Private Eye 1380, 28 November – 11 December 2014, p.28

[Sample picture caption from original article: 'Morton goalkeeper Derek Gaston calls for a Socratic dialogue']