h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As I'm sure some of you are aware, I'm a follower (from afar) of Scottish third division club Cowdenbeath. The start of the season at Central Park has been characterised by decent performances on the field, but turmoil off it.

Manager Dave Baikie, appointed late last year as successor to Keith Wright, resigned after pleading guilty at Dundee sherrif's court to a vicious assault on the father of an Arbroath youth team player.

His replacement, which made me spit my coffee out, is former Bolton forwrad Mixu Paatalainen. Honest- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/cowdenbeath/4136464.stm

Did you see what Balkie actually did? http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/cowdenbeath/4739097.stm

What did his unfortunate victim do to bring that on - mention last season's 0-6 home defeat to Stenhousemuir?

I did see what Baikie did and it's an absolute disgrace. As far as I can work out from Scottish news sources the two men had a long standing disagreement about the management of the boy's career by Baikie. Baikie asked the man to let bygones be bygones when they met each other in a pub, the man refused. On leaving the pub, Baikie saw the man in question standing outside and launched his vicous, unprovoked assault.

The general opinion on Blue bRazil fan sites is that Baikie has brought shame not only on the club but on Scottish football. Cowden has areputation as a family club, and for Baikie to act the way he did made his position untenable- if he hadn't resigned he would have been sacked- it was chairman Gordon McDougal who called the meeting at which he resigned, not Baikie.

So Baikie is headed for a deserved jail sentence, and Mixu Paatalianen is the first non-Scottish manager at Central Park (apparently the offer was too good to turn down- which is a shame for Mixu, isn't it)

Baikie? Sound more like Begbie from 'Trainspotting'...