Weir: My son asked why I had arm round guy's neck..i couldn't give him answer

Apr 27 2008 By Gordon Waddell

Celtic V Rangers Today, Kick-Off 12.30pm Live On Setanta Sports

DAVID WEIR walks into his Cheshire home last Thursday to find son Lucas with his head in the back pages of the newspaper.

The eight-year-old looks up. A question mark is written all over his face.

"Dad?" he says. "Why have you got your hands round this guy's neck?"

As father-son moments go it wasn't Weir's proudest. A picture of rage, arms outstretched, throttling Scotland team-mate Gary Caldwell as the Celtic man tries to land a right on his jaw.

Guys hanging off both players trying to prise them apart.

Weir couldn't explain it. Couldn't justify it. Not even to himself far less his boy.

It's an image a million miles removed from the regular picture of one of the most mild-mannered men in football, a 37-year-old father of four with close on 600 games behind him.

Weir accepts he should know better. He knows what mayhem that incident could have kicked off in the stands.

Yet he still got sucked in.

Welcome to the Old Firm. Check in all reason and rational behaviour at the door.

Even now, 11 days and a one-game ban for violent conduct later, the Rangers defender is at a loss.

Speaking about it for the first time since the third derby clash of the season blew the doors to the championship back open for Celtic with a 2-1 win, Weir is still part bemused, part ashamed, part angry.

But realising totally that when it all kicks off again at lunchtime today, with the stakes even higher there can't be a repeat.

Sitting in a quiet Glasgow west end corner over a coffee, back to his sane, soft-spoken self, Weir shrugged: "I set out to pull bodies apart, honestly.

"I saw it all kicking off and went over to try to calm things down. Maybe you shouldn't get involved but you do.

"Then I felt someone pulling me round and suddenly I'm face to face.

"To this day I can't say, 'I then did this or that' because you get sucked in without realising it.

"But you see all the pictures the next morning and they don't look great for any of us, do they?

"It has happened though - but I'm not proud of it. I have kids.

"The following morning Lucas, my oldest boy, was looking at the paper and said, 'Why have you got your hands round the guy's neck dad?' He's eight.

"How do I answer that? You can't justify it. Okay, you can say 'heat of the moment' but that's not an excuse. You've still done it and it's not right. It never will be in 100 years.

"I've played in Liverpool v Everton games and seen similar circumstances but the Old Firm matches are magnified 100 times more in my experience.

"And you have a responsibility within that to behave yourself and act in the correct manner.

"What you do on the pitch affects what happens off it.

"That's the disappointing thing for me, that we haven't helped the situation. Because ultimately it's a game of football.

"Everyone wants to win but it should never come to that. There's a lot at stake for so many people and not always a rational explanation."

Yet Weir still went looking for one when he was hauled in to ref Kenny Clark's room after the dust had settled on the 2-1 defeat.

Without a single domestic yellow card to his name all season before that game, Davie's red mist moment cost him the equivalent of a straight red and saw him miss last week's Scottish Cup semi.

Taking MailSport behind the scenes Weir revealed: "I genuinely wasn't expecting it but I got called into the ref's room and was told, 'I'm reporting you to the SFA for violent conduct which is a red card offence'.

"Ally McCoist was with me which was great. He wasn't asked to go in but read the situation, came in and that kept things on an even keel.

"The ref is there with his two linesmen and if you walk in on your own you're on the back foot straight away.

"So after Kenny told me that, I asked him what I had done, what he considered to be violent conduct.

"He said, 'I'm not here to answer your questions. Get out'.

"At that point I wanted to strangle him!

I walked out but Coisty stayed to ask him again and was told the same thing. He was warned he'd get sent off as well!"

Weir return to the heart of Gers' defence today as they look for the point - or points - to put them right back into the SPL's driving seat.

It will be the 56th start of an amazing season for a guy most thought arrived at Ibrox 15 months ago as a stop-gap but who has turned into a stalwart.

And far from being ready to call it a day the former Everton, Hearts and Falkirk favourite insists he has plenty left in the tank. Weir said: "I hate missing games. Even the ones I was left out of this season were not my choice, they were Walter Smith's.

So I'll keep going as long as I can even if it's not with Rangers.

"We've not spoken about it but if at the end of the season Walter tells me he wants younger centre-halves I'll shake his hand and thank him for the experience. I will understand.

"People may be saying 'bow out at the top' - why? I love the game. How can I say I'm not going to play in League Two or something? I don't have a big enough ego to say that.

"I started at Falkirk, played in the First Division and loved it, so I'd never say I won't do it again, that it's beneath me. And if I stop? I know whatever I do after this won't be as good. Being surrounded by young people, keeping fit, having a laugh at work, living with a bit of pressure but being in control of it.

"I realise how lucky I am and don't have any plans to walk away from football without a good reason."

Since his debut as a pro with Bairns in 1992 - shackling Duncan Ferguson in a 1-1 draw with Dundee United - the graduate from the University of Evansville in Indiana has averaged more than 35 games a season.

However, Weir refuses to subscribe to the notion put forward by all his bosses that he's the perfect pro.

He sighed: "It's a bit of a myth, this thing aboutme being the consummate pro who looks after himself so well.

"I do - but no more than anyone else. Take a look at the young Scottish lads coming into training every day.

"People still trot out this thing about the foreigners who came in and influenced the kids and now they eat pasta and don't have 10 pints after every game.

"But they know now they have to buy into everything that's there for them or they won't make it.

"It's not like I'm teaching them anything.

"They already know that if they have a chance to make the breakthrough they must make the most of it and if they don't it will catch up with them.

"Looking after your body is something you can control.

"There are so many things in the game you can't.

"Not that I'm much of a gym guy - I prefer to be lean so do a lot of stretching and yoga rather than lift weights and be musclebound.

"I especially noticed it when I went to Everton. It's the wee things that maybe only make 0.5 per cent difference.

"A dietician, masseur, sports psychologist. All these things maybe give you a tiny fraction of an advantage but do them all and they could add up to one per cent.

"And at this level that can be the difference between winning and losing."

LOSING OLD FIRM WAR WAS SLAP IN THE FACE

DAVID WEIR reckons he needed to taste Old Firm defeat for the first time before he truly understood the world's biggest rivalry.

The Rangers stopper had won all four derbies since arriving at the club last January, every one a clean sheet.

But he admits the 2-1 reverse at Parkhead 11 days ago was a huge eye-opener for him.

Weir said: "You definitely feel the tension before the game - it's massive. And maybe this sounds a bit perverse but having won the first four Old Firm games I played in it's maybe not until you lose one that you realise how big and important it is.

"You need a slap to realise it.

"Now it's up to us to use that. Not that you ever need an incentive to win but we need to use the hurt we felt as a positive."