Coach Jacquet shows no love of flair with Cantona and Ginola

SCOTTISH football writers are known as 'fans with typewriters' for reasons which become ear-splittingly apparent when the national team scores a goal.

Fellow scribes often have a problem with the Scots reporters' passion for players wearing the dark blue with the thistle emblem over their hearts.

On many an occasion the journalists have been asked by their colleagues to refrain from being so raucous in support of their side or vacate the press box.

At the opposite end of the spectrum you have the French press corps who rarely show any emotion when recording the fortunes of their football side.

On one memorable occasion in Mexico during the 1986 World Cup, a Hong Kong-based reporter became so incensed at their poker-faced posturing that he used his best franglais to tell them that they were all jerks.

He could not believe that while the masterly midfield trio of Michael Platini, Jean Tigana and Alain Giresse were weaving their magic the scribes were thumping their keys with seeming indifference.