FROM LYING unconscious in an Ibrox dressing room on Saturday lunchtime to leading his side out at the Estadio da Luz on Wednesday night, no-one could question the courage showed by Stephen McManus in the last seven days. It would, though, still be diverting to wonder just what advice a certain Billy McPhail would have given him about it all had he still been alive to see it.

Fifty years ago almost to the day, McPhail scored a headed hat-trick which lives on in the collective memory, illuminating the 7-1 League Cup final victory which still represents Celtic's record win in the Old Firm fixture, and is still immortalised when people speak of "Hampden in the sun".

Yet McPhail himself died in 2003, aged 75, an old man shrouded in the darkness of Alzheimer's disease, and not before an industrial tribunal had dismissed his claims of a paltry £70-a-week from the department of social security on the grounds he was unable to prove his "pre-senile dementia" had been brought on due to the wear and tear of repeatedly heading old-style footballs.

Another former Celtic legend, Bobby Murdoch, may have been significantly more successful in his arguments that those who suffer later in life as a result of clear-cut, one-off injuries sustained in match situations should receive compensation; but it didn't do McPhail much good, especially as it was estimated at the time that one of these balls, travelling at speed, was capable of hitting a forehead with a force equivalent to half a ton. Jeff Astle, the England 1970 squad member and erstwhile Fantasy Football comedy turn, didn't even last as long as McPhail.

When he died aged 59, a coroner's court in Burton on Trent decided his demise did indeed represent "death by industrial injury" due to the repeated minor trauma of heading a football. Astle - the trademark target man - was also found to be suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's, although it was not thought to be a major factor in his death.

His was hailed as a landmark case, but the flood of claims from former players never opened, and the FA are currently still only halfway through a 10-year study to see what, if anything, they can do about the subject. Whether such precedents figured at all in the thought processes of McManus himself, manager Gordon Strachan, the club's full-time doctor Derek McCormack, or even their insurance company is anyone's guess, but in other sports the decision would have been taken out of their hands entirely.

The British Boxing Board of Control could hardly be said to be a soft touch, but they would insist on a ban from all boxing, or even sparring, for a minimum of 28 days from the incident. In America, the lay-off would last for 60 days. There is a similar mandatory rest period built into the regulations for rugby, while in American Football the NFL has its own concussion research committee which meets each June to evaluate the latest evidence and pass their findings to the medical personnel of the 32 teams.

Okay, so these examples are taken from sports where serious impacts upon skulls are a fact of life, but given the way McManus attacks most high balls, his risk of double impact syndrome' - when one head injury exacerbates some existing bruising near the brain - was hardly negligible. His risk of further health problems were certainly no less than that which would have been faced by Scott Brown and Alan Hutton when they were deemed unfit to participate in Scotland's trip to Georgia yet fit enough to throw themselves hell for leather into back-to-back club matches in the space of four days.

Whether it is experienced players such as McManus feeling obligated to put their bodies back in the firing line, or youngsters making their way in the game putting off a hernia operation for fear of falling out of the first-team picture, one suggestion would be for an independent medical body to take such decisions away from the players or the clubs. It is the kind of idea which might have spared Allan McGraw from the legacy of cortisone injections that sees him struggling to walk, but Fraser Wishart, the chief executive of PFA Scotland, feels improvements in medical screening and club medical staff make such a move unnecessary.

Not that there aren't some alarming trends in modern football. It is now more than four years since Cameroon international Marc Vivien-Foe died of a cardiac arrest in the middle of a Confederations Cup tie, and at the start of this season Celtic Park gave a silent tribute to Seville defender Antonio Puerta, who died from a heart attack.

Even the most ardent football fan would surely agree that missing a game every now and then would be worth it if it meant no more minutes of silence to sit through.

CONSIDERING Gordon Strachan's carefully cultivated stereotype as the bane of Scottish sports journalism, even he must have appreciated the irony when he informed us at Lennoxtown this week that his son Gavin had chosen to embark upon a year-long journalism course run by the PFA south of the border.

Such appears to be Strachan Jnr's appetite for the profession he travels up to Stoke each day after training at League Two side Peterborough - where he is still a player - to study for the course until 9pm most nights under the stewardship of Lawrie Madden and Guardian sports writer - and Strachan's biographer - Jason Tomas.

"Can you imagine it?" Strachan said. "My son is going to be a journalist. I've been giving him some tips."

After a moment's thought, someone grasped a rare chance to get one back. "Yeah, but not any stories."