THIS week’s Icon felt morally obliged to kick a burning man in the groin. He was the 31-year-old baggage handler who intervened in a markedly Scottish manner during the 2007 Glasgow Airport terrorist attack, giving rise to a phenomenon dubbed “Smeatomania”.

For John Smeaton, inexplicably known as Smeato, Saturday 30 June 2007, should have been just another working day, if a particularly busy one, with the school holidays starting. The Erskine resident was on a cigarette break when he heard screeching and a commotion.

Initially thinking it a car crash, he saw two belligerant fellows driving a burning Jeep Cherokee 4x4 filled with highly flammable gas cylinders into the airport entrance. He heard three explosions and, after wondering “What’s the score? I have to get this sorted”, ran over to help.

With his hi-vis jacket doubling as a superhero cape, and shouting “F***ing ’mon, then!”, he arrived on the scene as the burning driver emerged, and a police officer tackled the passenger.

Smeato booted Kafeel Ahmed in the jihadis, deploying “the Barton flying kick”, not a kung fung move but “just jumping up and booting the guy as hard as you can. My mate Barton does it.”

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Later, Smeato explained: "I got a kick in. Other passengers were getting kicks in … Some other guy banjoed him.” The flames were fanning out in two directions (Ahmed suffered burns over 90% of his body and later died), prompting Smeato to describe the situation thus: “You know when you’re younger, you put a can of Lynx........

© Herald Scotland