How Bad Must It Get Before We Act?

THE 1980s was a desperate decade for Kilmarnock. The glory days of the 1960s and early 1970s were a distant memory; the club had gone part-time with only Walter McCrae as a reminder of better times. Something had to change, and I still say I could pinpoint the moment they did.

Having been relegated to the third tier in Scottish Fitba, at that time as low as you could go in the senior game, Killie were struggling to beat what was, in-truth, a glorified Junior team, in front of less than 1000 bored out of their tits die hards inside Rugby Park.

The second half torpor was broken, however, when one of the Killie players went down injured in front of the old “Heyshed”. Hugh Allen was taking a wee while to get the injured player back to his feet, when one of the punters in the enclosure in front of the main stand turned round and fired a volley of abuse at the Directors.

Emboldened by the reaction he got from those around him, he came back with a second volley, this time earning applause from the scattering of fans in the stand. Then, one of the stand punters got in on the act, standing up and launching a tirade of abuse, emphasised by finger-pointing at the Board. Thiss got most of the rest of the standites excited. Then, Walter stood up and glared at the conductor of this uprising. Now, usually, a hard glare from Walter was enough to bring the fans to heel – not this time, a fuse had been lit.

Fortunately, Hughie Allen saved the day, he got the injured player back on his feet and into the game, which re-started. However, at the end of the game, a large congregation of fans gathered in front of the main door, chanting: “Sack the Board.” Again, the default position in the face of such disloyalty, sending Walter out to chase them off, failed and we in the press box knew – change was coming.

In what seemed like no time at all, Bobby Fleeting was Chairman, Brother Jim was Manager and while it hasn't all been plain sailing, the club has never looked back.

Bobby Fleeting's first act was to demolish the old toilets behind the main stand, it was an inspired move, pulling down a stinking edifice which reflected where the club had been.

Of course, what worked for Kilmarnock, and, there have been similar popular uprisings elsewhere among Scotland's provincial “diddy teams” might not necessarily work with The Big Two. Indeed, they have had their days of unrest and uproar, got over them and simply carried-on as normal.

However, it is worth speculating on what might happen, should a disgruntled fan sitting in the posh seats at Ibrox or Celtic Park suddenly unleash a verbal volley in the direction of the respective High Heid Yins. I dare say a speedy intervension from the Board's “Henchmen” and perhaps a slight accident, falling down the stairs on the way out, might quell the revolution at source.

It's almost impossible to see it happening, although legend tells us Celtic had to go to Albion Rovers and win to avoid relegation back in 1948, but I doubt if even a season at the foot of the Premiership for either club would bring about change. Sure, if the current Rangers malaise continues, we will see another patsy come in to replace Russell Martin, however, whoever gets possession of what is looking increasingly like a poisoned chalice, we will surely see the same-old, same-old, failing management model being implemented, with the same lack of success.

Sunday's Old Firm Game really should have been shown on Porn Hub rather than Sky, it was that offensive. The fitba was lower league Junior level.

We know this is arguably the worst Rangers' squad in living memory – but Celtic could not score against them – far less beat them. What does that say about Celtic? That they could not score past a defence which has repeatedly shown itself incapable of keeping hens oot o' a close is absolute condemnation of the ability of the team which tops our top league.

I have been saying for years, Scottish fitba is a disgrace, it needs to be shut down and not allowed to re-open until the whole ethos, organisation and business model has been overhauled. It is not fit for purpose and the clubs are taking money off the gullible fans for a product which, in reality, they could not give away.

But, does the willingness to change things for the better exist within our game? Stupid question, of course it doesn't. The truth is -

WE'RE DOOMED AH TELL YE!!

 

Thoughts At The End Of A Hard Week

THE FOOTBALL HISTORY books tell us, back in the days of leather T-balls, steel toe-capped leather boots with hammered-in studs, heavy woollen shirts and pitches which had been imorted from Paschendale, football team training consisted of laps of the track and sprints; they were not allowed to see a ball from Monday to Friday, to: “make them hungry for it on a Saturday.”

This approached continued for most of the first 100 years of the game, and the few who questioned it were seen as almost religious heretics.

Today, players are – we are told – athletes. Clubs employ Strength and Conditioning Specialists, Sports Scientists, Dieticians, Sports Psychologists, Video Analysists and Physiotherapists. 'Tis a shame the players they look after cannot, if the performances of our four Scottish-based teams in Europe this week is any guide, pass the ball more than five yards with a guarantee it will reach the intended target, trap a falling bag of cement, of hit a coo on the erse wi' a banjo – the traditional tests of the competence of a Scottish player.

Of course, most of the players in our so-called top clubs today are non-Scots. OK, I accept, ever since Jamie the Saxth high-tailed it down to that there Lunnun in 1603, The High Road to England has been, according to Dr Johnson: “the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees”. The dribble of Scottish noblemen and courtiers on the make who followed their monarch south quickly became a flood, then a tsunami as these House Jocks in the Sudentenland realised life was easier darn sarf; sheep were a better-paying crop than their clansmen back home and telt their factors to get rid of the natives.

The more-ambitious clansmen left, some for England, where they proved adept, clad in red coats, at subduing assorted Spear Chuckers, Towel Heads and Fuzzy Wuzzies. Others headed for the colonies, to colonise Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, the USA. The less-ambitious stayed closer to home, to expand our cities such as Glasgow. You might argue that with the stronger blood lines leaving Scotland, the quality of the gene pool we had left at home declined and, in our football as in so-many other aspects of Scottish life, we have brought-in foreigners, to improve our native blood lines.

I don't agree, I simply feel, the High Heid Yins of our clubs are taking their cues from the English. Now, your average Englishman doesn't like foreigners: “comin; over 'ere and takin; our jobs” - which includes being footballers. They never really minded the Jocks, Paddies and Taffs who were the backbone of their club teams for years – they could after all seak English, often better than the English themselves; their approach to black players – English-born or foreign - has been characterised as: “Yer, ok, E's black, but, 'E's OUR black” and they do have a soft spot for the exotic.

Our list of proscribed peoples is a bit more mixed – Catholics in one Lanarkshire town, Protestants in the one next door; Catholics again in certain villages in Ayrshire and other parts of Lanarkshire, The Working Class in parts of Edinburgh. The carry-over from the old Clan Wars can still be felt in other parts of the country, while, in the Borders, where men play with odd-shaped balls they cannot even live in peace in some single villages.

Aye, Principal Seymour Skinner was correct, we are a fractuous people. And perhaps it is our ability to “cause a fight in an empty hoose” which has brought about the influx of foreign talent – easier for our managerial class to deal with.

However, as I watched Aberdeen huff and puss in Bucharest on Thursday night, just as I had watched Celtic stumble in far-off Kazakhstan and Rangers' pratt-fall in Brugge, I thought: “has the nation which invented the passing game, the country of Gallacher, James and Morton, of Shankly and Walker, of the Famous Five, The Iron Curtain Defence, The Lisbon Lions, Denis Law, Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish; have we fallen so-far we cannot put Scottish-born and trained talent on the pitch to perform better than these over-paid, over-hyped, under-performing, badge-kissing mercenaries?”

Baxter could land a 50-yard cross-field pass on a sixpence, Law was like a cobra the way he took a chance in the penalty area, Dalglish could create from midfield and get into the box to finish with aplomb. We produced world-class defenders, midfield providers and crowd-pleasing wingers. I don't think the reservoir of talent has dried-up, but, I do think the modern cadre of club directors have simply decided, it's easier to buy-in ready-made foreigners than to grow out own.

My family background is in transport. My paternal grandfather was the ostler, in-charge of the Clydesdales at the local ironworks – my great-grandfather had been a cairter. My father was a pug driver, who ended up as the Area Transport Manager, I was brought up with trucks.

These were AEC, Albion, Atkinson, Bedford, BMC, Commer, Dodge, ERF, Foden, Ford, Guy, Leyland, Morris, Scammel, Seddon, Thornycroft – all British-built. Today, the trucks on our roads are Daf, Iveco, MAN, Mercedes, Renault, Scania and Volvo – all built abroad.

It's the same with our football teams. Now, I could tell you the tale of the Atkinson Borderer driver who ignored his boss's instructions as their convoy loaded up with steel at Ravenscraig: “let the new Scania go, if he pulls away from you, don't try to keep up” - only to blow-up the Atki's engine around Junction 36 of the M6. That's fair enough – the Scanias and Volvos whose introduction hastened the demise of the British truck indusry were light years ahead of the trucks they displaced, but, I have seen no evidence of any of the current foreign-imports into our domestic game being able to similarly-embarrass the few home-grown players who still get a game in our top division.

• We need a total, ground-up restructuring of our game

• We need to pro-actively promote home-grown talent

• Bring-in the “eight diddies” rule for domestic games

• Insist on a CAB – Collective Bargaining Agreement for the league

• We need to trust in Scottish talent.

They may be too craven to openly admit it, but, the Scottish Rugby Union, who do admittedly own our only two full-time professional clubs: Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh Rugby have issued a directive, that they promote home-grown talent. This move has seen several popular and talented non-Scots not having their contracts renewed. OK, Murrayfield owns the clubs and can make this call, the high heid yins at Hampden cannot order the Old Firm to jettison the foreign diddies, but, it would be nice if they, and the diddy provincial clubs, followed the SRU's lead and created openings for home-grown talent.

But, it won't happen any time soon, because turkeys don't vote for Christmas, change might see them lose their spot on the gravy train and be denied access to the feeding trough, and in any case, it's easier to potter along in the slow lane than to get into the fast one.

 

Britney Undersold It As Scottish Fitba Gets Hit four More Times

THE GREAT GRAHAM SPIERS once accused me of being “hermeneutically challenging” in my writing. For the benefit of those among us who, unlike “Britney” didn't abandon a Divinity degree at the University of Glasgow in favour of a lengthy, lucrative and distinguished career on “The street of shame” - to be hermeneutically challenging is to not believe the Gospels – in my case, the Gospels according to the Scottish Football Writers Association.

I began as a zealot, but, over the decades I have back-slid, via agnosticism to athiesm; today I am, as I outlined in my last posting, a follower of the Prophet Renton, with a nod to the sub-prophet Groundskeeper Willie.

It really is shite being Scottish. It's particularly shite being involved in Scottish Fitba and we don't help ourselves by being a fractous nation who have ensured that damned Scots have ruined Scotland.

AMONG THE somewhat lengthy list of books I would like to have written is one on the Captains of Scotland – the 156 men from Bob Gardner in 1872 to Scott McTominay in 2023, who have led out the Scotland international team. I actually started that one, but, could not interest a publisher in it, so, it lies there, unfinished, cluttering up my archive.

Now, in the early days of international fitba, the Scottish Captaincy was something of an after-thought, for every Charles Campbell or Walter Arnott, who brought some gravitas to the job, there would be three or four guys, occasionally winning their first cap, who got the job on a sort of MacBuggins' Turn basis.

But, in time the likes of Jimmy McMullan and more-specifically George Young had almost the power of an England Cricket Captain in how they did the job. I recall a lengthy chat with Eric Caldow – himself one of the great Scotland captains (15 times) – who told me Young was not so much Scotland Captain as Scotland Player-Manager, mind you, that status didn't stop the pygmy-minded stumblebums of the then SFA International Committee humiliating him in Spain in 1957, at the end of his career.

Young was not only a great international captain. He was a great Captain of Rangers, in which role he succeeded an other icon, Jock 'Tiger' Shaw. With Team Manager Bill Struth growing old and suffering poor health Young had pretty-much to hold the fort at the club, then deal with the change-over when Struth retired and the younger Scot Symon – a former team mate took over.

I often wonder what might have happened to the international side, had Young, rather than Ian McColl, got the call from Park Gardens in 1960, to become Scotland Manager. However, given several of the 'blazers' who had arranged Young's removal in 1957 were still on the International Committee, that one was never going to fly.

Young arrived at Rangers as a centre half during World War II and, with Willie Woodburn on active service, he was quickly blooded in the first team, making his debut as a 19-year-old against Hamilton Academical, in November, 1941. However, when Woodburn was available, Young was switched to right-back, where he succeeded the long-serving Dougie Gray. While he filled-in at centre-half for both Rangers and Scotland if Woodburn was unavailable, it wasn't until
“Big Ben” was harshly suspended sine die in 1954, that he moved permanently to centre-half, to play out his career there.

I think of Young when I look at the situation of the current Rangers Club Captain, James Tavernier. Now, although he has been with Rangers for over a decade and has been Club Captain since 2018, I honestly have never considered him “Rangers' Class”. That, however, should not disqualify him from wearing the armband, Bobby Shearer is revered as a former Rangers Captain, yet I always felt he was, at best, the third-best full-back at the club; he was never as good a player as contemporaries Caldow (whom he had displaced as Club Captain) or John Little.

Shearer, who like Tavernier played right-back, for all his limitations, knew how to defend, a skill which appears totally alien to Tavernier. Tavernier is now 33, the age at which Young moved permanently to centre-half. This season, with the new manager apparently not trusting him on the flanks, he has increasingly come on in central defence, where his defensive limitations have been cruelly exposed.

He has played some 650 first team games, for 11 clubs (8 of these being while on-loan); he may score a lot of goals for a full-back, a wing-back even, but, in those positions, the first job is to defend, a skill in which Tavernier has repeatedly demonstrated failings. To me, he is a liability and the fact he has played over 500 games for the club, to my mind demonstrates how far standards have fallen at Ibrox in the past decade and more. Mind you, BBC Shortbread's Tom English has come out, post-match with a puff piece about Tavernier's leadership and about the team's terrible defending. If James Tavernier is the antidote to terrible defending – Rangers are in more bother than we think they are.

MIND YOU, so much media content these days is generated in London' thankfully for Rangers, no sooner had the final whistle sounded in Brugge than they were thrown a diversionary lifeline – when Manchester United fell to lowly Grimsby Town in some minor English cup competition.

'The Mariners' sit 56 places below United in the English League standings, but half the world away in media exposure or interest. Not it has to be admitted quite the gulf between Celtic and their midweek conquerors, but, far enough for those of us whose allegiances are with some “Diddy Team” to have a laugh at the suffering of the Entitled.

By the way, I did enjoy the Paddy Power video clip which had a right go at Grimsby, for needing penalties to beat Manchester United – suggesting a half-way competent team ought to have had the game won in 90 minutes.

No word on Aberdeen and Hibernian, I hear you say. Well, 'tis one thing to mock the Entitled, such as Celtic, Rangers and Manchester United – one does not mock the afflicted and disadvantaged.

And, in the Great Studio in the Sky, The Saint and Greavsie turn to each other and agree – they called it correctly all those years ago. This week has clearly demonstrated: Football Is a Funny Old Game.

 

Renton Was Right

 

THERE IS A TRUISM in Rugby Union: “Forwards win matches – backs decide by how much”. Basically, this means: if your forward pack manages to dominate possession, you're going to win – how good your back division is decides how wide is the margin of victory.

Because it is a much-more fluid, free-flowing game, you cannot make the same statement about Football. The round ball game is less-dependant on formalised set pieces – football doesn't have scrums, lines out or rucks, the places where the forwards earn their corn. Just the same, you have to be competent at the few set-pieces which do pop-up in the game: defending corners and free-kicks. For Rangers, the reality is, this season, the cry has been “No Defenders” as time and again they fail to do the basics of keeping their goal intact.

Thus it was again in Brugge last night. The greatest exhibition of goalkeeping in Scottish history is supposedly the night Ayr Bruins ice hockey netminder John “Bernie” McCrone saved 97 of 98 shots fired at him by a visiting Canadian team. In Scottish Football, the definitive goalkeeping display is supposedly Jimmy Cowan's first half performance at Wembley in 1949. His heroics in the face of constant English pressure broke English hearts and when the Scots finally got going – they won 3-1.

Jack Butland last night reached almost Cowanesque levels of goalkeeping excellence, but, whereas Cowan had three top-quality Rangers defenders: George Young, Willie Woodburn and Sammy Cox helping him out back in '49, last night Butland was behind a defence which was barely of Schools Football standard.

Embarrassment doesn't quite sum-up how bad this current Rangers team is. I honestly feel for Russell Martin; the buck will stop with him, it always does, because, it's easier to get one new manager in than to recruit the whole new team they will need to import to replace the new team you already brought-in to replace last season's failures.

Of course, they might still turn round on Sunday and beat Celtic. I know, I know, you wouldn't bet on that outcome, but, given how shite both clubs have been this week, you can never say never. If that happens, all may not be sweetness and light, but, the pressure on Martin would definitely lessen.

As things stand, however, Martin seems odds-on to displace Paul Le Guen as the shortest-serving Rangers Manager; the next patsy will be brought in, and since they seem wedded to proving the old definition of Madness being repeating the same old failings, the roundabout will fire-up again.

This entry is written and posted beforte the Aberdeen and Hibernian second leg European games kick-off tonight. You never know, one, or both, might confound pre-match expectations and win from weak positions, but, there is no way I would bet on either side pulling-off the morale-bolstering win Scottish Fitba desperately needs.

I know the graphics boys at both The Hun and The Daily Rhebel keep their cracked Old Firm crests close at hand, just for weeks like this. As far as I know, they don't have a cracked SFA badge ready to slot in – perhaps they ought to have.

Or there again, given how out of touch they are along that Sixth Floor “Corridor of Inertia” at Hampden where the really big decisions, such as: “what else can we do to keep the Old Firm from destroying everything?” are made and the really big choices such as: ”what should and can we do to make Scottish Football better” are avoided, perhaps we have still not reached rock bottom.

Certainly, our clubs are still not condemned to entering the European competition qualifying games in the first round – along with the teams from the traditionally “diddy” leagues of the continent – leagues whose teams, increasingly, manage to knock our own diddy teams out early doors.

I fear we may have to swallow further embarrassing weeks like this, in the years ahead, before it dawns on the great and good of our game that, just maybe we need to rip-up the whole shebang and start again.

I have been saying for years, we need a whole new approach, from top to bottom, but, I see neither the desire in the game, or the intelligence to make the required changes happen.

This week has merely confirmed – Irvine Welsh was bang on the money when he got Mark Renton to say: “It's shite being Scottish”.

The Suits Have forgotten their Club's History

WHEN I WAS “on the tools” - writing about sport for local papers, one lesson I quickly learned was, if you dug down and got a good local story, it sold papers. Suppose you made a big thing about wee Sammy, scoring six goals in one game for his Boys Club team in a local league game, well his Mammy, his Auntie Senga and Auntie Agnes, plus both his grannies, who maybe didn't buy the paper every week, or who complained: “there's never oany local news in it noo”, well they would buy that edition. Good LOCAL news stories sold papers, and I still believe that to be true – only, I will admit, today's local journalists have to work a damned sight harder than we ever did, courtesy of the prevailing atmosphere around our craft.

Schools fitba now has a much-harder furrow to plough than in my day. It's been 40 years or more since the treachers, almost en masse, discovered they did not have to be bothered with extra-curriculum stuff like running a fitba team and could have a life. The damage that industrial action has done to games in Scotland are only now really starting to show. For all the proliferation of Boys Club teams we now have, without in any way being critical of the enthusiasts who run such clubs, they don't encourage the kids nearly as well as our old teachers did.

I may be guilty of over-generalisation here, but, in my experience, writing about Schools Football, one of the side effects of the Teachers Dispute was, particularly in Roman Catholic Schools, The Janitor took over the fitba team. All over Scotland there were Jannies running the skyl fitba team – with but one over-riding ambition: to produce, as one such enthusiast told me: “jist wan boay, guid enough tae pu' oan the Hoops jersey – if Ah can dae that, Ah'll dee happy.”

As they survey the wreckage of another broken Champions League dream this morning, I very-much doubt that the power brokers at Celtic have much time for these enthusiasts; their areas of work experience – the Law, Accountancy, Politics, Business – they are a long way from the traditional picture of where The Celtic Family is believed to come from – but, from the outside, looking-in, I think the “Suits” in the posh seats at Celtic Park have forgotten what their club is supposed to be all about.

The current “Politbureau” at the club comprises: Chief Executive Officer Mciahel Nicholson, Chief Financial Officer Christopher McKay, Chairman Peter Lawwell, Non-Executive Director Thomas Allison, Non-Executive Director Sharon Brown, Non-Executive Director Dermot F Desmond, Non-Executive Director Brian Wilson, Non-Executive Director Brian Rose and Company Secretary Joanne McNairn.

The only one of these I have ever come across is Wilson, sitting beside him in the press seats at a few games' I thought then: “You're a bawbag” - that was 40 years ago and nothing in the intervening four decades has persuaded me to alter that opinion. The truth about the “Politbureau” is, if Desmond says: “Shite!” the other eight all strain – hard.

The majority of “The Celtic Family” may not be well-disposed towards “The Four Families” who ran the club for many years. The late Sir Robert Kelly's legacy may be somewhat tainted by time, but, what cannot be denied is, the structures he put in place – the way the club back in his day believed in youth and development of home-grown talent ultimately brought the club it's greatest prize. Yes, he needed to give Jock Stein his head for it all to come together. I dare say, the ancestors of the Green Brigade, back in the dark days of the 1940s and 1950s cursed Kelly and Co with as much, if not more vigour than their descendants do today, but, on 25 May, 1967 they got the pay-off for all the hard work.

The triumph of The Lisbon Lions came 20 years after Kelly was appointed Chairman. Of course, there was no European Cup when he was appointed, but, I dare say, in 1947, when the club finished seventh in the League, had the grandfather of John Watson's fictional all-purpose Celtic Fan: Sean South from Croy said: “in 20 years we will be Kings of Europe”, he'd have been telt: “Shut Up, ye're haverin'”.

OK, we accept, Kelly had his faults as a picker of teams and as a meddler in team affairs, but, in the time between his appointment as Chairman and 25 May, 1967 Celtic produced the following players: (Full Scotland Caps): Willie Miller, Bobby Evans, John McPhail, Bobby Collins, Mike Haughney, Neil Mochan, Willie Fernie, Dunky Mackay, Eric Smith, Bertie Auld, Frank Haffey, Billy McNeill, Paddy Crerand, Jim Kennedy, Jimmy Johnstone, Stevie Chalmers, John Hughes, Bobby Murdoch, John Clark, Joe McBride, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Lennox, Ronnie Simpson. (Northern Ireland – Republic of Ireland full caps): Charlie Tully, Bertie Peacock, Sean Fallon, Paddy Turner, Charlie Gallacher. Of these players, only Simpson, McBride and the Irish players cost the club a transfer fee. I left Lisbon Lion Willie Wallace off the list, since he won his first caps with Hearts, before joining Celtic.

The Kelly Kids – the youngsters who came to the club from Junior and Boys Club teams also, from the start of Under-23 internationals in 1955 until 1967 produced: Dick Beattie, John Colrain, Bobby Jeffrey, Jim Walsh, Ian Young.

During Kelly's reign, Inter-League matches were popular, and, from season 1947-48 to 1966-67 the following Celtic players represented the Scottish League: Pat McAulay, Tommy Bogan, Jimmy Mallan, Alec Rollo, Joe Baillie, Alex Boden, Jock Stein, John Higgins, John Divers.

Peter Lawwell has been the executive face of Celtic since 2003. Now I am not attempting to say he carries the same power Robert Kelly did, but, if Kelly could claim the credit for the good things that happened during his tenure as Chairman, and take the abuse for the bad, then we can do the same to Peter.

Kelly produced 26 home-grown full internationalists, plus a further 14 near-misses. On Peter Lawwell's watch, since September, 2003, the following Celtic players have been capped by Scotland: Scott Bain, Craig Beattie, Mark Burchill, Ryan Christie, James Forrest, Jack Hendry, John Kennedy, Shaun Maloney, David Marshall, Calum McGregor, Stephen McManus, Charlie Mulgrew, Anthony Ralston, Kieran Tierney, Stephen Welsh, Mark Wilson. Of these, Bain, Christie, Mulgrew and Wilson were bought-in – proving how the Celtic player development programme has been allowed to deteriorate.

On Lawwell's watch, 29 Celtic players: M Anderson, Paul Caddis, Joe Chalmers, Ryan Conroy, Scott Cuthbert, Ross Doohan, Ben Gannon-Doak, S Findlay, Marcus Fraser, Ewan Henderson, John Herron, G Irvine, Mikey Johnson, Paul Lawson, Jamie McCart, Dylan McGeouch, Michael McGlinchey, K McInroy, P McMullan, B McPherson, M Millar, A Montgomery, Lewis Morgan, Aidan Nesbitt, Rocco Quinn, Ben Summers, Joe Thomson, Ross Wallace, Tony Watt have been selected for the Scotland Under-21 team. Of these: Caddis, Gannon-Doak, Morgan, Wallace and Watt all won full Scotland caps after leaving the club, while Mikey Johnston switched allegiance and was capped by the Republic of Ireland and Michale McGlinchey switched nations to play for New Zealand.

The 29 Under-21 caps listed above, however, have, between them played a mere 221 starts plus 14 substitute appearances in the first team. Eleven of these players never got a first-team game, with two others getting one appearance each off the bench.

Only 5 of the 29 got into double figures in first-team games: Mikey Johnston made 93 appearances, Tony Watt 34, Lewis Morgan 31, Dylan McGeouch 27 and Ewan Henderson 12.

I know the arguments about how big-money English clubs can cherry-pick the best young Scottish talent, such as Gannon-Doak and whisk them away at an early age, but, you have to question the way the club treats their youngsters. I refuse to believe that Celtic, or their pals across the city for that matter, could not put two or three teenagers into every match-day squad and still win domestic games with goals to spare.

I am certain the Celtic Family would rather watch a clutch of kids wearing the hoops with pride and bursting a gut for the cause, than some of the badge-kissing mercenaries going through the motions.

Playing and winning The Celtic Way is almost a rite among their fan base, that Celtic Way always included giving kids a chance – I get the feeling, too-many of the decision-makers around the club are guilty of the most grievous sin in the eyes of their support – they've forgotten the club's history.

 

What Would Oscar Wilde Have Said?

ONE OF THE basic tenets of Journalism 101 is that you have a working knowledge of the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde. Old Oscar left us with a shed load of quotes, some of which can even be shoe-horned into a sports column.

Watching the Breengers huffing and puffing to salvage a point at St Mirren on Sunday afternoon, I was mindful of Oscar's great put down of Charles Dickens. In reading his novel 'The Old Curiousity Shop' Oscar was forced to say: “one must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing”.

Well over a century later, the same view applies to watching this current Breengers team in action.

The Union Bears and the rest of Ra Peepul are, most certainly, suffering at the moment – but, the rest of us, we haven't had this much fun in years, and I see that mindful of how much Schadenfreude we Scots have enjoyed as the slings and arrows of misfortune have taken up seemingly permanent residence around Ibrox over the past 13 years.

Being shite against a reasonably-good side like Club Brugge – that you can maybe be able to excuse, but, being second fiddle to St Mirren, that's all but impossible to excuse – they were, not for the first time this season, absolutely honkingly bad.

It's a good job for the Buddies, that I am lang syne retired from covering them for The Paisley Daily Express – I could have done a good hatchet job on the St Mirren side – for being unable to beat quite the worst Rangers side I have ever seen.

But the real kicker came post-match, when it was announced that Hamza Ingamane had refused to take the field as a substitute. I don't think he'd have tried that in the days of Bill Struth, Scot Symon, Davie White, Willie Waddell, Jock Wallace, John Greig, Graeme Souness, Walter Smith or Ally McCoist – men who knew what it meant to pull on that jersey. I shudder to think what would have happened had he tried to pull that stunt with some of the above named; I fancy he's be enjoying the care of the staff in the RAH – Royal Alexandra Hospital's excellent Intrnsive Care Unit.

On the other hand, maybe the Moroccan was thinking: “I cannot play badly enough as to fit into this side – I'm better than this.”

Of course, footballers, once little better than serfs under the “retain and transfer” system of the sepia-toned days of yore, now have most of the cards stacked in their favour when it comes to contracts. Ingamane reportedly cost the club around £2 million when they signed him, so, that's at least how much they will be looking for to get him off the books.

I would be inclined to say he's in breach of contract, suspend him without pay and tell his Agent: “Get him out of here, but we want £2 million for him”. I don't think throwing out such an ultimatum would see him out of the game for long. But, clearly, he has burned his boats in Glasgow and has to be got rid of.

I've been saying for years, Celtic and Rangers both need to get more Scots into their squads - “fans on the park” - that's long been their USP. To my mind, the only players who showed Rangers-level of commitment in Paisley were the Scots; get shot of the foreign badge-kissers and get more home-grown players onto the park.

But, to be fair, Rangers' travails are small beer, compared to the problems which are besetting Manchester United, who travelled to Craven Cottage to get a draw with Fulham on Sunday. No matter how bad you think things are, there is usually somebody in deeper doo-dah.

To bolster Rangers, I suppose 7^th of 12 clubs in Scotland is better than 16^th of 20 clubs in England, which is where United currently sit. Both clubs accruing points at a rate of one per game. Also, Rangers have spent less money in recruiting pish players.

I didn't watch Fulham v Manchester United, opting instead for New Zealand v Spain in the Women's Rugby World Cup. I'm a big fan of the New Zealand girls – “The Black Ferns” and in particular, the true G.O.A.T. Of Women's rugby, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, who showed her class by scoring with her first touch after coming off the bench. (I mean leaving the G.O.A.T. On the bench, that never happens with Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Finn Russell or Antoine Dupont). The Ferns even opted to end the game by playing with 13 players for the final quarter, after a couple of bad injuries. They still won 54-8, which was no reflection on a dogged and talented Spanish side.

 

Scottish Fitba In Europe: Bad - Worse - Worser

KUDOS TO the players of Aberdeen and Hibernian on Thursday. It was akin to a limbo dancing competition, after The Bigot Brothers showed how low they could take the bar in their European matches on Tuesday and Wednesday; but, somehow the Dons and the Cabbage and Ribs did their bit for diddy-team fitba by going even lower.

I obviously didn't see any of the Hibs game, but, on TV, Aberdeen were in full Tom Cruise mode: Mission Impossible – let's be worse than Rangers were.

What do the players do all week? The lack of basic skills, the inability to make a half-decent pass to an unmarked team mate – even assuming the passer had identified the recipient as being unmarked, I've seen better team-work in a Primary Three inter-class game in a school playground.

For much of the game, the Romanians appeared to have drawn a 25 metre radius semi-circle around their goal, and massed on the periphery. There was acres of room down both flanks, but, not once did the Dons send a wide man to the bye-line to cross or cut the ball back. The few crosses they did fire in, from about 30 yeard out, were meat and drink to the visiting defenders. Quantity, yes, Quality, forget it.

The passing and ball movement was laboured; the Aberdeen display was a classic example of how bad Scottish Fitba has become. If you're going to be as poor, you might as well whistle-up 11 guys from the Pittodrie Bar, they'd be just as ineffective as these agents-supplied foreign mercenaries are proving to be.

Who's running Scottish Fitba – Private Frazer? Because he appears to be wriging this season's script: We are all doomed!!!

MY BROTHER'S late class-mate Billy “Bongo” Smith MBE is a legend in Ayrshire fitba, for his on-field exploits with Cumnock and Lugar Boswell Thistle, for his grass-roots work at Cumnock Academy, where he was Head Janitor for many years, and with Ayr United. The Burleys, George and Craig, Billy Dodds, Derek Stillie, Brian Gilmour, plus scores of top-class Juniors, many are the players Bongo nurtured and encouraged over the years.

Bongo played in a promotion-winning Sheffield United team and in the old English First Division – what is now the Premiership. I remember him saying, after returning from a reunion of the promotion-winning team at Bramall Lane, how one of the veteran club coaches had asked him: “Bongo, what are you teaching these young boys up in Scotladnd now. You Jocks used to come down here demanding the ball, seeking to dominate games, the kids we are being sent down today barely want the ball – what's gone wrong?”

Another great past player for whom I have a lot of time is St Mirren and Dundee United legend Jackie Copland. I enjoyed a good few educational chats with Jackie in his time as General Manager at Love Street.

One day, we were discussing a less than stellar display from a then highly-rated St Mirren striker in the weekend's game. Jackie was particularly ill-disposed towards the player who, truth to tell, was more revered on the old North Bank, for his prowess as a “Shagger” around town than from his goals.

Jackie was particularly blunt in his assessment: “Watch him when we're defending; he's tight onto the man marking him, holding one arm up as if he's wanting the ball – it's all show, if he really wanted the ball, he'd be in space, not tight to a defender.”

The truth of that statement came back to me watching Aberdeen, they had a lot of players, some in acres of space, quite clearly not wanting the ball. Too often, Aberdeen players in good position were ignored, the simple forward pass was overlooked in favour of a square or backwards ball.

Two questions:

1. What are our coaches being told on coaching courses – does nobody preach attacking football these days?

2. What happened to make the ball do the work?

Scottish fitba, both domestically and in Europe is going backwards – third question:

Does anyone inside Hampden care?