We're Awe Doomed - Again

RUDYARD Kipling was English, which was just as well for him; had he been Scottish and living in the all-encompassing shadow of Robert Burns, nobody but a Kipling fan would ever have heard of his poem If, with those iconic lines, engraved above the players' entrance to the Centre Court at Wimbledon: "If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters both the same...."

That's a very English attitude, as is: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and on the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender."

One thing you've got to say for our Saxon nieghbours - they talk a good pre-fight game. Of course, they know, when the bullets start flying, they've got those mad Jocks behind them, ready to get tore in where the battle is fiercest.

The same Jocks, in whose faces the wind is usually blowing, whose national motto was written by an Englishman and voiced by John Laurie in Dad's Army: "We're awe doomed, doomed ah tell ye".

That certainly is the view most-commonly being voiced by Scottish football fans in the wake of this week's European cuffings for Celtic and Hibs.

Second-commonest view, at least from what I've seen on internet forums and heard on phone-ins is: "Ha, ha ha! What do you expect from teams in green and white": or "What a load of rubbish", these latter views held by supporters of other Scottish clubs.

There is nothing the average Scottish fan likes more than seeing "the enemy" humbled. 'Twas ever thus. Remember, as Sir William Wallace was handed over to the English, Robert Bruce was thinking: "Ya Dancer, that leaves it open for me to take the crown". Schadenfraude might be a German word, but revelling in the misfortune of others is a very Scottish attitude. Never more than when England is imploding in the Wordl Cup finals.

But, when it comes to putting things right - different ball game; that wind in our faces just gets stronger.

For a country which wants nothing to do with the Conservative Party, the Scots are, in life, very conservative. We like things done the way they've aye been done; we are opposed to change as a point of principle almost.

And that's the main obstacle to properly sorting-out the ills of Scottish football. That and the natural self-interest of the SFA blazers.

Most of the fans - the guys who turn up every week, in all weathers, to watch what, let's face it, is mostly cauld kale, have known for years the game in Scotland was going down the stank. We know things have to change, in fact, I'd warrant the "blazers" know things have to change - but, like turkeys asked to vote for Christmas, they're not going to change things.

And as a result, we should get used to weeks like this, results like Braga and Mirabor becoming hardy annuals, until, when we're down there in the international basement, alongside Andorra, San Marino and Malta -something might finally be done.

But, don't hold your breath. I truly despair.

Get Yer Strides On - You're Nicked

WE can only wonder if someone at Hampden said: "book him George", inviting President Peat to make the call, once the SFA board decided Stewart Regan was the man to follow Smudger into the Chief Executive's role within the National Stadium's corridors of power.

I cannot see Peat having the wit to use The Sweeney's other iconic line - for younger readers, the heading - when inviting the new man to quit Leeds for Glasgow. But, how badly I wish they had appointed Jack and not Stewart Regan to lead Scottish football's administrative.

Regan (John Thaw) and his henchman George Carter (Dennis Waterman) didn't mess about when it came to sorting out the bad guys, they simply went in there, fists and feet flying and did the business.

Given the Hampden hierarchy sometimes gives the impression of being composed of small-time hoodlums, who think they are Mafioso, maybe our Mr Regan should adopt his small screen namesake's approach.

However, Stewart Regan ought to know what he's getting into. He's coming from Yorkshire County Cricket Club, a body which, with its in-fighting between the Bradford, Barnsley and Sheffield Leagues, the carping and moaning from the side lines of former Gods of its game and by the constant presence around the big matches of still walking ghosts of the past, very closely resembles Scottish football.

Some Northern Englanders say a Yorkshireman is simply a Scot with a less-sunny disposition. Clearly both races have much in common. You know, Stewart Regan just might have a chance, but he'll need all the luck in the world to succeed.

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IT'S not luck Celtic will need if they are to get past SC Braga into the Champions League proper - it's more like a miracle.

I wouldn't have backed the Lisbon Lions to overturn a three-goal deficit in a second leag in Europe, which is not to say they couldn't have done it. But this current lot - no chance.

I watched last night's game via computer: Celtic were dire. I fear another early exit from Europe.

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THE above said, our teams are fighting on an uneven pitch when it comes to European games. It has been obvious for a good number of years now that asking our clubs to curtail their close season, then immediately begin with games in the harsher environment of European football is asking too much.

We need to change the pattern of our season, as well as the pattern of our play. Pace and power are nothing in Europe without technique and we simply haven't had the technique for years.

In the first 30 years of European football, when we regularly got teams into the last eight or better in the European tournaments, our lack of technique was more than compensated for by our power and pace. But, gradually, the Europeans learned how to counter the British bonuses - without diluting their technical superiority. We still paid insufficient attention to getting players who were comfortable on the ball; we've continued to be deficient in this and we are falling further and further behind.

When are we going to waken up.

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TO leave football for a spell. I've long considered Mark Lewis Francis a failure. At 18 and 19 he looked like a future star, but between bad luck with injuries, bad decisions, believing the hype and not working hard enough, he has failed to become the world-beater he might have been.

But, throughout it all, British Athletics stuck by him for years, before, losing patience and cutting his lottery funding.

This woke him up. Lindford Christie (not my favourite athlete ever and of course a convicted drugs cheat) then had a word and MLF got his reward this week with a European silver medal.

Of course, he's still a long way behind true World Class - Boit, Gay and Powell, and a wee bit behind the new French kid on the block - but he has a chance of redemption.

We've had the odd young Scottish player who looked, at 18, like a potential world beater - but, nothing ever became of them. Football dropped them too quickly, they didn't work hard enough to get back and we don't seem to have the icons still in the game capable of kicking some sense into these failures and bringing them back.

There is also apparently, no mechanism within a team game for sorting out errant individuals. Apparently the individual sports: athletics, tennis, golf, boxing etc in this country have better support networks for the participants than football.

Given the money which is in the game here, there is something wrong there. And until we put it right, we will struggle.

Going To Seed

I HAVE previously used the expressing 'Aye Beenism' (it's aye been done that way) in these blogs. I make no apologies for using it again here.

Because one of the least-helpful examples of Aye Beenism is Scottish football's refusal to fully embrace seeding in its cup competitions. I appreciate the CIS Insurance (League) Cup is partially-seeded, in as much as the SPL clubs are kept apart in the early rounds, while those clubs in European action also have their situations kindly viewed when it comes to when they enter the fray, but this is not full and proper seeding.

I appreciate too the age-old convention whereby the top teams do not enter the Scottish Cup until the third round, but, here again, seeding is not, in my view, taken far enough.

At one time it didn't really matter if Kilmarnock or Dundee went out to a Highland League team, or if Rangers fell at the first hurdle, at Berwick - today such calamities might hurt Scottish football.

Because these days, Scottish football has to try as hard as it can to ensure we get our best clubs into Europe. We've managed it this year, with the clubs which finished first to fifth in the SPL - the five top clubs in Scotland - getting the five Euro spots, albeit as much by good luck as good judgement.

But in recent years this has not happened, with dire consequences for Scotland's UEFA co-efficient, our standing in Europe.

In tennis or match-play golf, you will never see the top players going head-to-head in the early rounds. Going into any tournament in which all four were playing Nadal, Federer, Murray and Djokovic will be seeded to be the four semi-finalists. It very rarely happens that they are, but if they're not, it will be because someone else had a good day and beat one of them - not that two went head-to-head before the last four.

The seedings means the cream will rise to the top, unless someone puts a spanner in the works, which is still good for the sport.

In Scottish football, the third round draw for the Scottish Cup could throw the top eight SPL clubs together in four head-to-heads. The four survivors could then be paired in the fourth round; the two survivors in the quarter-finals and you end up with a semi-final quartet comprising one SPL team and three SFL teams.

The SPL team then does an Aberdeen or a Celtic and loses in the last four: et voila, you've got two finalists who couldn't attract midges to a picnic and a Scottish Cup winning team which is going to lose to a Leichtenstein team in the first qualifying round for the Europa League, whereby Scotland drops another two places in the UEFA co-efficients.

This insistence that: "It's aye been done this way", that the luck of the draw has always thrown big clubs together in the early rounds is all well and good. But this goes directly against THE big thing about cup draws - the element of surprise, the way it occasionally throws up shock results such as Rangers losing at Berwick or Super Cally going ballistic at Celtic Park.

Seeding will not prevent such welcome surprises, but it will go a long way to lessening the damage done to Scottish football by teams such as Gretna qualifying for Europe.

Seeding might even help make our lesser competitions more sponsor-friendly. The Alba Challenge Cup draw was made yesterday and two of the top eight SFL clubs will not be in the quarter-finals, since Ross County were paired with Morton and Dunfermline Athletic with Queen of the South.

Call the Challenge Cup a diddy competition if you must, but the integrity of the event still calls for the better clubs to be there at the business end and losing two of these to too-early head-to-heads doesn't help this.

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WHILE I'm being radical, what about the CIS Insurance (League) Cup?

This event is run by the SFL, who graciously allow the SPL clubs to compete. Since this is probably the competition in which they've got their best chance to beat the Old Firm, the other ten in the Top Twelve, plus the Big Two, are only too-happy to be involved.

But, this competition doesn't have the cachet of European qualification for the winners and with its demand for extra midweek games at a time when some clubs are still involved in Europe, frankly it's an intrusion.

The League Cup in England is viewed in a similar light, but down there, the bigger clubs tend to treat it as an opportunity to blood their best young players away from the pressure of Premiership points-gathering, so it has become an interesting side-show. The fans of the Big Four or Five clubs get a chance to see what young talent their club has coming through.

Would that the same opportunity was offered to Scottish fans. There is a lot of good young talent in the Old Firm's reserve ranks, as there also is elsewhere in the SPL, but because they HAVE to win every game - even a midweek diddy Cup tie against a lesser club, Messrs Smith and Lennon dare not be too radical in their team line-up.

Alex Ferguson could send a reserve squad to Scunthorpe for a midweek League Cup tie and nobody would bat an eye; were 'Walter' or 'Lenny' to do the same for a match at Elgin (like Scunny the 40th-best team in their land): cue banner headlines, a media frenzy and accusations of not taking the competition seriously.

Maybe the SFL should offer some encouragement, by simply amending the League Cup rules so that participating clubs had to field all-Scottish line-ups, or if that's a step too far, what's wrong with bringing back the "eight diddies" rule - whereby only three non-Scots can be on the field in any 11 players?

Scottish cricket has a Scots-only rule for some of its lesser cup competitions, why cannot Scottish football. You never know, we might just find the next Dalglish from this.

Innovate or Die

SCOTLAND led the world when it came to football innovation. We invented the passing game, but, in the past half century or so, all the innovation - from cattenaccio, via Hungary pulling Nandor Hideghuti back into the "hole" via 4-2-4, 4-3-3, "total football" to holding midfielders, pine tree formations, 4-5-1 to today's telephone number formations - has come from overseas.

England may have invented dribblers, but the likes of Wee Jinky, Willie Henderson, Davie Cooper, Eddie Gray and Scots-born and coached Aiden McGeady can stand comparison with anyone when it comes to that art. Likewise we've had sitting midfielders, play-makers, wing backs, boix-to-box midfielders and enforcers as good as any.

One area however, where we seem to be lacking is in set-piece originality. OK, Willie Carr came up with the donkey kick, which was immediately outlawed and Aberdeen, under Alex Ferguson, came up with the fall-out free kick (Gordon Strachan arguing with a team mate, then, when the opposition were distracted, floating one in for Mark McGhee to score from) - but, these apart, nothing.

We have not, since Coop departed the game, produced a rival to Beckham, Van Hoojdonk or Nakamura, when it comes to close-range free kicks - although I'd like to think, given encouragement and practice, Faddy or Riordan could be up there with the best.

Not that Scottish players don't think about set pieces. I recall, shortly after lifting first became legal in rugby lines out, the young Chris Iwelumo telling me: he believed IF, he could get two big central defenders as lifter and blocker and (even bigger IF) he could get a set-piece taker to put the ball in the right place, he could get above everyone and head home.

I put the scenario to referee Willie Young, who said immediately: they'd ban the move. So much for innovation in the 21st century.

But, it's not dead. In recent weeks I've seen You Tube clips of two highly-innovative set pieces. Firstly there was the penalty in the Japanese J League; one player placed the ball on the spot, turned and walked back to the edge of the D, he turned to face the keeper, who was so-busy watching him, he didn't notice the player running from the opposite side of the D to clip the ball past him and score.

Then there was the recent clip of the Spanish Under-19 player, who ran up as if to hit the penalty right-footed, then virutally toe-poked a left-foot shot past the wrong-footed keeper.

I don't think there has been an innovative penalty-taker in Scotland since wee Johnny Hubbard of Rangers, the South African who had umpteen different ways of scoring from the spot. Of course, as Rangers' regular penalty expert, Hubbard got more practice than most.

And maybe that's where we are going wrong, our players don't practice enough. But that has been a hardy annual moan for many years now and I don't see the men who run our game rushing to make the players change.

In other sports: basketball, hockey, Rugby Union and League, players practice set-pieces, simply because it's perhaps their best chance of scoring. You control the ball and when it's hit, you're holding all the aces. Why cannot football do this.

In pre-season training in American Football, the coaches come up with a series of set plays, which the players then practice until they can perform them perfectly, to order. They run these drills in every practice session and this practice pays off.

Every player has a play book, outlining the drill and their particular part in its execution. This has been standard procedure in the game since the days of leather helmets and minimal padding.

The play book is standard issue too in American basketball and in baseball. American sport is truly professional; in comparison we're still playing at sport.

Let's see a bit of professionalism and a dollop of innovation coming back into Scottish football. Who knows, it might pay off and we get back into the front line of the game.

A Small Far Away Country Of Which We Know Little

THE above heading may have been used by Neville Chamberlain in the lead-up to World War II, but, increasingly, I feel it sums-up Metropolitan London's approach to Scotland - and Scottish sport.

Down there, at the far end of the Watford Gap, they have great difficulty in differentiating between England and Great Britain. We Scots are seen as a bunch of troublesome subsidy junkies of whom they (Middle England) would be better shot off.

Of course, this anti-Scottishness never quite bubbles up to the extent of them actually letting us go. I believe the debate, in fact the whole stooshie, would be great fun, should say a Tory Prime Minister, with a huge English majority, ever pick-up the telephone to the Scottish First Minister and say: "OK, you win, you can have your independence".

But, enough of politics - back to fitba.

Today, right out of left field, The Scotsman ran an article concerning Lord Sebastian Coe's belief that the "British" football team in the 2012 London Olympics, really ought to be just that - a "British" team, with players from all four Home Countries, instead of, as currently planned, being an "England" team by any other name.

I thought England had won this argument. The (English) Football Association has, for 105 years, been the sport of football's representatives on the British Olympic Association, who run the British Olympic Games teams across the whole range of sports.

EVERY other Olympic sport, from archery to yachting, in which the four Home Countries compete internationally as individual nations, put together an umbrella organisation to represent that sport on the BOA - football didn't, Olympic football, in this country has always been the FA's game.

Britain opted out after 1972, when the FA abolished the distinction between amateur and professional players; this meant they could no longer enter a Team GB, since the Olympics were then resolutely amateur.

This is no longer the case and as hosts, Team GB is entitled to enter a football team in 2012, this caused conflict. When this notion first arose the Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh, mindful of their independence as international nations in their own right, wanted nothing to do with a Team GB in 2012 - although the Irish wavered a bit - while the rebellious Scots led the opposition.

Finally, a compromise was reached whereby Team GB would be an England-only production; FIFA made certain promises regarding the continued international independence of the three Celtic nations and, brow-beaten on all sides, the SFA dropped their opposition.

Now, less than a year on, the English having got their own way - Lord Coe is making waves - or is he?

His background is in athletics; he hasn't a clue about football politics, he doesn't give a stuff about Scotland's entirely justified qualms about this 2012 team; all he wants is a successful London Olympics. He feels, perhaps, an England-only Team GB football squad will not fully reflect that these are British games - that's my reading any way.

But, if he has his way, the international independence of ALL FOUR British football associations will be compromised.

If a British team takes the field in London in 2012, it will play into the hands of Jack Warner and those other FIFA big wigs who hate the fact that all four British countries are independent at FIFA. It will play into the hands of those (English)FA "blazers" who think they are football in these islands. It may have dire consequences for the SFA.

The men who strut the corridors of power at Hampden MUST make certain, by agreeing to let the English play at home, it doesn't lead to the end of Scotland as an independent football nation.

The FA has won the battle, now, apparently, this wasn't enough. I'm concerned, very concerned.

A Fool And His Money

IT'S indeed an old saying that a fool and his money are easily parted. It would be cheeky in the extreme to say the people running that football institution Glasgow Celtic FC are fools, but - come on, £2 million for Gary Hooper, a player who isn't even a household name in his own household, has to make one question the sanity of Neil Lennon and his masters.

For a start, the last two Scunthorpe United players to attract this sort of attention were the teenaged Kevin Keegan and a Scunthorpe reserve centre forward named Ian Botham, whose true talents lay elsewhere.

Nothing in his record suggests Mr Hooper is a Keegan (even if KK was arguably the most-over-rated of the many over-rated England "greats" of the past half century), far less a Botham (now there was a genuine superstar).

Let's put it into context: Scunthorpe United last season were the 40th best side in the English Leagues. That makes them the English equivalent of Elgin City. Celtic fans, would you see an Elgin City striker, even one who had scored regularly in the league, as the man to score goals for The Hoops?

Yep, though not, me neither.

And what message does this send to the young players at Lennoxtown? Without going too-deeply into West of Scotland bigotry, the fact is, the vast majority of the guys who run the football at the Roman Catholic Secondary Schools in the West of Scotland (and perhaps further afield) to a man have one ambition - to see one of their boys make it all the way to a first-team jersey at Celtic Park.

That's not conjecture - I was told that by one of the most-experienced of that group, when he retired from teaching. He made it clear, although he had set two Scotland Under-21 internationalists on their way to lengthy careers in the game, he had never produced a Celtic first-team player, and felt unfulfilled as a result.

Therefore, Celtic have an unpaid, unofficial army of recruiting officers, dedicated to ensuring a steady supply of promising players arrive at the club. Celtic has had arguably the best record in the SPL's age group competitions over the past decade - but most of these young players end-up elsewhere.

What does the decision to chase Hooper say to Cilian Sheridan for instance? He's scored goals in the SPL, he's served his time. He has seen Scott McDonald depart, Giorgios Samaras could be on his way - but, it's apparently not Sheridan who will get the chance to make the striker's place his own, it's some guy we've never heard of, with no apparent Celtic connection, who hasn't played in as good a league as Sheridan, for as long.

There again, perhaps Hooper will out-score Henrik Larsson, in which case his agent will get him a nice EPL gig. But, if he's that good and only on-offer at £2 million - how come he's not a squad player in the EPL? That's small change in that league.

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In Whom Do We Trust

IN God We Trust is the core belief of the USA - we Scots tend to be a bit less trusting that that.

So, while in common with most Scots I welcome the establishment of Stirling Albion as a community-owned club, with the fans in charge, when it comes to the venture's success: ah hae ma doots.

Bill Shankly said the secret to success in English football was to have just enough Scots to make a difference, but not so many that they started fighting amongst themselves. As with so many of Shankly's aphorisms, there was a huge grain of truth therein.

For hundreds of years, when the Scots weren't fighting with the English, they fought among themselves. If 300 years of largely English rule within the United Kingdom was supposed to cure this Caledonian culture of fighting, how come we still have the Old Firm and Ayrshire Junior Football? How come if England wants to give Johnny Foreigner a bloody nose, the first British troops in are generally the Argylls and the Black Watch?

So, I await with interest the first time a clutch of Beanos fans from the Raploch fall out with a clique from Milton, there will be a full and frank exchange of views, with blood and snotters on the carpet.

Of course we all like to moan about our own club's board of directors; they are always making mistakes: hiring the wrong manager, pitching the cost of the pies too high, allowing clowns to write in the programme, not giving enough local boys a chance, not hiring enough technically-gifted foreign players.

Fans of other clubs can do little more than moan, Beanos fans, if they don't like it, can get involved and change matters from within.

Except, not everyone wants to get involved and those that do, frequently fall-out.

While serving my journalistic apprenticeship, I covered the local council. This body was 100 per cent Labour, council meetings were exercises in fending-off tedium as items on the agenda were pased unanimously. There was one elderly lady councillor who occasionally rocked the boat and was ejected from the Labour Group, but she was always taken back after what amounted to little more than a four-game suspension.

We journalists were bored and one day, over coffee and biscuits in the Members Lounge, we tackled the Provost about the blandness of the meetings.

"Aye, but you want to be at the group meetings - when there's blood on the carpet; that's where we do the arguing, behind closed doors, so you lot never know our differences", he admitted - in the process revealing community politics, Scottish style.

We never did get into the group meetings. Let's hope the Albion Supporters Trust also do their fighting behind closed doors and pose a united front for the world.

But, community ownership of clubs is not a new thing - almost every one of Scotland's 170 junior clubs is a community club and by and large they work well. However, ask the secretary of any junior club and he'll tell you, all but the most-successful never have enough committee members, to do all the unseen work which goes into putting a team on the park on a Saturday.

Then there are the Scottish tensions - Tam will not work with Jock, because back in 1853 Jock's great-great-great grand-father's young brother left Tam's great-great-great grand-mother's sister pregnant and decamped to India with the HLI, never to be seen again in the village.

Wullie is a fan who runs a successful landscape gardening business. He has state-of-the-art ride-on mowers which could do a great job of cutting the grass, but the club cannot have the use of them, because Wullie and Hughie, the club secretary haven't spoken, since falling-out over Senga, the Treasurer's wife, 25-years previously, when all were single and the Treasurer wasn't around.

On such delicate social nuances have clubs succeeded or failed - Albion will be no different.

Community ownership of clubs can work - just look at Green Bay Packers - but hey, that's in the USA, not Scotland.

Good luck Albion - you'll need it.

What's the Splash

IN newspaper parlance, the Splash is the big front-page headline - the those few words of type above the fold which will grab the attention of a passing punter and make he or she want to buy your particular paper.

These come in several types - War Declared: King Dead: PM Resigns: in the days before instant TV or radio news, these were the staples, massive stories guaranteed to boost sales. I don't suppose we've seen a headline of that impact since Mo Joins Rangers (or whatever actual wording the Sun put on that story).

Then there are the classics: rumour has it the Press & Journal's announcement of the Titanic sinking was a bit more dramatic than: North East Man Lost At Sea - but that's the one everyone apparently remembers, while surely THE most-memorable headlines of all time were the Sun's epics: Gotcha! for the Belgrano sinking and: Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster.

In sports headlines the two most-quoted are again Sun headlines: Swedes 2 Turnips 1, after England were humbled in the 1992 European Championships and SupercallygoballisticCelticare atrocious - although to be fair, that was a re-hash of an older Sun headline from Ian Callaghan's time with Liverpool.

My favourite, however is a Guardian headline from the early seventies: Queen in Palace Brawl, after Gerry Queen was sent off while playing for the Selhurst Park club.

Another hardy annual in the old sepia-tinted days was: King Football Is Back, used to mark the Saturday when cricket bats, golf clubs and spiked running shoes were put away, out came the Manfield Hotspurs and football returned to dominate the sporting landscape.

Sport had seasons then. Sure there have always been overlaps, but by and large, in Britain apparently, all football kicked off on the same day and immediately after the FA Cup had been paraded round the winning club's home town, it shut down and cricket took over.

We Scots were always a wee bit more-obsessed with the beautiful game, but a trawl through the excellent newspaper files in the Mitchell Library will show that, even as Celtic were topping off Scottish football's annus marabilis of 1967 with that Lisbon victory, the (Glasgow) Herald sports pages contained reports of sports and events which never get in in today's world of 24/7 football coverage.

These days could return though. It is evident that with the bead counters holding increasing sway in newspaper offices, the Old Firm's summer forays to the USA and Australia are not the part-holiday "jollies" which the papers' Chief Football Writers once enjoyed - one hour's work per day to break up a long-distance extended summer holiday.

But, back home, football is almost limping apologetically into the new season. The SFL's League Challenge Cup kicks off today, followed by the League Cup, then the Irn-Bru League gets going, before the SPL finally kicks off in mid-August.

Of course, we know Scottish football hasn't a clue about marketing itself, so I will not ask the obvious question, but really - if our "product" is as good as the Hampden blazers apparently think it is - where's the big launch?

Of course, football is a branch of the entertainment industry and as such there have to be rehearsals and shake-downs. But, if you want to create an interest, put bums on seats for the big day, you need to work at it - it Sam Goldywin parlance: "begin with an earthquake and then build up to a shattering climax".

And, while the entertainment business does have a place for the hired assassin - he will surely get his comeuppance before the end. Ross Tokeley would never have survived unscathed through a single John Wayne movie.

In the current economic climate, football needs to sell itself better. Build more interest, market itself properly. In Scotland, the press has long done football's marketing work for it. Given the budget cuts, the way increasingly papers are taking bland, production-line journalism from a single source for all but the really big stories, football has to sharpen-up its act to continue to put those bums on seats.

Taking Their Eye Off The Ball

THE technical sub-committee of IFAB (the International Football Association Board) met in Cardiff this week and decided that the AARs (that's additional assistant referees), tried out in the Europa League last season, will be used in the Champions League in the new season.

No immediate introduction of goal line technology then, although it will be on the agenda when the full IFAB meeting goes ahead, back in the Welsh capital, in October.

News at Ten on ITV last night covered the decision in a very interesting manner. They managed to get a camera angle on Frank Lampard's non-goal in the World Cup tie with Germany, the incident which put goal line technology onto the October agenda. ITV's pictures were shot from roughly where the AAR would have been standing for the game, and they proved conclusively for me, there would still have been an almighty row. Because, in real time, it was impossible to say definitely that Lampard's shot had crossed the line.

There would surely have been doubt in the AAR's eyes; but, here is where we go into the detail which is always the devil in such cases.

Assistant referees (linesmen) and assistant assistant referees (goal judges) are there, as their title suggests - to assist the referee. The man in the middle, with the whistle has the final call. An AAR who can only say: "the ball might have fully crossed the line, but I cannot be sure" is no real assistance.

If he cannot definitely say: "Goal" and the referee himself cannot definitely say: "Goal", then regardless of ten replays from ten different angles apparently proving the ball HAD crossed the line - it's no goal.

Look at it from the referee's angle: he thinks there might have been a goal; he looks to the assistant referee on the touchline and doesn't get the goal signal; he also looks at the AAR behind the goal and again doesn't get the goal signal - play goes on. Or, one assistant says goal, the other says no goal. It's back as the referee's call. If he backs the wrong assistant, we've got another refereeing boob on our hands once the slo-mo replays have been aired.

With no uniform goal line technology in place, the rows will continue. With goal line technology there would have to be a protocol for its implementation.

Let's go back to our referee, he's got one signal from the touchline, another from behind the goal. He has to decide finally - goal or no goal - by stopping the game and refer the matter to the chosen method of goal line technology.

Would it be his call? The fourth official's call? By the way, with the AARs in place, the fourth official is now the sixth official; or would a seventh official now be needed? A TVMO (Television Match Official) to give him or her their rugby designation.

In rugby, by the time the man in the middle goes to his TVMO, the game has already stopped. The usual question in rugby is: "Can I award a try?" The award decision is still the referee's, he will be told: "You can award a try" or "You cannot award a try" (because there is no clear view, the scoring player was in-touch before he grounded the ball, or a previous infringement had occured). In football the usual question would need to be: "Did the ball cross the line?"

It may be a pedantic point, but, unless football obliged a referee to ask that question, the game's rulers would be under-mining a basic tenet which has held good for over a century and is enshrined in the Laws of the Game: Law V (i): "The referee is the sole judge of fact".

And let's not forget, rugby is a stop-start game; its fans are used to breaks in play and far more tolerant of them than football fans - would they enjoly breaks in play while some unseen man in the stand settles, or doesn't settle, an argument?

Perhaps the best answer would be to make the technology available, to a monitor pitch side, to which the referee could refer. That monitor would probably be placed around the fourth official's stance, in which case, you can bet your shirt on the fact the referee would have the "bus queues" from both technical areas around him while he was adjudicating on the TV pictures - with the usual argy-bargy and attempts to influence him.

Given that Law passed in a hurry is usually bad law, I just hope IFAB takes its time on this one and gets it right. In fact, might this implementation of goal line technology not be the good reason to kick off the thorough, root and branch re-jig of the laws, done over a period of time, which football needs?

The High Road To England

THE High Road To England has been a most-pleasing aspect to Scots for over 400 years, since Jamie the Sax and a large proportion of his court swapped Edinburgh for London following the Union of the Crowns in 1603.

Once the Scotch Passing Game, the 19th century predecessor to Spanish Tika-Taka, gained supremacy over English kick and rush, the trickle of Scots heading south became a torrent as the big English clubs coaxed, cajoled and let's be honest bribed the "Scotch professors" south to improve their game and dilute ours.

So Danny Wilson signing for Liverpool doesn't surprise me - we've been here before. Liverpool did sign a young centre half - fellow named Alan Hansen - from Partick Thistle in 1977, and he did well for the club. But, Hansen was a bit ahead of Wilson in development when he went, being 22-years-old and having played over 100 games for the Jags; he was also already a Scotland Under-23 regular.

Wilson, in contrast, is only 19-years-old, has a mere 24 first team games for Rangers behind him and while some of these have been in the Champions League he's still a raw laddie compared with Hansen when he moved.

He's clearly a boy in a hurry and faced with the distinct possibility of losing him for a mere £500,000 compensation as a free agent at the end of the season, Rangers would have been guilty of criminal negligence towards the club's long-term interests had they not sold him in the final year of his contract, for potentially ten times that sum.

However, I wonder if, given his obvious impatience to cash-in on his talent, Wilson is ready for the reality of life at Liverpool. The Liverpool which Hansen joined had a way of dealing with young recruits, dreamt-up by Bill Shankly and followed by Bob Paisley which demanded a period in the reserves - to learn "the Liverpool way", before regular first team football.

Hansen endured this, as did Stevie Nicol, Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence - it didn't do them any harm. I wonder if Wilson will be happy with reserve football at first - he's clearly not ready for the English Premiership on a weekly basis just yet.

How will he handle life on Merseyside? How will he handle the cash? Will he fulfill his potential? I will watch Master Wilson's career with interest.

I also don't see Danny's departure as weakening Rangers too much. The club still has three international central defenders in Bougherra, Webster and Weir; Sasa Papac has also played international football in central defence, while Kirk Broadfoot and Lee McCulloch, two more internationalists, have both played there for the club and not looked out of place. In Steven Whittaker, Broadfoot and Papac they've got three international-class full backs, while Jordan McMillan, the better for a season out on loan in the First Division is an Under-21 international full back, with Gregg Wylde an Under-19 internationalist - while Andy Little can play there too. Even without Wilson, Walter Smith has plenty of options at the back.

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SPECULATION is reaching near-fever-pitch, as to Aiden McGeady following Wilson south, perhaps to Aston Villa, should James Milner decamp to Manchester City. McGeady will be a bigger loss to Scottish football than Wilson - if only on the basis of: "Who will we all hate?"

McGeady, for all his obvious talents, has long been THE figure of hate for the rest of Scottish football. Freed from the ritual abuse at every ground except Celtic Park and surrounded by better players, he could well blossom and become as good as he and his supporters think he is, but too many up here cannot bring themselves to acknowledge. His decision to play for the Republic of Ireland rather than his native Scotland has made him a figure of hate up here, which says a lot about us Scots as a nation.

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IN many years covering Junior Football, albeit not as regularly as I once did, I thought I had seen every possible evidence of how stupid some football administrators can be - but I had not. Today's news that Queen's Park has been banned from the Scottish Amateur Cup takes the biscuit.

I've got news for the officials of the Scottish Amateur FA - if it wasn't for Queen's Park you wouldn't have a SAFA. Queen's Park is the only Scottish amateur football team most people have ever heard of and by banning them from your premier cup competition you've made yourselves look very silly indeed.

The really sad thing about all this is - the SAFA have just made George Peat and Co appear competent.

Research and Development

THE United Kingdom once had a vibrant motor industry. The Rootes Group - Hillman, Singer, Humber, Sunbeam Talbot: BMC - Austin, Morris, MG, Wolsley, Riley: the independents and specialists - Rover, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Rolls Royce - Bentley, Morgan, Lotus, Bristol, Reliant plus several small and very specialist firms; then there were the British offshoots of the American giants, Ford and Vauxhll - the British arm of General Motors.

In the truck industry too, Leyland was a world leader: the Foden family had a fall-out, Foden Motors continued at one end of Sandbach in Cheshire, at the other end of town two other Fodens started ERF: AEC in Southall was THE bus builder to the world, as well as producing iconic trucks such as the Mammoth Major. In Wolverhampton, Guy Motors ruled, Scammell was at Watford, Seddon and Atkinson were built in Manchester, Albions came from Scotstoun in Glasgow and the British-American companies produced trucks, Bedfords and Fordsons.

Specialist engine builders such as Gardner in Manchester and Perkins in Peterborough were world-famous, while Albion's axles and differentials found their way into other power trains, as did specialist British gear boxes.

The Clyde's massive Titan cranes were there for a reason - to hoist the mighty railway engines built at the North British Loco Works at Springburn onto Clyde-built ships to be ferried across the world.

Today, what have we? Not a lot. The great British marques survive; you can still buy an Aston Martin, Jaguar, Range Rover, Mini, Rolls Royce or Bentley, but, with a very few exceptions - the ultra-specialist bespoke builders of exotica, the companies building "British" cars are foreign-owned. Sure some Japanese makes: Honda, Toyota and Nissan build in Britain, but it can be argued we no longer have a domestic motor industry worthy of the name.

It's even worse in trucks: Fodens and ERFs latterly were built in Germany, ERFs still are, the last Foden rolled off the production line about five years ago. Most trucks on Britain's roads today are either Swedish - Scania and Volvo; German - MAN or Mercedes; French-built Renaults or Italian-built Ivecos. Why?

Well, when the foreign imports first arrived, they were better. When the first sleeper cab Volvo F88 was demonstrated at the Kelvin Hall Motor Show it was a sensation - it was light years ahead of the Atki Borderers and Gardner-powered Fodens British truckers were used to.

The British truck industry reacted too-slowly and too-late, their reluctance to invest in research and development caught them out, as did to a certain extent backing the wrong horses. Leyland spent a fortune on expensive gas turbine engines, Volvo simply developed their own diesels to do the same job better and cheaper.

The Clyde shipyards were complacent, the railway engine builders ditto - we were still producing steam engines when the rest of the world had gone electric. Our innovative aircraft designers were in the vanguard of the brain drain of the sixties and seventies.

What's this got to do with football?

Well, where our car, bus, truck, aircraft, shipping and railway-building industries were in the fifties and sixties - and while I accept our industries were badly let-down by successive governments - they didn't help themsleves, our football industry is today.

The British excuse of: "We've always done it this way", means it's all but impossible to change the mind-sets of those in power; we're comfortable with what we know, suspicious of change.

British football has neglected research and development for years, with the result, just as their local councils are buying foreign-built cars, vans and trucks, doing business on computers designed in the USA and using foreign-designed and manufactured equipment and clothing for their staff, so British football teams are increasingly side tracking British players to recruit from overseas.

Think back less than a month, to the aftershocks of England's hammering from the Germans at the World Cup. Cue outcry for a concentration on young, English players - on proper youth development, on trusting the next generation of Engliosh players.

What has happened since: well the English Premiership clubs are still hell-bent on spending obscene sums of money on foreign players. Given a choice between an over-the-hill Italian or Frenchman or a promising young English player, England's top clubs will still, by and large, go for the foreign model.

It's the same up here. Celtic manager Neil Lennon cannot shop in Harrods alongside the top English clubs, but he's been tootling round Aldi and Lidl buying-up players whom a lot of Celtic fans I've spoken to don't see as: "Celtic class".

At least he can still buy. Walter Smith is still selling players, but even he has been looking down-market for potential replacements, so far without success.

The Big Two may have multi-million pound flashy training grounds at Murray Park and Lennoxtown, but their investment in research and development kind of mirrors that of British industry in the sixties and seventies - too-little, too-late and half-hearted at best.

John Brown's, Albion Motors' Scotstoun Works, NB Locos' St Rollox Works, they're all today either industrial parks, housing sites or much-reduced - because of wrong decisions by management and government indifference.

How long before houses stand on Ibrox and Celtic Park? Unless we're very careful.

One Of The Good Guys

SPORTS writers, like everyone else, have heroes - guys whom we think are special.

Most of my heroes of the written word are no longer with us: Hughie Taylor and Bill Aitken - two old-time, hot-metal men who inspired me as a young journalist; the wonderful Ian "Dan" Archer, Ian Wooldridge and of course Bob Crampsey are all to be found in the great press box in the sky. Some, however are still with us - Hughie McIlvanney, James Lawton, Patrick Collins and Brian Moore are very definitely worth reading.

There is another, who left full-time journalism at the week-end. Doug Gillon has packed his belongings and left the Herald staff. Thankfully, we will still be treated to his insights into athletics and the major multi-sport games; Dougie has stepped off the daily treadmill, but will not, for now, be lost to sports-writing.

He was and still is, a class act. He's been eminently-readable for over 40 years, with the Sunday Post, the Sunday Standard and the Herald and I wish him a long and happy retirement, plus the continued desire to pen his trenchant views for as many years to come as he feels fit.

Not many people know this, but Dougie has appeared on the main Olympic stage - he was the only Scot in the International Press XI which played the USSR Press XI in a football match, in Moscow's Olympic Stadium in 1980. So, in some respects, Dougie is an Olympian. His writing certainly reached Olympic heights over the years.

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THE Open Golf is over, traditionally, with the final putt dropping in the Championships, summer is over and it's time to get back to football. This promises to be an interesting season with Walter Smith perhaps finally forced to do something he has singularly failed to do throughout his managerial career and trust his kids.

Remember how fatigue derailed Rangers' title hopes after they shocked even themselves and reached the UEFA Cup final a few seasons ago? I maintained at the time, and still maintained, had Smith trusted his fringe players then, fatigue would not have been an issue and Rangers might well have won the league. He will have no option but to put the kids on at least in domestic games this season and by so doing, he just might go out in a blaze of glory - if any manager deserves a domestic Treble on his escutcheon it's "Walter".

He might not have the squad depth for Europe, but if his squad is properly managed, he should be able to land all three Scottish trophies and the kids will surely benefit from this.

He'd Be In My Team At Kilbirnie

DAVIE Wells was one of the last guys to step, blinking into the light at the end of a hard shift down the pit - pause briefly in the pit head baths before going off to play football at quite a high level - for when he succeeded Dick Malone in the number two Ayr United shirt, the Honest Men, under Ally MacLeod's managership, were a power in the land.

Davie came from New Cumnock and began with Glenafton Athletic in the clan wars which are Ayrshire Junior football. After he finished playing, Davie managed his beloved Glen, was Ally's Number Two in his later, less-successful spells in that tiny office under the Somerset Park stairs and even had a couple of short spells as caretaker boss - Wells had in other words met the Bobby Robson test of a footballer: he had time on the grass.

He also had a benchmark for a player: a man who wouldn't bottle the challenges, who would face up to intimidation on the park and contribute. That measure was: "Aye - he'd be in my team at Kilbrinie". Visiting clubs NEVER get it easy at Kilbirnie Ladeside's home park, it's a place which separates the men from the boys.

David Beckham would be in my team at Kilbirnie. It may be fashionable now to disregard the man's achievements in football; to fail to see Beckham the player because of Beckham the brand; to condemn him as over-hyped and over-paid.

But, in a montage of clips of his great goals on Friday night's final Jonathan Ross programme on BBC One, we saw something most of us had perhaps forgotten - the guy could play.

Interestingly, most of the many goals with a definite Wow!!! factor were scored early in his Manchester United career, in the days before he married Victoria and became a global phenomenon, a "personality" rather than a player; before he fell-out with Fergie and left Carrington, the Manchester United training ground where he was perhaps happiest in his entire life.

No player who has won over 100 caps, captained his country, and won the prizes and honours which have come Beckham's way can be deemed a failure or an under-achiever. Those silverbacks among us in the ranks of the fans with lap tops might be disinclined to put him alongside Best, Law and Edwards on the very top step of the Old Trafford pantheon of heroes - but, he was undoubtedly United's best English player since Bobby Charlton.

In the pre-1966 days, when it was not a treasonable crime for a Scottish football fan to admire English players and wish that the likes of Tom Finney, Stanley Matthews, Jimmy Greaves, Gordon Banks, Tommy Lawton and Charlton had been born Scottish - we would have welcomed Beckham too.

Is it symptomatic of the way money and television has distorted football's values that today, some of feel, for all he has achieved - there might have been more to be got out of David Beckham? He is the consumate football man and a credit to the game.

Basic Mafia practice

SO, Chris Eagles will not be joining Rangers. I find myself distinctly underwhelmed by this news. As my late father, who singularly failed to pass-on the Hun gene to my brother and I, would have said: "Not an internationalist, not playing in the top league in his country - therefore NRC (not Rangers Class)".

Nothing in Eagles's playing CV led me to believe he had the X factor which we look for in big-money signings by either half of the Old Firm. A 24-year-old former Manchester United youngster who doesn't have a single England Under-21 cap to his name, is definitely NOT Rangers' class.

What worries me far more than Eagles not coming north - and the realisation that guaranteed Champions League football, the chance to appear fortnightly in front of over 40,000 fans and the probability of medals, cannot entice a player away from the second level in England - is the fact that Rangers, in their current financial position, cannot wean themselves away from this macho posturing of: "We have to be seen to be signing players".

Since Jean Marc Bosman won his landmark ruling on freedom of contract, no football team has needed to resort to the transfer market - other than in time of dire emergency. And given the relative strength (at least in domestic terms) of the Rangers' player pool, the club doesn't need to buy players.

If Walter Smith feels he needs a fresh wide player - let him field one of the crop of young players who has come through the Murray Park system. That should be his first option. If Rangers cannot field one or even two or three of the several Scotland age group internationalists on their player roster and still beat the majority of the other SPL teams home or away, then Walter isn't the manager we all think him to be.

Trusting the kids ought to be his first option, but, Walter never has been one for trusting kids - just consider his reluctance to play the young Barry Ferguson for instance.

His second option should be to utilise his connections via the Largs Mafia. If Sir Alex of the Govan family is "The Godfather", and Walter Capo di Tuti Capi in the heartland, then surely Walter has the political clout - after all he was for a time Sir Alex's consigliari - to get some young class acts on-loan from either Old Trafford or from David Moyes, the Scotia Nostra's big cheese on Merseyside.

Craig Brown did well on borrowings from Moyes last season. There are several full and Under-21 internationalists on the United payroll who would surely benefit from a season in the SPL - why cannot Walter pick up the telephone to Sir Alex and ease his concderns about squad depth that way, without paying out transfer fees, which the Rangers' bankers would rather avoid?

Option three would be to ask Martin Bain to earn his high salary, by having a database of players coming into the final year of their contracts, so agents could be contacted and Bosman deals set-up well in advance.

Or is football in general, and long-established managers of big clubs such as Walter in particular, so wedded to the transfer market, they will not change their way of working.

Because, believe me, when football's money bubble bursts, as burst it will, there will surely be a lot of blood on the tracks and the well-managed clubs with good youth systems and managers who can work the Bosman and loans markets will inherit the earth.

They Never Come Back

THE heading for this piece is, of course, a pearl of received wisdom from th boxing ring - subsequently disproved by "The Greatest", Muhamad Ali himself.

This week it seems wee Paul Hartley could be the latest sportsman to ignore the old boxing saw, by returning to Tynecastle - from where you may recall he was almost summarily ejected as one of "The Riccarton Three" - him, Craig Gordon and Stephen Pressley, who took umbrage with "Mad Vlad's" management methods.

Good luck to him in his efforts to get back home to Scotland after a less than stellar spell in Bristol. History is on Hartley's side, one of the few examples of a returning hero having a better second spell at a club is offered by 'Mr St Mirren' - Tony Fitzpatrick, whose career went: St Mirren - Bristol City - St Mirren, and whose second stay at Love Street in a playing sense, culminated in that 1987 Scottish Cup win.

But, honestly I cannot see Hartley's homecoming to Tynecastle ending on as high a note. Once one of the prime examples of the annoying wee Scottish winger, Paul has re-invented himself as a holding midfielder, rather well too. This is now, just about the key role in any team with hope of honours. I'm sorry though, I just feel that at 33, Hartley no longer has the engine to regularly play this role in the 150 mph, biff-bang, kick-and-chase world of the SPL.

He could, however, probably still do a job as player-coach and mentor in Hearts' reserve side, able to play occasional first team cameos in time of need - if the SPL still did reserve football.

It's not as if he's a world star, like Thierry Henry, who has just signed to play Major League Soccer in the USA for the New York Red Bulls - love these American club names, could it catch-on here: Glasgow Buckfast v Dundee OVD anyone?

Henry has moved Stateside thanks to the MLS system which allows a "marquee player", Henry in the Big Apple, Lord Beckham of Wembley in LA, paid a great deal more than his team mates, but expected to grow soccer's profile in his city and encourage the younger American players.

With respect to a Scottish internationalist, Hartley is hardly a "marquee" signing in Edinburgh, although he could be a father figure to the Hearts' kids.

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FOR me, one of the highlights of the World Cup was the "Bruzil" advertisements for our other national drink.

Sheer genius - only in Scotland would there be a goalkeeper named Didi (pronounced diddy, rather than deedee - the midfield genius of the 1958 Brazil team); Aberdeenio was another great name, but my favourite was Crawford Baptista - surely a homage to "Big Craw", that Brockville legend Crawford Baptie.

Many, many years ago, Big Craw played a blinder for Baillieston, as they beat Auchinleck Talbot in a Scottish Junior Cup semi-final at Rugby Park. Craw came into the press room afterwards and expressed surprise at the size of the Baillieston following and the decibels which erupted when they scored what proved to be the winner.

I had to tell him: that wasn't the roar of a big Baillieston following, more the roars of relief from the Cumnock fans, there to support the Central League side in a clear case of: "anyone but Talbot".

Youth development

I HAVE long had a theory that the answer to Scottish Football's perennial problem of poor youth development lies across the Atlantic.

Over there virtually all sport for people under the age of 21 or so is conducted through the education system. High School heroes become collegiate stars, with only the very best going on into the mega-rich professional leagues such as the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS and MLB.

If a sportsman or woman hasn't bagged their professional contract by the time they leave college - they can either move abroad or get a job, at least, they've got some qualifications behind them.

Over here, once a teenaged boy has got his place in what we laughingly call our Youth Academies, he virtually gives up on formal education - from then on, only football matters.

A few of the failures give themselves a shake and make something of themselves. Far too many end up, beer-gutted, over-weight, in a dead-end job and still in their twenties, telling their mates down the pub: "I couda bin a contender". Aye right.

In Scotland we've got too many 'Senior' clubs, who offer nothing to Scottish football other than to survive as 'Senior Clubs'. The likes of Forfar, Montrose, Brechin, Albion Rovers and a few more I could name have smaller supports and do less for youth development than some of the best Junior clubs. Places such as Linlithgow, Bathgate, Irvine and Cumnock have only junior teams to follow - but are just as big as some of the afore-mentioned home towns of senior teams.

Scotland has a population of approximately 5,000,000. Greater London has twice that number. Scotland has 42 "senior" football teams. Greater London has only 13 teams in either the Premiership or the Football League. Accepting that Scottish football has a bigger following per head of population than London, that's still far too many clubs up here presuming, wrongly, to be "Senior".

We cannot get rid of them, turkeys will never vote for Christmas after all. But we should perhaps find the lesser clubs a new role. There follows the Socrates MacSporran plan to save Scottish football.

We adopt a minimum club standard for senior football (all-seated ground of a given minimum size, full-time, academy teams up to Under-19, financially safe); we say there will be a maximum of say 24 such clubs, who have until a given date, say 2015, to comply.

Below these 24 clubs, every club is a junior club - but - these junior clubs can be linked as feedoer and associate clubs to senior clubs.

The top 24 should be operating in two "conferences" of equal standing - but I will return to this later.

The junior clubs have responsibility for local football development and encouragement; the senior clubs have the pick of the best from their associate/feeder clubs, plus their own feeder/development system, which is strictly-controlled as to area of influence.

At the end of the season in which they turn 19, the players in the senior clubs' Under-19 teams can either: step-up to that club's senior squad, be farmed-out to the associate/feeder junior clubs on a two-year deal to continue their development.

We make the leagues in which these junior clubs play Under-23 leagues, clubs can only field a maximum of three players older than 23. I would welcome one national Under-23 league for the best clubs, atop a regional pyramid system.

We still produce talented kids - anyone who regularly watches SFL games in which younger Old Firm players, loaned-out to a lesser club, are performing can tell you, the talent's there - it's the development programme which is wrong.

Last night I watched Hibs play Queen of the South. Young Danny Galbraith of Hibs repeatedly caught the eye. He scored one cracker and had another brilliant "assist". Nineteen-year-old Galbraith has been known for some time to be "one for the future", his career has been blighted by injuries, but he has a chance.

He might not be able to influence too many SPL games, but, sent out to somewhere like Queen of the South or Dunfermline for a season - he could blossom.

How many others might blossom if we had a system whereby Queen's Park was Rangers' Under-23 development team, Cowdenbeath filled the same function for Hearts, Albion Rovers for Celtic, Berwick Rangers for Hibs, Cove Rangers for Aberdeen or Forfar and Arbroath for the two Dundee sides. I think it's worth a try, but appreciate it will probably never happen.

But forward, though we canna see, we guess and fear

BURNS was Ayrshire's third-greatest writer: behind The Two Hughies - McIlvanney and Taylor, and with that single line he encapsulated a Scottish failing which is still evident today.

We as a wee nation are comfortable with what has gone before: "It's aye been (done that way)" is a Caledonian catch-all with which, regardless of our calling or interest, we are all familiar.

So, while we gaze apprehensively forward (not least towards our forthcoming meeting with newly-crowned World Champions Spain), guessing and fearing what might become of Scottish Football - not too many Scots are doing a Mel Gibson: "Follow me, they can take oor players but they can never take oor FITBA!!"

Rinus Michales, Ernie Walker and Co had a go at changing things: their deliberations are gathering dust in what is probably a well-padlocked Hampden cupboard. Assuming that is their dossier was even carried there in the move from Park Gardens.

Now Henry McLeish has had a go - I'm not holding my breath for the implementation of some of the reasonable suggestions his review panel made about youth development.

Gordon Smith arrived, fired-up with enthusiasm and good ideas gleaned from a far more cosmopolitan football journey than most Scots have made. He too retired hurt, beaten down by the Hampden "blazers".

Meanwhile, we slip further down the international ladder - at least we're still in the top 30 nations as regards World Cup records, but for how much longer.

But, enough of international football. Now we're gearing-up for the domestic season, and here again, I don't see much changing.

Between 1945 and 1965, uniquely in the annals of the Scottish League, Celtic and Rangers weren't the top teams. Between 1945 and 1955, when European football kicked in, the top two in Scotland were Rangers and Hibs. In the ten years from 1955, Rangers and Hearts ruled the roost. Then Jock Stein returned to Celtic. By the time the Premier Division was formed in 1975 the top two were Celtic and Rangers; then, in the first decade of a Top Ten the top two were Stein's Celtic and Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen.

In 1986 came the Souness Revolution and since then it's been situation normal with the Old Firm on top of the heap, the rest increasingly losing touch. How we long for a Russian billionaire or an oil-soaked sheik to come in, but say Aberdeen or St Mirren and by throwing money at their club reducing the Old Firm to poverty-stricken also-rans.

Don't hold your breath - it will not happen.

And don't hold your breath for an early influx of good Scottish kids breaking through. Those that do manage to beat our culture of "aye beenism", don't work too hard and mistrust of the young will - at the first sign of interest from a mid-ranking Championship club in England, be onto their agents: "I'm a star, get me outa here". In football, as with so much of life, Boswell's High Road to England will remain a most-pleasing prospect to the ambitious Scotchman, of whom, as Boswell again suggested: "Much can be made if he is caught early enough".

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This coming season will be a tad less interesting, partcularly for the red top rats of our leading mass-circulation newspapers, with the suggestion that Artuc Boric "the Holy Goalie" will be off to Italy. He'll be missed, not least by Allan McGregor, who will be expected to shoulder the duties of token tabloid tit on his own. I think he'll manage.

It will be interesting to see who Celtic bring in to replace Boruc. I will be amazed if his replacement is a Scot however. I cannot think of one young(ish) Scottish goalkeeper who might fit the gloves. Ian Turner at Everton perhaps.

Mark Brown looked as if he could grow into the role when Celtic signed him, but having risen from Stefan Klose's number two at Ibrox, via a disappointing spell at home town team Motherwell, he prospered and became a Scotland B cap at Inverness Caledonian Thistle. However, he couldn't cut the mustard at Celtic and is now trying to rebuild his career in the Goalkeeper's Graveyard, as Easter Road has become, after a fine spell at Rugby Park.

So far, wee Lennie has given the rest of Scotland a body swerve as a recruitment ground, which I think is a shame. Times were of course different, but Stein did rather well through encouraging youth and augmenting it with the best players gleaned from the rest of Scotland.

For all he buys a few foreigners along the way, that's the system Fergie has followed at Manchester United. His sides always have a home-grown core, maybe there's a lesson there for Lennon and for McCoist, when he goes from Heir Presumptive to King at Ibrox.

Then, maybe, Scotland will be on the way back - at long last.


But forward, though we canna see, we guess and fear.

The Referee's a W***er

MANY years ago the annual clash between the English and Scottish League XIs was a dress rehearsal for THE game of the season, the annual meeting of football's oldest international enemies at either Hampden or Wembley.

Tradition demanded that the home team supply the referee. So, one year, at Ibrox, big Tom "Tiny" Wharton had the whistle. With the game at 0-0, Scotland attacked and Davie Wilson of Rangers went down on the edge of the English League box. Wharton immediately went to his default setting when refereeing at Ibrox and awarded the penalty.

He was approached by the English League captain, one Bobby Robson, who informed him: "Referee, you don't give penalties in matches like this".

Wharton's reply was emphatic: "Mr Robson, when I see a penalty - I give it".

It's a pity Howard Webb doesn't have Wharton's gravitas or certainty - or we might have had a better World Cup Final yesterday.

Let me say immediately, after 40-plus years of sports reporting, covering some 50 different sports, I've long since concluded that, no matter the game, English referees are duff. I've covered cross-border meetings at basketball, hockey, ice hockey, cricket, football, rugby, netball and volleyball and the common denominator as far as referees or match officials go is: English officials tend to be nicer people than their Scottish counterparts; keener to help the players enjoy themselves, but, this failing too often means, when the going gets hard, they bottle it.

I think that's what happened to Howard Webb at Soccer City Stadium - he went out with the idea: "This is the World Cup Final, I cannot ruin it by sending someone off". So, when Holland appeared wearing Adidas or Nike clogs rather than boots, he wasn't prepared to use the ultimate sanction until it was too late.

Had he sent off van Bommel or de Jong when he should have, maybe Spain would have won with goals to spare, but football would have been the better for it.

By the way, I disagree with those who say Carles Puyol should have gone after his arm wrestling match with Robben; look at the replay, they were both at it.

That's another thing about modern football - the co-commentator/analyst's get-out when a penalty isn't given: "Anywhere else on the field, that's a foul". Sorry, but a foul is a foul whether in the centre circle or penalty area.

Football, when played by two teams who want to play truly is The Beautiful Game. Unfortunately today it is getting like rugby, where you "play the referee" or perish. It is well known that: "Howard Webb likes to keep his cards in his pocket" - Van Persie, Kuyt and Co, who encounter him regularly in the Premiership probably told their team mates: "You have to be really crude for Webb to send you off, so you can go in hard today".

The scene was then set for what followed.

I feel what football needs today is a "Zero Tolerance" approach to fouls and misdemeanours. I am not advocating making it a non-contact sport, but outlawing things such as tackles from behind. the jersey-pulling, the time-wasting, the mass protests, the over-acting, would go a long way to making a great game even better.

I doubt, however, that the will to make changes exists anywhere in the game - most notably in Herr Blatter's suite of offices in Switzerland.

Then there is the stupidity of the players. The silliest of the 15 cards dished out last night surely went to Iniesta, who was booked for removing his shirt after scoring. OK, it was a World Cup-winning goal; but for how many years now has it been an automatic yellow card for removing your shirt for a goal celebration? And still they do it.