A Whole Different Ball Game

ON Saturday I stepped off the football treadmill and onto the rugby one, to cover one of the top matches in Premiership One of the Scottish club championship.

In terms of stature this league is Scottish Rugby's equivalent of the SPL - only an SPL without the Old Firm, who are playing in an international club league.

In terms of quality this match was probably the equivalent of an Irn-Bru First Division match, rather than an SPL encounter. Over the years I've done my share of First Division football (more than my share in fact), so it was interesting to make comparisons.

The club game is supposed to be amateur, except we all know some of the bigger clubs are paying players, particularly the "Kilted Kiwis" imported from New Zealand and Australia (there isn't a catchy term for Ozzies playing in Scotland, however); we also know that expenses to some Scottish players are generous, but the Scottish club league is NOT paying over-the-odds for mediocrities, unlike its football equivalents.

The commitment was total, the fitness levels way above anything you'll see in the SFL or even the SPL, but, it's a lot cheaper to get in. The ground facilities weren't quite up to the home team's football rival, but this was more than compensated for by among other things, the catering.

You can stick your pies and Bovril where the sun don't shine - pre-match I had a brilliant hot roast pork roll, with crackling and apple sauce, washed down by a generous cappacinno. Very nice, great value for money, but nothing compared to the roast beef lunch, washed down by a very nice Claret, the meal enhanced by stimulating conversation with the former Scotland and Lions legend lunching at the next table - and no, I wasn't in corporate hospitality - merely in the host club's club house prior to kick off.

But the big change is noticed after the match. In rugby, no hanging around outside dressing rooms or at tunnel mouths, waiting for the rival managers to deign to speak to us, their perception of the hacks from Hell. Within five minutes of the final whistle, we of the press pack were on the pitch, hearing first-hand the thoughts of the respective coaches. These were delivered with unfailing courtesy and understanding.

Later, the report for the Sunday paper filed, it was into the board room for a very pleasant chat with the committee-men from both clubs AND the referee, who was only-too-willing to explain a couple of controversial decisions.

Now, to be fair, one or two football referees will respond with civility and open-ness to requests for an explanation of how they dealt with a flash-point, but this is strictly on a "no names, no pack drill" basis - and not all are so approachable or accommodating.

If you want to speak to a player, no problem, they are all in the club bar, mingling with the members and supporters, while the majority of the fans do not head for the nearest boozer the minute the final whistle sounds - no need to the club bar is there, it's open and it's generally cheaper than the pub.

Usually, at a football match, I file on the whistle any reports which are scheduled for "on-the-whistle" sending; then it's down to get the quotes from managers and players and I am usually in the car and heading home by 5.30pm at the latest.

On Saturday, I was still enjoying the craic in the clubhouse at 6.30pm. It's a much more civilised game.

Football may be a game for gentlemen, played by hooligans and rugby a game for hooligans played by gentlemen - that description was borne out on Saturday.

Little Things Mean A Lot

THE last post herein was devoted to a run-down of how the SFA works (or doesn't). I bet not many of you knew how important the Forfarshire, Stirlingshire, West of Scotland or Southern Counties FAs were in running the national game.

These bodies may not do sweet FA, but some of the competitions they run have as much relevance to modern football as Ye all-England Jousting Tournament have to the efficiency and potency of our armed forces. I deliberately wrote all-England there, the all-Scotland Jousting Tournament is still running, it is now called the Emirates Scottish Junior Cup.

I note also that I am not the solitary cynic abounding in Scottish football, young Michael Grant in the Herald has joined me in pointing-out what a pointless exercise Henry McLeish's review will become - with nobody taking a blind bit of notice of his findings

YOU have to hand it to those lovely people at Ibrox - they don't do irony. There is Walter Smith, a manager who would rather crawl over broken glass than put-on a young player complaining that Scottish Football is letting down young players, while Martin Bain, a man who is deeply complicit in bringing some only slightly better than useless while remarkable over-priced "talent" to Ibrox, crying out for a government hand-out for the game in Scotland.

OK Government investment in Scottish sport is a joke. Millions are poured into SportScotland or whatever it's called this week - this has created an industry of sports developers, who don't develop sport, facilitators, who don't facilitate and providers who fail to provide. The last thing we want to do is make sport yet another arm of state provision in Scotland. Mind you, the second-last thing we want to do is allow a lot of the people from within sport today to continue to run it.

Just a thought you understand - it's the press's job to point these things out, you see we don't have to resolve the problems.

I note this morning that fans-owned Stirling Albion are doing away with complimentary tickets - and about time too.

(I know, this is rich coming from a journalist who gets free entry to every game through his press pass).

But, comps are a pure racket and while stopping them at a stroke may make Albion some money, it will cost them in terms of friends within the game; we don't use the term "freemasonry of football" loosely, a lot is still done via nods, winks and friendships.

Another part of the comps racket which needs overhauling is in the murky world of press box passes. Particularly where the Old Firm is concerned, you will find in any press pack, supposedly working at the game, perhaps a team (i.e. an XI) of "journalists" who are there purely as spectators.

The expansion of the internet has not helped. You now have the ever-expanding army of website operators turning up and getting press priveleges. Last season one First Division club was followed by a crew of eight embedded "journalists", writing for fanzines and websites associated with that club. Not one was a qualified or recognised journalist. These people truly were: "fans with lap tops" and football is encouraging them.

One very-well-respected freelance football writer, whose work finds favour right across the board of journalism, from "red-top" tabloid to patrician broadsheet was telling me recently, he was covering a midweek Alba Cup match for one of the red-tops; there were six "journalists" in the press box, he was the solitary, full-time, qualified, card-carrying journalist. It is very wrong.

AND finally, Anthony Stokes is off to Celtic for, depending on which paper you read, between £800,000 and £1,200,000.

Good business by Celtic - they've got him cheaply, Hibs are immediately down a few goals, while with the service he should get at Celtic, he'll score a few.

Already Rod Petrie is getting pelters for selling his top-scorer so cheaply. Might it be a case of Hibs thinking they are well-rid of a disruptive dressing room influence. Team dynamic often plays a part in such moves.

I remember, some years ago, asking Craig Brown what had possessed him to buy a particular, very ordinary player, a man of more clubs that Jack Nicklaus.

"Aye well, when you've got him - you've got one happy dressing room", was the Motherwell Mauler's response.

Similarly I remember a St Mirren dressing room which went very flat when a particular "donkey defender" left, but cheered up very quickly thereafter when another player, who felt (wrongly) he was a star because he had once been on the bench for the Rangers first team was off-loaded.

Jobs For The Boys

I am feeling a bit better after my last rant, so the pills must be working. However, that's not something which can be said about Scottish Football.

The (English) FA is even longer-established than that mob at Hampden, but at least, they acknowledge there are two games of football played in these islands. In England they have "the professional game" and "the community game".

Now there may well be as huge a gulf between Chelsea and Manchester United and whichever team is bottom of their Fourth Division as there is between the Old Firm and the bottom of the SFL's Third Division, but, at least all 92 "league" clubs in England are full-time.

If the SFA was to be split into a professional and a community game (which would be no bad thing), less than half of our "league" clubs would qualify for the entry to the "professional" game.

A "professional" club should be full-time, have if not an all-seater, certainly a clean, safe, covered stadium, proper youth development programmes and players who had a professional attitude to their job.

Even this basic and of necessity broad brush criteria for a professional club would rule out all but a minority of our so-called "league" clubs - but it will not happen. And it will not happen because of the way the SFA is set-up.

I spent a mind-boggling time today trying to make sense of the Byzantine internal politics of this body, it is chilling.

The day-to-day running of the SFA is currently, pending Stuart Regan being given out lbw at Yorkshire CCC, in the hands of George Peat and the Board of Directors, a board which sadly does not meet Tommy Docherty's criteria for the ideal board - three-strong, one dead and two dying.

The SFA "parliament" is the Council, which meets quarterly. This body is 35-strong - if you include those two living fossils, Jack McGinn and John McBeth, the last two presidents, neither of whom has any current affiliation with a club.

Only Aberdeen, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Motherwell and St Mirren of the 12 SPL clubs are not represented on the SFA Council, while eight of the 30 SFL clubs have a man therein. But, only Rangers' Andrew Dickson, (or should that be Andrew Who?), Dundee United's Stephen Thompson and Kilmarnock's Michael Johnston are actually elected as SPL representatives.

Campbell Ogilvie is first vice president, but owes his position to his Heart of Midlothian affiliation; Celtic's Eric Riley represents the Glasgow FA (members: Celtic, Clyde, Glasgow University??, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and Rangers); Hibs' Rod Petrie supposedly represents the 26 East of Scotland FA clubs, of whom just three, Hearts, Hibs and Berwick Rangers are "league" clubs; Steven Brown of St Johnstone represents the seven Forfarshire FA clubs and Hamilton Accies' Scott Struthers sits on behalf of the seven West of Scotland FA clubs (Albion Rovers, Ayr United, Hamilton, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, St Mirren and junior side Girvan).

It's much the same as regards the SFL clubs. Airdrie United's Jim Ballantyne, Ewen Cameron of Alloa Athletic and Lachlan Cameron of Ayr United are the three SFL reps, but East Fife's Derrick Brown, sits on behalf of the five Fife FA clubs (Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline, East Fife, Raith Rovers and Burntisland Shipyard??); SFA board member Richard Shaw of Annan Athletic sits on behalf of the 15 Southern Counties FA clubs, just three of which - his own, Queen of the South and Stranraer are "league" clubs; Falkirk's Martin Ritchie represents the six Stirlingshire FA clubs (Alloa, Dumbarton, East Stirlingshire, Falkirk, Stenhousemuir and Stirling Albion).

You have the East of Scotland League, represented by former referee Dr Andrew Waddell of Preston Athletic, Findlay Noble of Fraserburgh sitting on behalf of the Highland League clubs, while David Dowling of Clachnacuddin represents the North of Scotland FA's 13 clubs and Keith's Sandy Stables sits on behalf of the 12 Aberdeen & District FA Clubs (Aberdeen, nine Highland League clubs and two North Junior clubs) and Colin Holden the Threave Rovers chairman represents the dozen or so South of Scotland League clubs.

The Council is completed by the representatives of the affiliated associations: the Juniors, Amateurs, Scottish Welfare FA, Scottish Schools FA, Scottish Youth FA and the Scottish Women's FA, plus four "Regional Representatives", whose function they themselves would be hard-pushed to explain.

At a time when the full United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland government is considering boundary changes to level-out the playing field of constituency sizes, so each MP is representing more or less the same number of constituents, how can the SFA justify a system whereby Eric Riley represents six clubs, Rod Petrie 26 and so on; each senior club has in effect two votes - one through the SPL or SFL representatives, another via their affiliated local FA, while the SJFA and the SAFA, the two organisations which represent respectively over 150 and 1500 community clubs have just two representatives on the SFA Council?

The whole system is slewed towards keeping power in the hand of a very few and democracy at bay. It's about getting as many snouts as possible into the feeding trough and for as long as two clubs' supporters bank-roll every other Scottish "league" club, the system will not change.

By the way, the make-up of the SFA Council disproves the old theory that these two clubs effectively run Scottish football. Ignoring Jack McGinn, Celtic's Riley and Rangers' Andrew Dickson are the only Old Firm men inside the Hampden corridors of power, and with every respect to the two men concerned - within their clubs they are hardly big hitters. They are just as body of the kirk in the SFA, Dickson sitting on the professional football and general purposes committees, Riley on the appeals committee.

I finish with a story told me by a now-retired freelance football writer, who was chuffed to bits to be elected as the Scottish Football Writers Association's representative onto the SFA's international match sub-committee, his remit, to ensure that the needs of the working press were met when it came to covering Scottish internationals.

He emerged from his first sub-committee meeting to announce: "They spent more time arguing about what type of wine to serve at the post-match banquet than about arrangements for the actual game".

I think that tale sums-up Scottish football and guys with that me-first attitude will never make the necessary changes.

It's going to be a long, hard, winter.

Here's Tae Us - Wha's Like Us

WHA'S like us indeed. We Scots may be 'The Master Race' (says Alex Ferguson), 'The world's best small nation' (Jack McConnell), 'Ra Peepul' (followers of a certain Glasgow football club), 'The greatest nation God ever put breath intae' (anonymous).

Equally, we might be 'Whinging Jocks' (any one of hundreds of Daily Mail columnists/readers), 'Subsidy junkies' (any one of thousands of London media types), '90 minute patriots' (Jim Sillars) or worse.

But right now, we are a people in turmoil - and I don't just mean because of our travails on the football pitch.

These are hard times for everyone, so why should our football be any different?

But, since 22 grown men chasing a bag of win around a field is apparently such an important part of Scottish life, because our teams get horsed in Europe, we are supposed to all be in mourning, wringing our hands and wailing: "Woe, woe and thrice woe is me."

It's all part of being Scottish. The wind ae has to be in our faces. We are never happy unless we are miserable. Why this should be I don't know, it's all part and parcel of our psyche.

Maybe this, Chick Young, the Krankies, Scottish politicians (national and local), the A9 and A82 roads in summer, Gaelic mouth music, football phone-ins, Radio Clyde, West Sound, the Daily Record, the Sunday Post, George Peat and Justin and Colin are the price we have to pay (rather than having the English for neighbours) for all the goodnesses God dispensed to this charmed corner of a wee island off the coast of Europe.

Once we've sorted-out Lithuania and Leichtenstein, the strut will be back in our step, our chests will again be puffed out, we will be on the way back, well as far as Rangers' first Champions League disaster, Spain deciding to stop tika-takiing about and actually scoring goals against us and then the whole sorry cycle will begin again.

'Twas ever thus. The Wembley Wizards were a knee-jerk reaction to being beaten by Wales and Ireland. We gubbed World Champions England in 1967; next time out we lost at home to the USSR, then George Best beat us on his own in Belfast and from a position of strength, we failed to qualify for the 1968 European Championship finals.

But what is annoying about our present position is - I can see we're shite. Ninety-nine out of 100 callers to the various phone-ins can see; the same proportion of posters on on-line forums can see - Henry bloody McLeish can see, we've got huge problems in football.

The only people who apparently cannot see this are the guys who can actually do something about it - the buffoons in the SFA blazers at Hampden.

And that makes my blood boil. This self-elected, self-perpetuating bunch of no-brains, no-hope, no-idea no-vision wasters are so busy looking after themselves, they make Nero, fiddling while Rome burned, appear competent.

Can somebody please sort them out.

Rant over.

An Forward Tho We Canna See We Guess and Fear

That's me, making the time-honoured reaction of a Scottish journalist in times of crisis, fire-in a quote from Burns. But, when you look at Scottish football in Europe, maybe the Allan McShagger of the late 18th century had a point.

We might be, looked at from that sophisticated hot-spot of the West End of London be a small, far-awy country, of which we know little, but from elsewhere in European football, we are all that and more. After another depressing night of European defeat, we are now, more than ever, down among the bottom feeders of the beautiful game on this continent.

When I first picked up a telephone and asked to be put through to copy - decades before the lap top became a basic tool of the journalism game - we looked patronisingly down on Scandinavian football; if Rangers were taken to a third game by Sparta Rotterdam, it was because of a poor display by Rangers, not because the Dutch were just as good.

Ditto, when Scotland lost to the Dutch, or the Swedes, the Portugese, the Turks, the Norwegians, the Southern Irish, the Swiss or the Belgians - bad day at the office, selectorial incompetence, tiredness after a long season were the reasons - not because, basically we were gash.

It's not as if this week's upsets were a shock, we've been having bad nights and bad weeks in Europe for at least a decade and nothing is ever done about it.

Our game lang syne went to the dogs - will somebody please make this fact known to the SFA and get something done about it.

I listened to the second half of the Celtic game and the final minutes of the Motherwell match on the radio on Thursday night. It was like hearing a loop tape, the same old excuses, well-rehearsed wailing, but there again, any programme such as Sportsound, which attempts to portray Chick Young as a serious journalist, is doing its listeners a dis-service.

Question: Why does BBC Scotland insist on sending Murdo MacLeod to cover Celtic matches - is it mandatory that they have an apologist reading from the club's authorised version at every game?

I think I'll stick to Scottish rugby - they might not be any good, but they're trying and have no false vision about our place in that game's firmament.

Sic A Parcel O Rogues

ROBERT Burns's opinion on the Scottish signatories to the Act of Union of 1707 has come to define our view of our national leaders. Between that and: "Him - a kent his faither", I'm sometimes surprised anyone take on a position of power and authority in Scotland. Then, you chat to your local Labour councillor and you realise, Scotland is a lunatic asylum which the inmates took over long ago.

For many of us and you can count me in on this, the biggest loonie bin is the Executive Corridor at Hampden. Here, just yards apart, the high-heid-yins of the various septs of Clan Caledonia sit behind their drawbridges, each doing his or her level best to ensure that his wee but an ben is THE most important fiefdom in the national game.

Here in Ayrshire we have a proud tradition of electing the village idiot onto the local junior team's committee, just onto the committee of course - we're not that daft (except in Cumnock) as to give the VI even a touch of power.

But, up at Hampden - they make him president.

Across in Edinburgh, at the SRU, they do things differently. Now let me say, the SRU have their mad moments, but, to climb the slippery pole to the good jobs at Murrayfield - you HAVE to have a knowledge of rugby, a feeling for the game and some intelligence. These are not attributes we can pin on everyone at Hampden.

Just this week Andy Irvine was appointed Chairman of the Magner's League, he is also Chairman of the British and Irish Lions. The current SRU president is Ian "Beastie" McLauchlan (forget the Mighty Mouse, to those of us who suffered pain at his hands, he will always be Beastie) - another of the legends of Scottish rugby as captain and British Lion.

When Irvine and McLauchlan speak, the world listens. When George Peat speaks, does anyone notice.

Of course, rugby, in spite of professionalism and the money washing around it, is still basically a game for the players - football hasn't been able to say that for generations.

We might have laughed at the likes of Burnley's Bob Lord or wee Willie Harkness of Queen of the South. Sure, these guys made mistakes, but, they cared about their local teams and the game of football.

Increasingly these days, the guys running the game (and by this I mean the people with real power, the owners and directors, not the managers, who are mere pawns) see footbal only as an investment opportunity or a club as a billionaire's play thing.

And that's why the game is in a mess.

He Aint Heavy - Just Toned

THREE of my grand-children are in their teens; all three are into sport in a big way. The one who runs and the one who plays rugby are both through their club being introduced to weight training and gym work - just light weights at the moment, but they are working out.

The rugby player, given he is already over six feet tall and is just 13, has a real chance of going somewhere in his sport, so it makes sense for him to start developing. The runner is a sprinter, so needs to build-up explosive force.

The footballer - naw, nae gym work and fact just a little above the bare minimum of technical work goes into his training.

Neither I nor their parents are pushy, determined they will be top-flight participants, so long as they enjoy their sport and have fun, we'll be happy.

But, and there should not be a but, why is it football has never bought into strength and conditioning work? Yes, more than rugby and athletics there is a technical element to football, but, the fitter you are, the stronger your body is, the better your conditioning, the better-equipped you are to fulfill the technical part of the game.

Peter Crouch is six foot seven, England has a couple of six foot six/seven rugby players in their national team - a photograph of Crouch, stripped to the waist, alongside his rugby compatriot of the same height would be interesting, since the rugby player would be better-muscled and have more stamina; he'd be more explosive and better able to ride the hard knocks.

Football just doesn't DO gym work. A decade or so ago I covered an SPL club which at that time had what few Scottish clubs had - unfettered access to a well-equipped gym. There then manager also had a back-ground in sports physiology. He decided his players would work out regularly, would become better-conditioned, more like athletes.

He devised gym sessions, he insisted the players participated. The foreign players worked-out religiously, as did, to be fair, three or four of the younger Scottish players, but, since the players' sessions over-lapped with public sessions which saw several young ladies working-out in the gym, the majority of the players simply went in their and posed and chatted-up the women.

Only one of the Scots who worked assidiously is still playing in the SPL.

I ribbed one of the players, a Scotland Under-21 cap: "Is that all you're lifting", as I watched him doing some bench presses.

"I'd like to see you do better", was his response. He was doing sets of eight presses with 100kg - I (at least 25 years older), removed my jacket and did three sets of ten with the same weight. He was gob-smacked.

I hadn't the heart to tell him my rugby team had been working with weights before he was born.

Yes, we have technical deficiencies in Scottish football, but we also have strength and conditioning issues, which we need to address. After all, is 72-year-old Willie Wood, with all his skills and experience, can submit himself to conditioning work in preparation for the Commonwealth Games - what excuse is there for our top footballers to be allowed to report for training at 10am and be finished for the day by noon?

What Bobby Robson called: "Time on the grass" (ball work) is important, but so too in today's game, is time in the gym.

Mince For Brains

BACK in the 1960s, when Andy Cameron was just starting out in comedy, THE celebrity Rangers supporting comedian was Lex McLean. Cameron may be an acquired taste to many, but, believe me, he's several times funnier than ever McLean was.

A regular target for McLean's attempts at wit was George "Dandy" McLean, the inside forward whom Rangers signed from St Mirren as a teenaged "Wunderkind". Big Dandy never quite scaled the heights he might have at Ibrox, where he perhaps took as his role model, the off-field Jim Baxter and, after the embarrassment of the Berwick defeat McLean and fellow striker Jim Forrest were cast into the outer darkness.

Forrest wilted under the shame of being discarded by the only team he loved, McLean - dubbed "Mince" McLean by his comedic namesake, who insisted the player had: "mince for brains" went on to enjoy a not-bad career, even swelling the somewhat thin ranks of those players who left Ibrox uncapped and subsequently went on to win a Scotland cap. He also formed a prolific Ayr United scoring duo with Alex Ferguson, another player discarded unfairly by Rangers, while McLean and his first wife, a former Miss Scotland, were the Posh and Becks of the sixties in Glasgow.

Anyway, McLean, Forrest and Ferguson were all pumped by Rangers after one bad performance, the future knight of the realm's "crime" being to not mark Billy McNeill closely-enough to allow him to head Celtic in front in the 1969 Scottish Cup Final.

Given that level of intolerance in the 1960s, Kyle Lafferty should give thanks nightly that he is at Rangers today. Here is a player more fitting of the "Mince for Brains" prize than George McLean ever was. He is a permanent "big reddie" waiting to break out in the corporate face of Rangers.

Mind you, after his latest performance, in being sent off at Easter Road yesterday, I feel he should now consider his options, since I feel his reputation is going before him and Scottish referees are all-too-ready to show him a yellow or red card for offences for which other players would get either a warning or the lesser card.

Take yesterday's dismissal; more sheer stupidity than malice-aforethought. In fact, having watched it a couple of times on the BBC website, I feel Anthony Stokes was more worthy of a red card than Lafferty. He had a go at the Rangers player in the aftermath of his (Lafferty's) clash with McBride and was hustled somewhat roughly out of harm's way by Davie Weir, having earlier added his twopenceworth to the laughable confrontation between those two intellectual giants of Scottish football, Messrs McGregor and Riordan.

But, Lafferty is now Scottish football's hiss-boo villain of choice, so he gets the red. That's football.

I feel what football ought to do his introduce rugby-style citings. Appoint some recently-retired referees to adjudicate in the calmer atmosphere of a Monday morning, on the weekend's flashpoint.

Given such an addition to the disciplinary programme, Weir might today be expecting a yellow card for his man-handling of Stokes, who would be due two and therefore one red card, for his involvement in the two flashpoint incidents.

After a season of zero tolerance and in the knowledge there was no hiding place for their follies, Scotland's players, maybe even Lafferty, McGregor, Riordan and Stokes, with their mince for brains, might get the message and clean up their acts - for the good of the game.

Viva Espana

SPANISH style is all the football rage just now. After their national team's triumph in South Africa, there is a desire for a bit of Spanish flair, a touch of tiki-taka in football outwith the major part of the Iberina peninsula.

Interesting therefore to find Mikel Arteta of Everton, who has acquired a British passport, after seven years playing in British football, being touted as a potential English international.

I may be maligning my countrymen unfortunate enough to be born south of the Solway and east of Offa's Dyke, but I don't think they would take too-kindly to having the iconic lillywhite shirt sullied by some Johnny Foreigner type, not matter how well he has done in their own over-rated top flight.

Let's be clear here, there is a sizeable minority of England fans who are none-too-keen on English-born-and-raised players of Afro-Caribbean ethnicity playing for England. But, that's their problem and given how religious differences have blighted Scottish football over the years, we can hardly afford to cast stones south.

So, I feel that even if Pele and Maradona were to be restored, at the height of their powers, to today's Premiership and be eligible for England, picking them would be controversial.

But Scotland, with our shallower gene pool, lower quality teams and players - why shouldn't we try to recruit him?

I am not certain of the eligibility criteria for players who become naturalised Britons. Do they have to play for the single British country in whose league they play - or can any one of the four countries have a go at recruiting him?

It's not as if Arteta is a stranger to Scotland, he first came to this country with Rangers remember, and if he hadn't spent that period at Ibrox, he still would not be eligible for a British passport. So, let's go get him.

There are precedents in other sports - former Scotland rugby captain Budge Poutney was born in the Channel Islands and was therefore able to pick from the four Home Countries when it came to international rugby - he chose Scotland.

As I see it, Arteta has the same passport as every other one of our international players, so why shouldn't Craig Levein try to persuade him to play for Scotland. He'd be better-appreciated by the Tartan Army than by the Barmy Army I feel, and, he'd make a difference to our side.

Go for it Craig.

Help Ma Boab - there's twa o them

If you know your Glasgow history, you will recognise the heading to today's post as a cleaned-up version of one punter's - one Friday night, second house, at the old Empire in Sauchiehall Street - welcome on to the stage of Bernie Winters, to join his less-funny, less-talented but more ego-driven brother Mike.

Today, it is perhaps the (again cleaned-up) response of a Scottish Daily Telegraph reader to a piece this week by Jim White. Said reader had a real go at Mr White, regarding his article, which criticised Neil Lennon.

Now leaving aside our incredulity at a Celtic supporter reading the "Torygraph" - there are Tories in Scotland, they just don't let-on - said member of the Celtic family rather shot himself in the foot. He was having a go at the Telegraph's Jim White, but thought he was hitting out at the other one - the (allegedly) Rangers-supporting flute band afficianado, who formerly plied his trade for STV and is now to be found on Sky Sports.

An easy mistake to make - Walter Smith once embarrassed himself in front of the massed ranks of the Scottish football media, because he didn't know there were two Kenny Macdonalds in membership of the Scottish Football Writers Association - but, enough meandering, let's cut to the chase.

Telegraph Jim White fell foul of a few Celtic-minded critics, because he suggested that instead of blaming English agents for his failure to sign quality players, he ought to shut up and trust in his young players.

Sound advice, I'd say and to be fair to Lenny, he has given an early season chance to young James Forrest, a product of the club's youth development programme. This is welcome and maybe, after the cheque-book years of the Blessed Martin, the Ginger Whinger and Tony Whatsisname, maybe, once again Celtic will grow their own.

They might never go back to the Kelly Kids and the Quality Street Gang, the youngsters whom Jock Stein made into Legends, but, Forrest will hopefully not be the last Kerrydale Street Kid to be given his chance.

I also have some sympathy for the Lennon view on modern players. Money has always been a factor in football, but today, in England, money has totally ruined the game.

NO players in football operate under greater pressure than those of Celtic and Rangers. Behind them they have fan bases who EXPECT to win every game, in fact they DEMAND that every game be won.

In truth most Rangers' fans don't particularly care how their team wins, just that it does and that, the Protestant team triumphs. From the Celtic end comes the additional pressure to win THE CELTIC WAY, with style and panache.

Then there is the other side of the coin - the demand of the opposition fans that the Glasgow giants be downed, so they, the fans of the underdogs, can enjoy a short spell of gloating. Then there is the challenge the Old Firm players face on the park - because, regardless of the opposition, you can always bet that any Scottish team they face contains two or three Rangers fans: determined either to beat Celtic, or show Rangers they are a better bet for them than the foreign import he is going head-to-head with - and two or three Celtic fans, determined to beat Rangers, or show Celtic he is a better bet for them than the foreign import he is going head-to-head with.

That throws additional pressure onto the import. It's an easier ride to go through the motions, for more money, with a mid-table English club, than submit yourself to the trial by expectation in front of a Glasgow audience which can be as unforgiving as that guy who gave Bernie Winters such a warm welcome all those years ago.

Who cannot forgive them taking this view.

Wanted - Men Of Vision

IN the week in which we buried Jimmy Reid, it is pertinent to ask: When will we see his like again?" Because, men of vision such as Jimmy are thin on the ground in 21st century Scotland.

Given a government threat to close down their workplace, the average trade union response, today as back in 1970 is: "right lads - down tools and out the door", thereby precipitating closure; it took real shrewdness to, as Jimmy and the UCS shop stewards showed, to work-in.

Let's take another example of Scotsmen doing the unexpected and indeed, thinking the unthinkable - when the lords of the Scottish parliament in 1707 threw-in their lot with England.

Burns later labelled them: "Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation".

Maybes aye, maybes naw - but, thanks to the Scots, the British Empire became greater than any English Empire might have been. Of course, in the end, the English got greedy, tried to take all the credit, all the money and wanted things done their way - which pissed-off a lot of right-thinking Scots, cue the rise of Scottish nationalism (small n you note), arguments and devolution. Next stop independence.

Now the controversial bit. Maybe the Lords who run the SFA should be thinking the unthinkable - maybe it's time to sue for football union with England.

Nothing new there; when Scot William McGregor of Aston Villa and that patrician former public schoolboy Charles W Allcock were the leading players in making the Football Association and the Football League the leading sporting bodies in the country, they didn't see these as being English organisations - they wanted pan-British organisations.

OK, the international football team of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as the country then was) would have been and still would be "England", except a bunch of thrawn men in the south of Glasgow objected - Queen's Park became Scotland and a one hundred years plus sporting war began.

But today, the Scottish domestic football market is to small. We will survive as an international nation, albeit slipping gracefully down the standings into genteel poverty of status and ambition, but, our club game is doomed - because we cannot compete with the elephant next door - England.

But, if we were in one FA, one league set-up, it might work.

Or maybe, joining England is simply the move we cannot make.

But, we have to do something, the status quo is not an option.

So, where are the men with the wit, imagination and vision to come up with a solution which guarantees a future for Scottish club football. This may be union with England, it might be a Magners-style Celtic League; it could be a North Atlantic League; a North Sea League; even an amalgamation of the small nations in Europe into a pressure group.

What it cannot be is the current situation of three tiny, self-seeking groups, in which the same men make different decisions according to whether they are wearing their club hats, their SPL or SFL hats, their Forfarshire/Stirlingshire/East of Scotland/North of Scotland/West of Scotland FA hats or their SFA Glengarry.

And don't get me started on those ego-driven message boys - the managers; the men whose every utterance is treated as gospel, but whose only function is to spend as much of the real decision-makers' money as they can, while asking for more.

Vorksprung Dur Technik

SO Henry McLeish's next stop is Germany - you've got to hand it to Scotland's political class, they like to travel. Of course his German advanture will do hee-haw for Scottish football, unless he gets to chat to some former SS and Gestapo men, who will give him advice on how to round up people seen as undesirables. By that I mean the Hampden blazers - getting rid of them might not be a Final one, but it might be a start to finding a solution to our continuing football problems.

Mind you, we tried the German solution before - when we recruited wee Berti Vogts as National Team Manager. Now Berti's rule is seen as having been a failure, an embarrassment, a period to be ashamed of.

Maybe a wee bit of revision is necessary here.

Berti Vogts introduced to international football: Craig Gordon; Graham Alexander, Gary Caldwell, Andy Webster, Stephen Crainey; Darren Fletcher, Lee McCulloch, Stephen Pearson, James McFadden; Garry O'Connor and Kevin Kyle. He also had the faith in Kenny Miller which resurrected his international career after his single honour under Craig Brown.

If fit and available, eight or nine of that lot would have been in Craig Levein's squad in Sweden last week - and now Blackpool are in the English Premiership, don't bet against Crainey being recalled, we are chronically short of left backs.

Vogts also introduced David Marshall to the international arena, Nigel Quashie, who served Scotland well, as did Lee Wilkie before his injury woes. Richard Hughes, another Vogts discovery has been a consistent Premiership performer for many years while injuries and the wrong moves rather than a lack of ability probably side-tracked the likes of Russell Anderson, Jamie Smith and Paul Gallacher, not forgetting the John Kennedy tragedy.

Sure Vogts picked some perceived dumplings - Robbie Stockdale, Warren Cummings, Scott Dobie, Gareth Williams and so on, and Mickey Stewart failed to realise his potential.

But, at the time he was Scotland manager, the SPL was over-loaded with foreign players, can anyone tell me which promising young Scot he ignored?

Vogts was working to the German pattern: pick a young squad, let them develop and accept a few defeats along the way, but, in time they will come through.

That view doesn't fit with the Scottish demand for a winning team - yesterday ; our chronic inability to trust our young players, plus the self-interest of certain clubs, one in particular, who would rather not have their players away on Scotland duty.

Sorry, Henry, going to Germany will solve nothing - until the SFA is ethnically-cleansed.

Wonderful Thing Technology

RESEARCH for a book I'm currently writing has seen me, this week, trawling through a film archive. It's great fun, viewing footage, mostly in black and white, of long-ago games. In the course of my researches, I have gone off-track once or twice to have a look at iconic matches, which don't really fit in with the on-going work.

Yesterday, I chanced upon footage of the England 3 Hungary 6 match in 1953 and found myself chuckling quietly. This was a highlights package, an English edit - which made it seem that the Hungarians, instead of playing England off the park, had been lucky to win by three breakaways.

I was once given, as a present, a two-part "History of Scottish Football" video. The footage of the 1967 Wembley match was, like the Hungarian footage, an English edit - looking at it: boy were we lucky to win that one.

Match coverage rights are now big business; for example, Sky has the rights to home Scotland internationals, so, if you cannot get to Hampden, haven't got Sky, or cannot be bothered going down to the nearest pub which is showing the game, you're ever so grateful for the BBC Scotland highlights show at night. Trouble is, this can give you a somewhat distorted view of the game and with today's spread of internet forums and chat rooms - received wisdom can in actual fact be fairly stupid, if what's posted on-line is based on watching edited highlights, rather than the entire game.

Football is now more widely publicised than ever before. When I was a boy, you got the FA or the Scottish Cup Final, most but not every Scotland v England game and the very occasional important World Cup tie - for everything else, you had to actually go to the game.

Gradually, however, as Sports Report switched from radio to television and Scotsport began, edited highlights were shown, which helped spread football's appeal. This, by the way was not such good news for football reporters who actually writer their reports.

In the days before TV, the big name writers of the day - the likes of 'Waverley' in the Daily Record or RE "Rex" Kingsley in the Sunday Mail had a bit of poetic licence when it came to describing goals or a match in general.

Today, if you tried to embellish your goal description as these past-masters and their peers were able to, you'd be laughed at, since the goal had been seen from 15 different angles, in real time, solw-motion and stop-action; it had also been thoroughtly analysed by a former professional -you now have to tell it like it is, or else.

That's not such a bad thing: we are always told as we get into the journalism game, that facts are sacred, comment is free. Trouble is today I more often than not feel it's a case of not letting the facts get in the way of a good line, and don't comment - less you offend someone in football.

Today, the gospel according to St Rupert of Wapping is: Verily, the English Premier League is the greatest show on earth, everything else is inferior and thou shalt not point out that most of the Premiership games are crap.

Furthermore, I say unto thee, the SPL is mince and not to be mentioned in the same breath as the English league.

Aye, the SPL is mince, but it's guid Scotch mince, which is just as tasty and not nearly as over-priced as the English variety.

I sometimes long for the good old days, and no wonder.

Another meander down a side track yesterday had me watching edited highlights of the 1961 England v Scotland match, the 93- game. Received wisdom has it that that heavy defeat was all Frank Haffey's fault. Now the package I watched wasn't the best, too many cut-aways to the crowd at vital moments and with the goals limited by and large to the final pass and shot. But, from what I saw big Frank can only really be blamed for two of the nine goals he conceded. So the big man has for nearly 50 years carried the can for the deficiencies of the 10 in blue in front of him.

OK, it's nice to hide behind Bobby Shearer's famous excuse: "The English cheated, they used an orange ball, (Eric) Caldow and I wouldn't kick it and Frank and Billy McNeill refused to go near it", it helps us laugh, which stops us crying - but, time perhaps for history to be revised.

Yes Please

MARADONA for Villa - "Yes please" say I. After all they've already got Prince William as a fan, even if he has yet to be seen in the Holte End at Villa Park; so if an Anglo-German princeling is good enough for them as a fan, why not have genuine football royalty in the dug out.

Just a pity John Robertson packed his tent along with the Blessed Martin, what might the Villa players have learned from having Maradona and "The Tramp" on the training pitch on a daily basis.

Of course, it will never happen, and even if the impossible was to come to pass and Randy Lerner did give him the job, I reckon the Tartan Army's favourite non-Scot would have shot about a full team of tabloid hacks in the first month.

The press conferences would be great though.

**********

Week One of the new season, at least as far as the big, self-important clubs are concerned, and what do you know - the referees are in the firing line already. Between an assistant in the Wigan v Blackpool game who seemed to be making-up the offside law as he went, and Craig Thomson falling foul of 'Jack and Victor' at Motherwell on Sunday, the men in black haven't had the best of starts.

I try to avoid criticising referees; theirs's is mission impossible and what I always tell myself is: if football was perfect, every game would finish 0-0, because every pass would be to feet, every tackle would be perfect, every shot would be on-target, but the goalkeepers would make every save.

It's the imperfections which make it such a great game, the mistakes which undo all the coaches' careful planning and rehearsals. We don't look for perfection from the players, so why expect it from the referees?

They are much-maligned, but, we couldn't have a game without them and in my experience, referees care far more about the game than players or directors.

As the Lord taught us: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. (I know that's the Church of England version, but the Church of Scotland version is all about forgiving debts and debtors - a most un-Scottish concept.

**********

HOW are the mighty fallen. Rangers and Celtic are now reduced to scrabbling around in the bargain bins of Eglish Premiership clubs which haven't got their history, support, standing or ambition, to take off their hands over-hyped, over-paid players who are surplus to the English clubs' requirements and have to be off-loaded on-loan to fit-in with the new rules about squad sizes and eligibility.

Now tell me money hasn't ruined football.

**********

AS a goalkeeper myself, I feel for Pepe Reina of Liverpool after his own goal against Arsenal. All a keeper can do in such instances is quote Forrest Gump: "Shit happens".

I well remember, many years ago, when he was first touted as a Scotland goalkeeper, looking forward to my first sighting of the young Billy Thomson of St Mirren. This came in a League Cup tie at Somerset Park.

Early in the second half, as he tipped away a shot for a corner, I opined aloud: "Ive been impressed by young Thomson in goal, so far".

Over came the corner, which Big Billy proceeded to punch into his own net.

There's only one response to that: "Doh!"

A Good Idea Son

HAS Sepp Blatter, or Sepp Bladder, fitba's biggest tube as some Tartan Army irregulars call him, been rifling through the trash bin on my lap top?

I ask this, because doing away with draws has long been a bee in my bonnet, and much abuse I have taken for holding it in late-night brainstorming sessions with fellow members of football's intelligentsia.

And why not, in American sport, by far the most-professional arenas in the world, they simply don't get draws (like kissing your sister, they say). Well kissing your sister might make sense in certain parts of Fife, Ayrshire, north of the Highland Line and in the Borders, but is anathema to the great majority of us.

So why, because it was acceptable in the English public school sporting tradition, of fair play and not excelling, the rest of the world has to put up with it, has long been beyond me.

Herr Blatter is proposing abolishing draws in the group games in the World Cup - why stop there? Abolish it altogether.

Would you not rather see your team going flat-out for goals but losing 5-4, than getting all ten outfield players behind the ball and trying to hold out for 90 minutes for a 0-0 draw?

Football is supposed to be part of the entertainment business - so let's entertain by going for goals and deil tak the hindmost.

Bonus points work in other sports. In rugby you can lose a match, but still take two points from it: score more than three tries, you get one bonus point - lose by less than two scores and you get another. Let's try it in football, then, if you lost 5-4, you'd get two points, for the more than three goals and the one-goal deficit.

Since we'd be doing away with draws, we could adapt the game time and its consequences.

One-one at 90 minutes: both sides get a point.

Ten minutes of extra time to produce a silver goal - if it happens, the winning team gets an additional two points, the losing side gets an extra point for the one-goal final deficit.

No more goals, or the teams still level, go to a second ten minutes, to produce a golden goal, with the added points accruing as for the silver goal.

Still no result, we go to penalties to produce a winner; losing team still gets two points, winner three.

Playing for bonus points would positively discriminate in favour of all-out attacking football and mitigate against the present-day "don't lose" attitude. It would probably bring many of the absent fans back.

I commend the idea to the house.

Pre-destination

"HOLY" Willie Fisher, that 18th century Mauchline kirk elder, immortalised by Robert Burns, believed in pre-destination. This was a popular belief in the Church of Scotland at that time - that God sent one to Heaven and nine to Hell, willy-nilly, so you'd better appear good, to have a better chance of being the one in ten going upstairs at time up.

Pre-destination almost works in today's Scottish football. Being an old saddo, I spent a lot of time over the close season working out a post-war Scottish League table, taking the 65 seasons and turning them into one.

Eight of the season 2010-11 SPL Top Twelve are in this 1945-2010 top flight, in descending order the line-up is: Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell, Dundee United, Dundee, St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle and Falkirk.

St Johnstone are in 14th spot, Hamilton Accies are 24th and Inverness Caledonian Thistle are 25th. Swap the Perth Saints for Dundee and Accies and the Highlanders for the bottom two and you have a finishing order for next May which is entirely possible.

I should add here, to avoid offending tender Edinburgh sensibilities, that Hibs are above Hearts because they've played more top-flight games, in terms of percentages of games won and points gained, Hearts are just ahead (43.2 to 40.4 per cent of games won, 53.7 to 50.5 per cent of points gained).

Therefore, if we accept that the Glasgow Boys will finish first and second, the rest are playing for third place, the fans ought to be accepting what Fergus McCann used to insist was a reality check about Scottish football.

Don't make noises about splitting the Old Firm - it has only happened once since the SPL was formed. If you're not a fan of a "City" club, don't go on about yours being "a Top Six team" - you're deluding yourself.

Instead, accept it will be tough, you're club is where it should be, and remember the words of Mick Jagger: "You can't always get what you want".

But, if your players and coaching staff try hard enough, you might get a pleasant surprise come May.

AND while I'm getting at the self-delusional, what about English players? This week we've had Wes Brown and Paul Robinson retiring from international football and David James and David Beckham being retired from the same. Fabio Capello, being Italian, probably does not understand, in England there is a way of handling such things - the two Davids should have received vellum long and distinguished service scrolls from the FA, while behind the scenes steps were taken to ensure James had his MBE up-graded to an OBE and Beckham finally got that knighthood the English football press pack have been touting for years.

The other two should have been pissed upon from a great height. Wes Brown has never been a first pick at Manchester United, but he would NEVER try the "pick me or I'm off" ultimatum to the Govan Godfather. Why then did he think it would work with Don Fabio?

Robinson might have more of a case. Sure, he's made his boobs on England duty, but, at Blackburn he has rebuilt his reputation. But, Joe Hart is the future and after so long as a club number one, Robinson is probably not inclined to go back to being an international back-up.

But, the British way is to turn up when your nation calls, not when it suits you, so Capello must keep the door closed.

Our Carling Cup Could Runneth Over

FOR some time now there has been an acceptance that "British" football is different from the game as played in Europe and South America. On these islands there is not the same demand for technical skills; we play a more-physical, biff-bang, long-ball game, at a higher tempo.

Once upon a time we could compete, our players were maybe not so skilled as the Europeans or South Americans, but we were fitter and could blow them away almost with our power.

This hasn't been the case for a number of years and as the Europeans matched our power, their greater technical skills have increasingly embarrassed us on the big stages of World Cups and European Championships finals.

And if the top English Premiership clubs have continued to fly the flag at the sharp end of the Champions League, well they are "English" clubs only in as far as they play their domestic league games in England - you don't find too-many players who are qualified to wear the three lions, or the lion rampant, in their first-team squads.

But despite reams of evidence to the contrary, the English still believe themselves to be big players on football's stage - too big to participate in the new Carling Nations Cup, which was unveiled this week in Dublin.

The reality is: this is the Alba Challenge Cup of the international arena - a diddy cup, competed for by four diddy nations. It has as much to do with front-line international football as the SFL's second tournament has to do with the Champions League.

Sure, the games will be competitive; they will be fought-out like junior cup ties; there will be passion on the terraces, particularly when the two Irish sides clash. But will it help Scotland, who remember, for all our current problems will still go into it as the top-ranked side, end our years of banishment from the top table?

Maybes aye, maybes naw - to quote our finest (only) impressionist of one of our finest players.

I'm sorry to keep on flogging this particular horse, but, if Craig Levein uses the Nations Cup properly, it can help us qualify for Euro '2012 and maybe even Brazil 2014 - but I fear, once Gorgeous George Peat and the Pathetics in the top corridor at Hampden have put-in their twopenceworth, it will be the same old, same old.

We don't have a system for progressing our best talent through the ranks - our Under-21 players all too often cannot get a game for their clubs, so it takes longer for them to take that step-up from Under-21 to full internationals, if they ever do.

Just this week I had a look through my international football data base for the progression rates from the Scotland Under-21 team to the full side, since the SPL was formed - and remember, one of the main planks in its formation was that there would be a proper development system for young players.

In 1999, the first season of the SPL, we blooded 11 new boys into the Under-21 team: four were from SPL clubs: Paul Gallacher of Dundee United, Gavin Rae of Dundee and the Rangers duo of Barry Nicholson and Scott Wilson. The first three of these subsequently made the jump to the full international team, even if Nicholson had to leave Rangers for Dunfermline to do so.

In 2000, we blooded 19 Under-21 caps, 14 from SPL clubs; 6 of these 14 got full caps, as did three of the five Anglos capped. In 2001, six home-Scots and two Anglos were blooded, only Motherwell's Stevie Hammell and Hibs' of the six home boys made the step-up.

In 2002, eight new Under-21 caps emerged, six of them from SPL clubs; of these, only Stephen Hughes, a one-cap wonder from the ill-fated Burley Tours trip to Japan and Shaun Maloney "trained on" to become full caps.

Certainly the stars shone on the 2003 intake. That was the year of Kris Boyd, Darren Fletcher, Craig Gordon, James McFadden, Allan McGregor, Andy Webster and Garry O'Connor. Eleven of the 21 new caps that season have gone on to win full caps, but some, such as Rangers' Andy Dowie and Celtic's Anthony McParland found their level somewhere below the SPL.

From 2004's 25 Under-21 caps, we got eight full internationalists, the best-known being Alan Hutton. In 2005, Kirk Broadfoot, Christophe Berra, Kevin Thomson and Steven Whittaker, all of whom played in Stockholm in midweek, made their Under-21 international bows, along with substitute goalkeeper Iain Turner and the injured Scott Brown - but what became of Tom Brighton of Rangers, Daryll Duffy of Falkirk and Peter Leven of Kilmarnock? Certainly Duffy got a big-money move to Hull City, but his career has stalled.

In the first ten seasons of the SPL 102 young players from clubs in that league were capped at Under-21 level; 42 of these have gone on to become full caps. That is actually quite a good percentage, but, given that for most of these years the SPL clubs appeared to have something against young Scots players, preferring to buy third or fourth rate overseas players, it is a percentage which surprised me.

So, the talent is there, just as it has always been there; but we're not making the most of it. I would like to see the Nations Cup used as a half-way house between the Under-21 and full teams, as a means of Craig Levein ascertaining which younger players are ready to take the step up to the full squad.

A competitive format such as this new competition, albeit one which is some way away from the challenges we will face against Spain and the like, just might be the making of a new, more-successful Scotland team. It strikes me it would be better to blood young players against Wales and the two Irelands, in a tournament, than in a meaningless away friendly.

We Don't Do Friendlies

THE Scots are acknowledged around the globe as among the friendliest people anywhere, visitors to our fair land all acknowledge this facet of our national personality. Paradoxically, we are also seen as dour and self-effacing, nippy and, in military terms these friendly Jocks are, at the same time, among the fiercest fighting men on the planet.

Our Tartan Army of football fans are a by word as party animals, yet, few national games have as many private wee wars going on as Scottish football - aye, here's tae us, wha's like us - damn few an they're awe deid, right enough.

One thing is clear about Scottish football, however - we don't do friendlies, never have, perhaps never will. Scotland's success ratio in international football regularly hovers around the 40% wins mark. Sure, we had the odd good spell, this was usually in the 18 months or so before the World Cup, but whether we had our own Golden Generation, Baxter, Law, the Lisbon Lions, via Bremner and Dalglish and Souness, or, as recently, we've been forced to field teams of journeymen, overall we still struggle to win more than 40-45% of our internationals.

That said, we have always won a higher percentage of competitive rather than friendly internationals; in recent years, however, our successes in friendlies have become rarer than ever.

I was not, therefore, too confident about the outcome of yesterday's trip to Stockholm, and my fears were all too soon realised, once the Swedes got that early goal.

International football has never been as competitive as it is today. Every international counts towards a country's FIFA co-efficient. The UEFA co-efficient is more-sensible, only competitive games count for that.

Once upon a time the SFA could take a squad away to Europe at the end of a season, play two or three no-stress friendlies, bond as a squad, sight-see, get to know each other, enjoy a working holiday.

Today, with the higher-pace of the game, the greater financial rewards, the greater stresses on players of the modern game, that cannot be done. Also, international football, once a sort of break from the club game, is now just as competitive - you try to qualify for the World Cup and, once the finals are over, you start to try to qualify for the European Championships; once these finals are over, it's back on the World Cup treadmill - there is no let-up.

So, to get off the treadmill, build a squad, try things out, why doesn't the SFA adapt an old technique?

Back in the 1950s, there would be games such as Scotland v Anglo-Scots, Scotland v the Scottish League, Scotland v the British Army (a team comprising very good young players doing their National Service). Even, in the build-up to the 1958 World Cup, we had Scotland v Rangers and Scotland v Hearts.

Craig Levein would perhaps have been better giving Stockholm a miss this week and instead splitting his squad into SPL players and the rest - Over-25s v Under-25s, even that staple of club practice matches: Tims v Proddies, (no, scrub that - bad idea).

With a bit of commercial pizzazz this squad get-together-cum game could have been sold as a charity game, played at one of the smaller SPL grounds, away from Hampden, at reduced prices, kids in free, and he could have worked-out a few things without endangering Scotland's FIFA co-efficient. It would also have allowed the next generation of Tartan Army recruits to get up close to all their heroes.

As I've said before, we don't have a proper plan for the development of our international team - we need a B or Futures squad to plug the gap between the Under-21 squad and the A team. That interim squad would I feel, be the perfect vehicle for the proposed British Isles Cup, but until that is brought into being, I would suggest the first international date of any season is utilised for the inter-squad match I have suggested above.

The Carnage is Coming

SO "The Blessed Martin" has quit as manager of Aston Villa.

I've seen this one coming, just as the parting of the ways between Liverpool and Rafa was well-signposted. The common denominator: American owners, for with both Villa and Liverpool the crucial decisions are taken Stateside, by club owners brought up in the somewhat different climate of professional sport, American style.

Over there, there isn't a European-style transfer market; Washington Redskins cannot simply buy the Dallas Cowboys quarter back or the LA Lakers purchase the Boston Celtic's point guard in the way Real Madrid could buy AC Milan's play-maker or Real Madrid Manchester United's main striker.

In the USA, most player moves take place at the end of a contract, or after a sometimes complicated player trade deal is set-up. There is so much money in professional sport over there to waste it by buying the services of a single player.

The concept of "cashing-in" on a player's transfer value in the final year of his contract is unknown. Sure, NBA team A might pay-up to get a big name player from Team B in the final year of that player's contract, but the deal will only happen if Team A is prepared to trade a player whome Team B's coach feels can add something to his roster.

I think maybe Randy Lerner, Villa's American owner, a man brought-up in the ways of American sport is somewhat bemused by European football at the top level's obsession with transfers.

He perhaps feels that, if Manchester City, with all that Arab wealth, wants to pay over the odds for James Milner, then Villa ought to take the money - but doesn't want to waste that wind-fall on paying over the odds for a replacement - cue conflict with MON, a manager who is good at spending owners' money, not so good at encouraging young talent..

There is a considerable American influence now at Arsenal, while Manchester United is American-owned. There is no public knowledge of friction between the American money men at both clubs and their very European managers. Because, quite simply, Messers Wegner and Ferguson are the only two top-flight bosses at the top in England whose first instinct is to breed players rather than buy. Of course, both will, if pushed, get out the cheque book, but unlike bosses such as O'Neill, both would rather breed than buy.

Football is changing. The spending spree of recent seasons, fuelled as it was by television money, in some ways resembled the pre-World War I arms race, to build the biggest ships and the biggest guns.

That race ended with the slaughter on the Western Front - there will be similar carnage, without, thankfully, the same waste of life, in European football soon.

World War I put paid to the upper classes across Europe, the class who ruled as of right. The fall-out from football's over-spending will be just as catastrophic and could lead to a more American-style egalitarian, game - run by a meritocracy rather than an aristocracy; Martin O'Neill, heir to Clough of the East Midlands, just might be an early casualty.