Midsummer Murder Polis

THESE are sad days for the Scottish football fanatic - as the leaking, listing SS Scottish Fitba lies, becalmed in the midst of the close season doldrums. Those poor saps with the sair necks: the True Blues and Green White and Gold brigade who never take off their scarves, even when the mercury hits 30 degrees C are resorted to even pettier games of Whitabootery on their websites of choice.

The even sadder saps, the football writers of the red top tabloids are doing brazen Shane Warne impressions as they attempt to put a positive spin on transfer rumours which defy logic - if logic ever had anything to do with Scottish football, and in particular Old Firm transfer targets.

But, this close season 2011, there has been another topic to become agitated about, sadly, this was not one anyone of a sensitive disposition would want to discuss openly - we refer of course to the sad situation involving Hearts' Craig Thomson, who finds himself on the Sex Offenders register, following some stupid and unwanted attentions on two girls from his native Bonnyrigg.

Thomson, until the day his case hit court, was on the cusp of a potentially good career. Today, that career is in ruins - if he ever plays senior football again, it is unlikely to be in Scotland, where they abuse - verbal on match days, potentially physical at other times - would be intolerable.

Had he been in some other jobs, he might have survived and been able to carry on; however, in a branch of the entertainment industry, wherein youngsters are very important and in which there is media pressure for the top-flight performers to be good role models, there is no way he can possibly continue. This is sad for Thomson, but is reality.

Hopefully the girls will grow up with no lasting ill-effects from the incidents, hopefully Thomson can somehow put this sordid incident behind him and make amends, but the damage has been done to his career and he must pay a high price for his stupidity.

As for Hearts, a club once seen as a paragon of moral rectitude - the story is told of a former Hearts' manager, appearing in court as a witness on behalf of a pre-war Hearts' star, who was accused of spitting in public, assuring the sheriff that his player could not have committed the offence.

"Why?" asked the Sheriff.

"Because no Heart of Midlothian player could be so uncouth", was the response.

Sadly, these days are past. Hearts' image and halo has slipped in recdent years and, under the control of the current Lithuanian loose cannon, it is impossible to see the club's good name being recovered any time soon. The official club statement of last Friday was surely an all-time low for one of the great institutions of Scottish football.

A FINAL word for the moment on the on-going saga of the Team GB football squad for next year's London Olympics. I see the expectation is that, some day soon, England Under-21 coach Stuart Pearce will be named as coach of the men's team.

Well, if Psycho is given the gig, it pretty-well guarantees an early exit. His appointment should also do much to kill-off interest in augmenting the England squad by Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh players who are reportedly interested.

Britannia Waives The Rules - Again

"BRITANNIA waives the rules" is actually a mis-quote. The original quote, in reference to the New York Yacht Club's long possession of the America's Cup read: "Britannia rules the waves - the NYYC waives the rules" since that august body wasn't above rule-changes if they helped keep that mighty trophy bolted to the floor in the club's committee room.

Be that as it may, the latest example of Britannia waiving the rules would be hilarious, if it wasn't so serious, since Britannia is in this instance, waiving its own rules. I refer to the fact that further petrol has been fanned onto that bonfire of the vanities which is the 2012 London Olympics.

These games are turning into a classic case of demonstrating that those awfully-nice English chaps down in that there Lunnun, the descendants of the men who once ruled over the mightiest empire in the history of the world can no longer run a gird.

Immediately London won the right to host the Games in 2012, it was announced that there would be British football teams competing. I knew then the smelly stuff was going to hit the fan and drop on those of us below for a long time to come.

It seemed all was well when the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh FAs decided that to compete as part of a single Team GB would compromise their independence within UEFA and FIFA and that consequently, the (English) FA, the game of football's representatives on the British Olympic Association, the body which looks after the United Kingdom's participation in the Olympics, would be able to pick Team GB squads for the men's and women's competitions, provided these squads were made up of "English" players.

FIFA accepted this, job done - but not as far as the BOA were concerned - they want an all-inclusive, truly "British" Team GB and will apparently settle for nothing less.

But, to insist on this inclusive team, cuts across their own rules, and FIFA's.

BOA rules say that the selection criteria for the teams representing each individual sport is a matter for the body which oversees that sport - in football's case the FA. They spoke to the three other FAs within the United Kingdom and after these talks the "English-only" selection criteria emerged. That ought to be enough for the BOA, but apparently it isn't.

The waters are now getting muddier, with Stewart Regan, the SFA's Chief Executive quoted this week as saying there would be nothing they (the SFA) could do, if a Scottish player decided he or she would play for Team GB.

Oh yes there is. The FA couldn't decide: "We're playing Germany next week in a vital World Cup qualifier, our goalie's are shite, so we'll pick Craig Gordon of Sunderland - he's not in the Scotland team just now, he's better than what we've got, so we'll have him".

Couldn't happen - Gordon is Scottish not England. If he's Scottish, not English for the World Cup, or the European Championship and cannot therefore be selected by the FA for such tournaments - he cannot become eligible to be selected by the FA for another tournament, even one for which he is eligible, without the say-so of the SFA.

The BOA is therefore interfering in a football issue which is none of its business. It asked its subsidiary, the FA, to come up with a selection criteria which was acceptable to all four governing bodies of football within the UK, the FA, to its credit consulted and did this, the matter ought to have been left there.

As for Stewart Regan saying there is nothing the SFA could do to prevent Gordon, or Julie Fleeting or any other Scottish player from accepting an invitation to play in London, yes there is - take the BOA to the International Court for Arbitration In Sport - I figure the SFA would win.

24 is now the meaning of life

THE late Douglas Adams, in 'Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' stated that 42 was the meaning of life. Perhaps old Douglas was dyslexic: because, in football terms, the meaning of life is 24.

Please, allow me to explain; the Beautiful Game is now a 24/7 obsession, 52 weeks of the year - 24x7x52 = 8376: 8+3+7+6 = 24. To extrapolate further: 2+4=6; 6 was the number worn by Bobby Moore, Jim Baxter, Duncan Edwards, Dave Mackay and Willie Miller - ergo, that too is an influential number in the game.

I write this on a Saturday morning, a Saturday morning on which, for the first time this year, there will be no significant football played in Scotland. I appreciate those whose interest in the world's most-popular sport extends no further than the SPL will scoff at this and declaim there has been no significant football for almost a month - but try telling the good people of Auchinleck, Barrhead, Newtongrange, Bo'ness and Hill o' Beath that the deeds of their local teams do not matter - then stand well back and prepare for a verbal roasting that will make Sir Alex Ferguson in the dressing room following a 6-0 defeat appear avuncular.

Certainly, with the new season a mere 39 days away, the ultra-keen, those seeking a fitness edge for the start of pre-season and those battling back from long-term injury will be breaking sweat, but today is as perhaps as close as we will ever come in Scotland to a "nae fitba day".

It is also the final Saturday before Wimbledon, and marks the mid-way point in this year's US Open Golf Championship. So, what is the back page splash in the Scottish newspapers - Gordon Smith's return to the game as the new Rangers' Director of Football, that's what.

I have to admit a certain sympathy for the view of 'Damo Lennon', a regular contributor to the marvellous 'Rumour Mill' thread on The Scotsman's website - www.scotsman.com. The mutual invective delivered on-line by the denizens of Ibrox and Celtic Parks has meant that it has become increasingly-difficult for the on-line football community in Scotland to discuss the merits of the oldest rivals in the game. Yes, there are avenues from the extremely-biased and at times stagnant waters of sites such as 'Follow Follow' to the all-purpose sites such as 'Pie and Bovril'. But, for me, the closest thing we have in Scotland - the Herald having opted-out of providing a platform for on-line discussion of the Old Firm - to the Times' letters page, is the 'Rumour Mill'.

I love it and its regular cast of contributors such as the afore-mentioned 'Damo Lennon', his even more pro-Celtic ally 'Syllogism' and the other tribunes of the 'Tattidome' - 'C_S_M', 'the Green Machine', 'TJGG21' 'Ivan Cutlery' and from the opposite end of the spectrum - 'Daillyman', 'Media for One', 'Invitager', 'Whatwasthescore', '54 and counting' and 'celtic r atrocious', men who attempt to prove with varying degrees of success that not all 'Scrapyard' regulars are knuckle-draggers, who have been spray-tanned bitter orange.

There are also 'the neutrals' - just a few, such as my fellow Ayrshireman 'Star o' Rabbie Burns' and the ex-pat, French-domicilied 'Malc F'. 'Star' or "Scabby Burns! as 'Syllogism', known in return as "Silly", has dubbed him stands tall in his support of Kilmarnock, while "Malc" claims to be a Dons fan. These claims cut little ice with the true-blue and green hordes, who frequently remark on their apparent obsession with their betters.

Certainly, in the wake of an Old Firm clash, the Rumour Mill can resemble down town Kabul after Friday prayers and has occasionally been closed down, but, it seldom descends to the level of vitriol which some of the douce citizens of our capital can pour on the Hearts and Hibs threads - these can be really nasty and on the whole, particularly when the older hands are discussing a juicy item, the level of debate on the Rumour Mill is higher.

But I digress. Last evening, when the news of Gordon Smith's return to the game as the new Rangers' Director of Football, 'Damo Lennon' made a telling observation - suggesting that nobody before had made such a paucity of talent go so far in the game as Smith. Certainly he never as a player made it to the heights of winning a full Scotland cap, but he was a front-line player who can, when invited to, show us his medals; he is remembered for an iconic "miss" - in truth more a stunning save, but it is over-looked that he did score in the same game. He is one of the few Scots to have enjoyed a successful spell abroad and if he has never managed at the top level, he did have a spell as assistant manager at St Mirren, where he had the mental strength to walk away uninvited when he disagreed with the direction in which his manager was taking the club.

He has business skills and has never hidden his affection for Rangers. He knows his way around football's corridors of power, he has worked as an agent and I can think of nobody else in Sottish football and few in British football, who ticks so many boxes when it comes to appointing a Director of Football.

But, there's the rub - Director of Football is a title and role with which British football, from the common spectator -"Terracing Tam", via the "prawn sandwich brigade" in the corporate hospitality areas to the directors' box is unfamiliar with and unsure of.

On this island, the Manager is king, he runs the football side of the club and has done so since football became a business rather than a sport - back in the period between Queen Victoria dying and an Austrian Archduke bumping into a Serbian anarchist in down town Sarajevo.

Sure, the directors still sign the cheques, pour the whisky and hold his career fate in their hards, but, by and large, it's the manager's ball. In the wider football world, however, the Director of Football runs the club, the Manager is Head Coach and he prepares the team - the buck still stops with him, but, while he has (at least in the well-run teams) a huge say in player identification, the Director of Football tends to handle the transfer negotiations and recruitment.

Smith knows how it should work and he should prove to be a stalwart ally to young Ally, as he faces his first season in one of the two biggest jobs in Scottish football. Craig Whyte, it is already evident, is not your normal club owner - he will do things differently and one of the biggest changes which my colleagues in the Scottish football-writing fraternity will have to get used to will be, he (Whyte) will do things his way and not the Sir David Murray way or the way it has traditionally been done.

Some thought Walter Smith was a shoo-in to be Director of Football, but, in appointing Gordon Smith, Whyte has, I feel, been very shrewd. Had Walter Smith remained at the club, it would have been reminiscent of the way, inadvertantly, Sir Matt Busby over-shadowed Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell in the aftermath of his (Busby's) renounciation of the manager's role at Old Trafford. McCoist will now be able to be his own man, but will have Gordon Smith there, looking after the areas of the job with which McCoist has least-experience and perhaps least talent.

A good move by White I think. Also, perhaps, with the right Director of Football, such as Davie Hay, Neil Lennon might have avoided some of the incidents which detracted from our appreciation of an impressive first season in management.

We live in interesting times.

And, as I was saying way back there at the start, there may be other games and sports, but, when it comes down to it, fitba is the only game in town and 24 is the meaning of life.

A Brave New World - Aye Right

JINGS crivvens, help ma Boab - they actually did it. Yes, I am well and truly gobsmacked by the decision of this week's Scottish Football Association's annual general meeting to vote through every one of the resolutions placed before them. So, we have seen the once-in-a-generation change which many of us feared we would never see and we can now move forward - or can we.

I must admit, I do like the changes to the disciplinary system, mind you, these will not immediately end the arguments, they will not at a stroke eliminate the cheats and divers from our game. I don't see visiting teams getting more penalties at either "the Scrapyard" or "the Tattiedome" and it will still be more-common for a provincial player, kicking an Old Firm player to be red-carded than for an Old Firm player kicking a provincial one. And Celtic will still scream "bias" at every turn.

But, let's see how it goes.

I have some reservations about the split between the professional game and the community game, each the responsibility of a specific SFA board. My reason for these reservations is simple: I do not think that such serial under-performers in the senior SFL Third Division as East Stirlingshire, Montrose or Berwick Rangers are better-run, better-funded and more professional than the top Junior sides. I can certainly say, many of the top Junior sides are certainly not "community" clubs - they hire mercenaries, usually never-weres, occasionally has-beens, as readily and with as little relevance to their community as any senior side. Certainly, to make the Highland and East of Scotland League sides "professional" while the Junior Superleague sides are not, shows no regard for reality.

The appointment has not yet been made, but, come-on: what good will a Performance Director do? Neil Lennon, Ally McCoist, Jim Jefferies and most-certainly "Granpaw" Broon will hardly take kindly to being told they are doing something wrong by a Hampden pen pusher. I could maybe see the need or reason for a full-time Technical Director, to run the coaching course, oversee youth development and so forth, but Performance Director - nope, don't get it.

I now see, emboldened by the success of getting his proposed changes through the agm, Stewart Regan is turning his attention to league amalgamation. This is a no-brainer, Scottish football doesn't just have too-many league organisations, it also has too-many "senior" clubs who are not senior. More power to Regan's elbow on this one though, but I fear he faces a long, very hard and bloody fight to amalgamate the SFL and SPL.

Right now I feel we're more-likely to see Glasgow Rantic playing in the English Premiership or Cumnock Talbot winning the West of Scotland Superleague.

Never mind, go for it Stewart, but don't expect a quick breakthrough.

A Crucial Week

THIS is a massive week for Scottish football, even though it is one in which narry a ball will be kicked at senior level. For we have the annual meeting of the Scottish Football Association, a meeting at which, as has been well flagged-up in advance of the start of hostilities, far-reaching changes in how the SFA is organised and run might be voted through.

The use of might is crucial in this, because frankly, some turkeys are being asked to vote for Christmas, and I don't see that happening, unless a lot of arms are twisted. Turkeys voting for Christmas, perhaps not - more like pigs being asked to keep their snouts out of the feeding trough.

From what I have read of the proposed changes, which is very little, since my friends in the national media have been unable to find a pro or anti-Old Firm spin in the proposals, so haven't been too-forensic in their examination, there is nothing to cause me to man the barricades. Although I do find the fact that the Highland League clubs will come under the auspices of the proposed Professional Game, while the junior clubs, which are - certainly in the case of the really big "Superleague" clubs such as Arthurlie, Pollok, Auchinleck Talbot, Linlithgow Rose, Bo'ness, Tayport and such likes - run as, if not more-professionally and are every bit as well-funded as the Highland League clubs, are to come under the auspices of the Community Game, a bit hard to justify.

Of course the SFA has had too-many committees, too-many time-servers, too-many numpties in the corridors of power; change is necessary, it is over-due, but, I can see a lot of watering-down to proposals, a good deal of compromise to protect positions and in the end, not a lot will change.

That said, we can hope; we have to wait and see, but, I for one, am not too-confident of a brave new dawn breaking over Hampden this week.

BUT, if we've got problems, what about our dear southern neighbours. Isolated, abused for daring to attempt to postpone Herr Blatter's coronation last week - they are, as ever, short of friends world-wide. Clever move by the SFA to support England's postpone the election call, but to somehow manage to let them take all the flak - or is simply that, to the rest of the football world Scotland is an irrelevance and perhaps some think of us as being under England's control any way.

Then, they get hammered by the media for "only" drawing with Switzerland at Wembley. They might still be topping their European Championship qualifying group, but the fact that England hasn't won every game at least 6-0, to their press, smacks of failure.

I don't know what planet most of the English football media are on, or have been on for the past 40 years, but it clearly isn't Earth.

Years of failure have given we Tartan Army foot soldiers an admirable to look at Kipling's twin imposters, triumph and disaster and treat them both the same. The English clearly are no longer teacvhing Kipling in schools, or maybe the modern Englishman is too fick to notice. We (Scotland) are shite - and we know we are. England too is shite, but their fans and media have yet to cotton-on to this fact of life.

DUNCAN Ferguson, coach. Nope, cannot get my head round that one either. The idea of Duncan Disorderly planning the downfall of an opposing team is an alien concept, unless, of course, he calls-out their hard man for a Square Go in the centre circle pre-kick-off - a sort of 21st century use of the old King's Champion fight. In which case, back big Dunc's side for a clean sweep which would make Celtic's 1967 trophy haul seem modest.

Actually, the big man wants to have the qualification so he can properly run his coaching school in Majorca. Given his grounding with wee Jim McLean at Tannadice, big Dunc should succeed and I wish him well. Wouldn't like to be the journalist to ask the wrong question post-match, however, should be go into club management - it could be painful.

MOVING to Texas just might be the making of Derek Riordan. He's 28 now, and a father, it is time he grew up and, away from his home turf in Edinburgh, I feel he will finally grow-up. Otherwise, I expect him to swell the ranks of might have been contenders clogging-up our junior game within a couple of years.

He's got talent, across the Atlantic, let's hope it is given full rein.

Holding Out For A Hero

I TOOK my late wife to Hampden twice during our 40 years together. In June, 1966, we went on a Saturday night to see the best number 10 in the world play. We did, his name was Jim Baxter and on that night he over-shadowed Pele, who was wearing the Brazilian 10 shirt. Mind you, Baxter didn't have wee Bremner kicking him at every turn, then, if he got past him, John Clark waiting to pounce. The second time I took her to Hampden it was to see The Eagles - both times we were well-entertained, which doesn't happen every time you walk down Sommerville Drive.

Baxter was a genuine, 24 carat, diamond-encrusted, platinum-plated Scottish football her0. For me, he was the ultimate Scottish footballer, undisciplined, gallus, a terrible trainer who pissed his God-given talent up against a wall; aye, we've produced a few of those, but, we worship them for what they could make a ball do. Ten minutes of Baxter, or Jinky Johnstone, or Davie Cooper, a Denis Law goal, a Dave Mackay tackle - these make-up for what we suffer in everyday life for the crime of being Scottish.

But, for all they gave us on the park, in reality our football heroes such as those named above were dispensible. When they could no longer cut it on the park, they were allowed to go. After football - Jinky worked digging ditches, Baxter ran a pub, Coop, like Slim and Jinky passed-on far too soon. Mackay coached, certainly, but not with the authority he showed on the park, Law played golf and occasionally pontificated.

That's the thing with football - the greats very-rarely get to actually run the game. By run the game, I don't mean manage, I mean govern. Get into the game's corridors of power and guide its progress, amend the rules, make a difference.

I had a quick look at my copy of the SFA's centenary book: '100 Years of Scottish Football', written in 1973 by John Rafferty of The Scotsman. This book lists all the SFA presidents since 1873. Bob Gardner, the very first Scottish internationalist - our goalkeeper in that inaugural international against England on St Adnrew's Day, 1972 held the post five years later. The great Charles Campbell, like Gardner a "Spider" was president in 1889-90. Since then, only Tommy Younger, the great Hibs, Liverpool and Scotland goalkeeper of the 1950s, has swelled the ranks of great players turned administrators and reached the top job in the SFA.

In football, certainly in the British Isles, there is almost a them and us situation - players play, administrators administrate and there is little or no cross-over.

It is largely the same in Europe: certainly Michael Platini is now running UEFA, "Kaiser" Beckenbauer is a major player in Germany, but these two icons of the game are rarities.

Sepp Blatter was, I think, an ice hockey goalkeeper - says it all really.

No, what we need in a world dominated by self-serving, corrupt officials, is for a genuine gootball hero to switch seamlessly from patrolling midfield to patrolling the game's corridors of power and to make a difference.

It happens in other sports, Ian "Mighty Mouse" McLauchlan is the current president of the SRU, Andy Irvine is a previous holder of that post, and they are not the only former playing greats to have ascended to such high office. If rugby can keep at least some of its playing greats involved and shaping the way forward, why cannot football?

Mind you, guys like McLauchlan and Irvine were university-educated, the guys who run football prefer their players thick, we maybe have first to develop players whose brains are in their heads rather than their feet, then, in time, they will hopefully put this intellectual power towards helping the game - but we might have a long wait.