I AM currently working on a couple of books concerning Scottish football history, consequently I am trawling through details of the early days of football in this country - the legendary days when Scotland ruled the world and the "Scotch Professors" were the most-sought-after commodities in the game.
Back them, in the days when the sun never set on the British Empire, while the Widow of Windsor led an almost reclusive life on the Isle of Wight, the High Road to England was the road to riches for so many coal miners from Ayrshire, Fife, Lanarkshire and the Lothians; gallus "Weegies" from the Glasgow, farm boys from Stirlingshire or Angus, or boys from Highland glens.
You could almost say that the expansion of football in England and the Scottish diaspora to feed that expansion's need for talent was little more than stage two of the Highland Clearances. The ambitious, the driven, they left for a better life in the south. The rest stayed behind.
It therefore, goes without saying that, if the elite of Scotland's footballers continually left, the quality of the domestic game was sure to decline. If the cash which the clubs received for these players wasn't properly invested in the future, then the quality of the domestic game was sure to decline. The SFA and the clubs, it has to be said, did well to manage that decline - Scotland's hasn't (metaphorically) plunged over a cliff in the same way as Austria and Hungary has; we've simply gone into a gradual decline, which hasn't yet, but still could, accelerate into a full-blown hurtle to oblivion.
It also goes without saying that, if the best of each generation, as was the case in Scottish football for the first century and more of organised football - some four or five generations, was exported - and aren't we always told its people has been Scotland's finest export - then we are badly diluting the native stock.
Pat Crerand's famous throw-away line from his spell on the 1970 World Cup pundits panel: that the British nations ought to import Pele, Tostao and Gerson from the brilliant Brazilians who won that year, and put them immediately to stud duties, has a resonance today. Is it too late to get Messi, Kaka, Christiano Ronaldo and the likes to do their stuff with some athletic Scottish girls?
If we don't do that - we have to improve our coaching, work harder and have faith in our young players - not recruit Hondurans, Hottentots, Haitians, and other exotic foreigners, at the expense of our own young players.
It also goes without saying that, if the best of each generation, as was the case in Scottish football for the first century and more of organised football - some four or five generations, was exported - and aren't we always told its people has been Scotland's finest export - then we are badly diluting the native stock.
Pat Crerand's famous throw-away line from his spell on the 1970 World Cup pundits panel: that the British nations ought to import Pele, Tostao and Gerson from the brilliant Brazilians who won that year, and put them immediately to stud duties, has a resonance today. Is it too late to get Messi, Kaka, Christiano Ronaldo and the likes to do their stuff with some athletic Scottish girls?
If we don't do that - we have to improve our coaching, work harder and have faith in our young players - not recruit Hondurans, Hottentots, Haitians, and other exotic foreigners, at the expense of our own young players.
We have seen, in recent weeks and months, efforts from within the SFA to make the necessary changes. The McLeish Report wasn't universally welcomed; the changes Henry called for haven't been made as quickly as some of us hoped they would be; even some of the changes made have got a few of us on the sidelines concerned; while, of course, some of the backswoodsmen are resisting with all their might.
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