Normal Service Has Been Resumed

NORMAL service has been resumed in Scottish football, following Celtic's ascent to the peak of the SPL following yesterday's win at Fir Park. This result ratchets up the pressure on the other clubs, who will now have to attempt to prevent the Hoops from rolling away into the distance, to a situation whereby they have the title won with weeks to spare.

 

It also produces a challenge for Neil Lennon. Now his men are where everyone expects them to be, the manager has to guard against complacency and possible slip-ups. Always in the past, the manager of whichever side of the two-headed Glasgow football monster was in the lead, knew the other half were waiting to pounce on any slip-ups.

 

One head having been lopped off, the brain in the other head has to keep the body focussed without the usual challenge.

 

Football historians such as I have long pointed out, perhaps the best era in Scottish football was in the 20 years BS - before Jock Stein assumed control at Parkhead. Back then Celtic, whilst still attracting big crowds and capable of the odd morale-boosting season, were arguably the closest they have ever been to being: "just another club", with the Hibs of the Famous Five, Tommy Walker's great Hearts team of "The Terrible Trio", Dave Mackay, John Cumming and Alex Young and Willie Waddell's first great Kilmarnock team offering the biggest challenge to the Ibrox juggernaut.

 

Two bullies are one too-many for Scottish football, a single bully can be contained, so, until The Rangers get back to the top-flight, it's up to the rest to keep the pressure on Celtic. If they can, this may yet be a vintage season.

 

 

 

MEANWHILE, The Rangers got yet another set of lukewarm reviews from their latest date in their provincial tour - a less-than-scintillating win at Forres. I doubt if even the bluest-nosed bears now approach any date in their club's current tour of Scotland's "village hall" type grounds with any confidence of seeing a wonderful performance. The Rangers have been taken out of their comfort zone, and are, well, very uncomfortable away from Ibrox.

 

However, such uneven performances are to be expected when you are trying to integrate new players into a well-oiled system, more-so when the cast includes some youngsters. Alan Hansen wasn't the first football man to opine: "You win nowt wi' kids", I dare say he will not be the last.

 

I can think back to the final days of the Struth era and to Scot Symon's early years. Back then, in the mid-fifties, Alex Scott, as successor to Waddell, was just about the only Rangers player who was a first-team regular as a teenager.

 

Sure, the likes of Eric Caldow, Ralph Brand and Davie Wilson all received early exposure to the first team, but then spent a season or three in and out of the team before cementing their places.

 

Celtic's "Kelly Kids" gained a reputation for early exposure to the first team, but aside from Bobby Collins (somewhat earlier), goalkeeper Dick Beattie and Billy McNeill - at right back rather than centre half - few were regulars before their 21st birthday.

 

Today's Rangers squad has a handful of teenagers involved every week, which is a most un-Rangers like state of affairs. Kids plus newcomers, still learning the Rangers way of doing things, is a sure-fire recipe for inconsistency in my view.

 

That said, uncertainty is surely more-exciting than seeing a predictable series of results leading to a predictable sharing-out of the trophies, enjoy it while it happens.

 

 

 

 

Charles Green Gets Angry - Or Is He Yosemite Sam?

JINGS crivvens, help ma Boab - The Rangers FC is upset with the BBC. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear - tragedy for Rangers; as my old mate, the late and much-missed David Francey used to say.

 

When football sold-out to television, the "blazers" didn't know it, but, they were doing television rather than football a favour. For public relations and public perception of a brand or product to be really effective, it has to be managed.

 

Once upon a time, football managed its PR. You got the FA Cup final (occasionally the Scottish one), Scotland v England, and crunch World Cup games which had already sold-out Hampden. Otherwise, you made do with highlights packages.

 

I am old enough to remember the mid-fifties mid-week tv matches - Wolves v Honved and Moscow Spartak, the West Bromwich Albion one during which David Burnside did his ball juggling act, games which precipitated European football. However, even then, football had control; if you wanted to watch football, you had to attend games.

 

Today, it's the tv companies who call the shots - because football gave away the family silver far-too cheaply and the game is the poorer for this.

 

Football, at its best, is pure theatre, spectacular and almost akin to Grand Opera - except, while the cameras are at the San Siro on a weekly basis, they are seldom allowed through the doors of La Scala.

 

Would Pavarotti have been such a big name if, like Lionel Messi, he was on tv every weekend?

 

Television doesn't want football for football's sake. They are not doing football a favour by showing wall-to-wall live football. They are doing television a favour, by filling air time somewhat cheaply.

 

And with so-much televised football, each channel has to try to be different, ramp up the razzle, show how hip and right-on their coverage is. That way, you get title sequences such as the "Mad Men" sequence from Wednesday night, which has apparently upset The Rangers.

 

Then there is the concurrent spat about "Off the Ball" - pathetic. OTB is a national treasure, the single programme on the Scottish airwaves which takes the piss out of our sad obsession with 22 men chasing a wind-filled, leather-covered pig's bladder - which is what the original footballs were.

 

Nobody, no club or no institution is beyond a slagging from Messrs Cosgrove's and Cowan's wit. Uniquely among Scotland's plethora of football-related broadcast programmes, OTB isn't all about the opinions of former players, who, because they are members of the football family, are unable to come right out and say: "that was mince", when discussing an incident which every fan on the terraces showed up the players/officials/coaches involved as pedlars of low-grade mince.

 

If Celtic were bad, you'll never catch Murdo MacLeod admitting as much on-air; similarly, if Rangers under-perform, maybe only Billy Dodds of the many ex-Rangers on Sportsound's casuals rota will mildly criticise. Cosgrove and Cowan are not constrained by tribal loyalties - they let rip, and more power to their elbows.

 

Scottish football badly needs a mainstream football discussion programme, of the type the great Jimmy Hill used to deliver on Sky of a Sunday morning. Lacking such a vehicle - which will never happen, because our tribal football society crushes free thinkers such as Jimmy the Chin - OTB is a not bad substitute.

 

And, if Off the Ball is upsetting Rangers (or for that matter Celtic or any other club), then - it's doing its job.

 

 

 

AS a post script to the above thoughts. Some years ago, when I was Sports Editor of a local daily newspaper, we concentrated on the two professional sports teams - the football club and the ice hockey team in the city in which we were based.

 

The football team got the back page lead every day except Tuesday, when we concentrated on the ice hockey team.

 

I upset the ice hockey team's team manager one match night Sunday and was escorted out of the rink. My Editor was a fanatical fan of the team, witnessed the incident and told me to just go home, we would sort-out the matter on the Monday.

 

He then told me to down-grade the ice hockey coverage to a single paragraph, detailing the scores in the two weekend games, and to run this at the foot of an inside sports page. This caused me a bit of bother, finding an acceptable back page "splash", but, we got through.

 

The telephones were red hot on tuesday morning, with complaining ice hockey fans, but, at ten am, the ice hockey team owner came in, spent five minutes in the Editor's office - I was re-instated with full priveleges and nothing more was ever said about the incident; the team manager was helpfulness personified thereafter.

 

The moral of this story is - sport needs the media and if it comes to a fall-out, the media will always win. Charles Green, please read and digest.

 

 

 

I DON'T know John Terry, I have never met, far less interviewed the guy. However, I cannot help feeling all those highly-paid "Fleet Street" scribes who have recorded for posterity Terry's many failures to meet the (unreasonably-high though they may be) standards expected of England's football captain - and remember here, Bobby Moore was no angel - just might be right and he's a less-than-savoury piece of work.

 

When there is the amount of evidence of prattishness about a player there is about JT - knocking-off a team-mate's burd, charging business-men for access to "off-limits" areas and so forth; no amount of heroic goal-line clearances will de-toxify the "brand".

 

I am prepared to believe he did abuse Anton Ferdinand; so maybe the FA got it right and the combined forces of the Metroploitan Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and so-forth got it wrong. Or, is it just, as I have long believed - we're producing too-many lawyers these days.

 

My secondary school class produced: two doctors, three vets, two university professors, four senior bankers, one senior civil servant, one automotive designer, one senior RAF officer, two senior policemen (Chief Inspectors), one IT millionaire, one millionaire business-man (self-made), two hospital matrons, ten teachers plus the usual reprobates: one millionaire merchant banker and two published authors. However, the guy we all look down on, the lowest of the low  of our lot, is the solitary lawyer.

 

 

 

 

Rangers Won - So what?

THIS whole Rangers oldco/newco business is getting boring - the on-line arguments between the 'We Arra Peepul an' we're still here an' 'at' and the 'You're deid, Sevco his nae history' are the 21st century equivalent of the disputes between the flat and round earthers and the Darwenists and the biblical hard liners - neither side will ever admit the others are correct.

 

This morning the on-line forums are going flat-out in the aftermath of last night's Rangers win over Motherwell. Pre-match we were told that Rangers would beat the SPL leaders and somehow demonstrate that they were still a force in Scottish football. We were also assured that Motherwell would be favourites and would demonstrate the superiority of the SPL. We read suggestions that Motherwell would (again) lie down and let Rangers win, and were reminded that the Steelmen simply don't know how to win at Ibrox.

 

I don't buy into that, for the simple reason that I was in the old enclosure at Ibrox on 1 March, 1961, when Motherwell thrashed a Rangers team, a matter of weeks from winning yet another League title, 5-2 in a Scottish Cup replay. So I know that Motherwell can win at Ibrox.

 

They had their chances last night - had Law got round Alexander and scored, the outcome might have been different, but, in the end, a performance of old-fashioned Rangers captaincy, the likes of which I have rarely seen since John Greig retired, from Lee McCulloch, swept Rangers home.

 

To sum-up, a match between two indifferent sides of full-time players was won by the side with home advantage; what's strange about that? In the short-term, by which the period between now and the end of season 2012-13, this result will be of little significance.

 

Motherwell will not win the SPL, in fact, I fully and confidently expect Celtic to travel to Fir Park on Saturday, win and take-over at the head of the table, where they will remain for the remainder of the season. Rangers will not win the League Cup, or the Scottish Cup, but, will win SFL3 at a canter.

 

The performances of such Rangers youngsters as Fraser Aird, Kyle Hutton and Barrie McKay indicated, however, that, if brought along properly, they could be major players by the time their club gets back to the SPL - always assuming we still have an SPL by then.

 

 

 

BY the way, I have seen some comments to the effect that Lee McCulloch ought to have been red-carded for a spot of elbowing last night. Can I just say, I thought Callum Murray got it right, having spotted that McCulloch's elbow, which connected with the Motherwell player's upper chest, rather than his jaw, and being aware that McCulloch had retaliated to a clear foul, decided on a yellow card.

 

I thought that was good refereeing; certainly better than Stevie O'Reilly's reaction to a similar incident, involving Kevin Kyle and Ryan McGuffie in the previous week's Ibrox game against Queen of the South. Then, O'Reilly, correctly, red-carded Kyle, but failed to yellow card McGuffie, whose sneaky foul on Kyle caused the Rangers' man to fell him.

 

I have long felt referees, in both football and rugby, have for far-too long been quick to card players for retaliatory fouls, whilst ignoring the original offence. Murray, I think got it right.

 

 

 

THE relative attendances at Celtic Park and Ibrox over the past two nights have also generated some comment. I was not surprised at the low turn-out of The Greatest Fans In The World, to see the Hoops hammer Raith. The great majority of the Celtic following have a modicum of decency and good taste, and little appetite for a meanginless stroll in the park, particularly at the prices which Peter Lawwell and the Celtic management think they can get away with charging.

 

Not that I am having a go at Celtic here. The fact is, Scottish football is over-priced and at a time when Scotland as a whole is in economic difficulties, perhaps the money men of football should be thinking of using the likes of the League Cup as a loss-leader, to put bums on seats.

 

If I was a Celtic fanatic, perhaps working in a job which, because of the current climate had me working only my basic 35-40 hour week, with household costs rising and with Champions League games with the likes of Barcelona looming on the horizon - I would give genuine consideration to body swerving a routine routing of Raith.

 

The Rangers fans, on the other hand, have little to look forward to this season; but, they are on a crusade to demonstrate that they remain "Ra Peepul", so they will turn-out in numbers. I am not reading too much into the disparity in attendances. I don't think any sensible football commentator is either.

 

 

 

ANENT the League Cup, which has never risen above its Cinderella Cup status, in spite of now being an OAP. I have long felt this competition could be a lot more important than it has become.

 

Back in the dark ages, before Top Tens, the League Cup was the traditional introduction to the season, with the clubs meeting in groups, leading to knock-out stages from quarter-finals on. It worked then, better than it works now.

 

Over the years, Scottish football has somehow lost its way in youth development - although the financial crises of recent years have forced clubs, albeit reluctantly, to throw in the kids.

 

Why not make the League Cup a development comeptition? Perhaps use the Olympic Games' eligibility rules and insist that each side only fields three players who are over-23. The competition doesn't carry European qualification, so it seems to me to be the ideal vehicle for blooding youngsters. I would like to think the chance to see who is coming through the ranks, just might persuade the fans to turn out, more-so if the prices were reduced as further incentive.

 

 

 

A RANGERS XI is travelling to darkest Ayrshire on Sunday, to take-on Muirkirk Juniors in a match to celebrate the local club's 75th anniversary.

 

I really ought to be there, I was born a good free-kick's distance from 'Kirk's Burnside Park; my maternal grand-father was player, captain and president of Muirkirk Athletic, the village's junior team before World War II; my father was one of the original committee-men.

 

However, since this match has had to be re-arranged from July, I have a prior engagement and will miss it, as perhaps also will Muirkirk's greatest player, the living legend that is Eric Caldow.

 

Eric is not in the best of health and his attendance is in doubt. But, Muirkirk's second-greatest player, big Danny Masterton, will surely be there and a good day is guaranteed.

JT - Gone and Good Riddance

FOR my money, no single player better represented the over-priced, over-hyped nonsense of the English Premiership better than John Terry. I never subscribed to the Bobby Moore is God school of thought which is the default setting of the average English football fan or journalist. Yes, Mooro was a good defender, but, he was the luckiest chap ever to bestride the football field - had Munich not happened, and had he lived, Duncan Edwards rather than Moore would have been the face of 1966.

 

But, compared to Terry, one of his successors as England's number six and captain - Moore was indeed God. In fact, just off the top of my head: Billy Wright, Maurice Norman, Peter Swann, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Brian Labone, Terry Butcher, Nigel Walker, Emlyn Hughes, Rio Ferdinand, Tony Adams join Moore in a list of England central defenders I've seen, all of whom on a bad day were better than Terry on a good day.

 

We all know that the Glasgow "Lap Top Loyal" made "stars" out of run of the mill Rangers defenders who could kick opponents better and more frequently than they ever kicked a ball - John Brown "Rangers Class", mair like Nae Class. In Southern terms, "Fleet Street" made England stars out of few Cockney wide boys, few wider than the odious JT. Actually, his international retirement will, I warrant, prove to be a good move for England, he is, for me, more leg end than legend.

 

 

 

I SEE plans are afoot for regional European leagues as a replacement for the Europa League, as the European Clubs Association attempts, yet again, to find a means of extracting more money from the poor bloody fans.

 

European football worked, when it was a genuine coming together of the best. When only the genuine league champions from Europe's League's contested the European Cup - it was a genuine "Champions" League then - because you had to be a champion to enter.

 

Sure, it's nice to win a continental trophy, but, whether you are Auchinleck Talbot or Barcelona - nothing beats being cocks of your local walk.

 

That said, regional leagues might be a good thing, but, there are only so-many clubs well-enough structured to compete in Europe and in their domestic leagues in a single season and, at the end of the day, domestic success will always be more-important. I think we will be stuck with a Scottish League for a good while yet, although long term, that league will NOT be the SPL.

 

On the subject of regional European leagues - I always thought the Kings Cup - the Scandinavian regional competition - which has had something of a chequered existence, was always a competition which would have fitted-in well with the needs, aspirations and abilities of our top teams.

 

However, while teams such as Malmo, Rosenburg and FC Copenhagen have on the field in the past shown themselves to be worthy opponents for our top sides - they never have and probably never will fit into a Scottish football mindset which deludes us into thinking we should always be jousting with the really big boys of Europe - Barca, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Man U and the like. Aye Right.

 

 

 

THE SRU has this week announced that, in the run-up to the Autumn internationals, Wayne Smith, the attack guru behind the continuing success of the All Blacks as THE team in world rugby, will be coming to Scotland to take a series of coaching seminars.

 

He will be passing-on his wisdom to our top club coaches, as well as our leading coaches at grass roots youth level.

 

This will be a good move for Scottish rugby, the invited coaches will turn up, they will ask questions and will learn.

 

Sadly, I can never see an Ancelotti, or a Mourinho, or Yogi Loew or Vincente Del Bosque being invited to address Scotland's SPL managers. I appreciate Mourinho earned his coaching stripes at Largs, I tip my hat to the exploits of SAF or Davie Moyes in England, but, I cannot see the short-sighted Hampden blazers ever admitting, we could learn from the rest of the world. Oh no, we Scots "made" football what it is - nobody can teach us anything about OUR game. This is, of course, one of the reasons why we are so-feared across the globe today.

 

 

 

MY second daughter's partner is feeling a trifle smug these days. He is a member of that much-admired tribe, The Jags and consequently he is revelling in the great start Jackie McNamara's men have made to the First Division campaign.

 

I have to admit, I always found the press seats at the back of the Jackie Husband Stand one of the best places in Scotland from which to ply the sports-writing trade. The banter with the Jags fans in front of us was always good, clean fun; the Harry Wraggs, or the Maryhill Magyrs as the great Malky Munro dubbed his favourite side, have been too-long out of the top-flight in Scotland and I hope young Jackie and wee Simon Donnelly can keep their men going as they have started.

 

My oldest friend, in spite of nearly 50 years in England, 30 of them as a serving RAF officer, remains a Jags fanatic. He was up home last week and was positively revelling in his team's great form. It is for genuine fitba fans such as the two of Firhill's Finest, whom I mention, that I am hoping to see the Jags back in the SPL at the end of this season.  

Gaun Yersels Lassies

WHEESHT, it's a secret, but, Scotland's women's team, despite their last outing gubbing by an excellent team of mesdames from France,are doing rather well at the moment.

 

Anna Seignoeul's young ladies have reached the play-offs for the EUFA European Championships, a feat which proved beyond Craig Levein's squad of honest triers. They may be unseeded in the play-offs but I would not write-off their chances of getting through, and, given the lack of resources, encouragement and media interest in their feats thus far, they have done really well to get this far.

 

Add the fact that Kim Little was one of the stars of Team GB's brave Olympics effort, and there is a lot going-on, and going well, in Scottish women's football just now. Only, don't expect our mainstream media mastadons to be paying too-much attention to this.

 

The thing which I feel helps explain how well the women are doing is simple, they started from a place where they didn't have a century of baggage and "history" to deal with. That traditional check on Scottish ambition: "Ye canna dae that son, it's aye been dun this wey", didn't apply to women's football. And the distaff division of Scottish football is all the better for it.

 

 

 

 

MEANWHILE, Celtic got their Champions League campaign off to a middling start, with a home draw naw fitba, against Benfica. At least, they didn't lose. However, if we assume that Barcelona will win Group G, a fair enough assumption I submit - then Celtic are engaged in something of a dog fight for the second qualifying place, or the Europa League place.

 

That Europa League place should be the bottom line - I don't see that much between them, Benfica and Spartak Moscow; however, right now, I cannot see them winning more than three points - from three home draws. Better Celtic squads than this one have fared badly on the road.

 

I would normally fancy Celtic to beat Spartak at home, however, with wee Aeden McGeady surely fired-up to put on a show in front of his ain folk, the Moscow side just might get the draw. It will, however, be interesting and I wish Celtic all the best.

 

 

 

AT LEAST, Celtic are still operating at the level they should be at. What about poor old hard-done-by Rangers, losing to Queen of the South? I am not surprised in the least. What was over-looked by the Lap Top Loyal, in previewing the game was that the Doonhamers are also a full-time side. Whereas much of the two nights per week training regimes of Rangers' SFL3 opponents is given over to fitness work, 'Magic' Johnston and Sandy Clark have the time to work on team shape and tactics, which paid off as they overwhelmed Rangers in midfield.

 

When your midfield creativity comes from Lee McCulloch and Ian Black, plus a couple of kids, against a well-organised side, you've got problems, as Ally McCoist now knows.

 

Being an Ibrox Ikon kept John Greig in a manager's job he wasn't cut-out to do for a couple of years longer than it should have, on his record. In today's success NOW culture, Ally will not be so-tolerated. The clock is now definitely ticking on him.

 

 

 

WELL done wee Pat Fenlon, for telling Kenny Shiels to "shut up". I have a very soft spot for Kilmarnock, but I feel the whitterings of "media darling" Shiels are growing increasingly wearisome.

 

Yes, he's good post-match "copy" for the mainstream media and today's post-match quotes-driven style of covering football. But, for me, he's not a very good manager. That said, he's probably good enough for the low-grade league which is the SPL.

 

 

 

AGED 65, I am putting the boots back on next week. One of my mates, who is even older than I am, told me last week of a new initiative, "Slow Football" being run on a Tuesday in Prestwick. It is called Slow Football, because you have to be at least 55 to get a game.

 

I have got the membership details and I will be there on Tuesday.They say nothing beats playing, I hope that's true - time will tell.

Fail To Prepare - Prepare To Fail: Got It Mr McCoist

FOOTBALL, as played in the SPL and SFL in Scotland is supposed to be "professional". Matters concerning the two leagues are, at SFA level, administered by the "Professional Game Board".

 

Such a pity "amateurism" - in the sense of it doesn't really matter, rather than in the sense of playing the game for love - is so rife within what we sometimes laughingly refer to as "Scottish senior football".

 

Take poor, hard-done-by Ally McCoist's latest outburst, his scream of pain over the injury sustained by David Templeton, at Annan Athletic's Galabank ground on Saturday.

 

According to McCoist the injury was caused by the Annan club's 3G artificial pitch. One theory is that Templeton's studs caught in the surface and caused the ankle ligament injury which will keep him on the sidelines for a few weeks.

 

Rangers are the richest club in the SFL; they are the only full-time one in SFL Division Three. There is a proud tradition of excellence associated with the Rangers name, then there is the club motto of: "Aye Ready".

 

Well, it strikes me, they weren't ready to play on an artificial pitch, even though the club apparently has two 3G surfaces at Murray Park; however, McCoist does not allow his senior players to use these surfaces, since he doesn't like them.

 

Perhaps, had he taken his squad for a pre-Annan training game on their own 3G pitch, he would have realised that Templeton's studs were the wrong type for the surface. Anyone with a more than basic knowledge of pitch surfaces knows that there are special boots, specifically made for artificial surfaces such as 3G, and that, by wearing these, the likelihood of injuries such as that sustained by Templeton are greatly reduced.

 

It might be a poor workman who blames his tools - but, a good workman always has the correct tool for the job. And, it's a bad manager who sends out his workmen ill-prepared for the conditions in which they are expected to work.

 

 

 

CELTIC's defeat at Perth on Saturday is hardly surprising. I have felt for some time that Neil Lennon - a man who never gave less than 100 per cent in any match, has a cadre of self-dillusional "super stars" who can, at any time, under-mine Celtic's efforts.

 

Putting it simply, one or two at Celtic Park seem to think, because they play for Celtic, they have a right to win every game and are certainly not so-tough that, when the going gets tough - they get going. Sure, they have a higher skill level than most of the players they will face in SPL games - but, they seem to be having difficulty in taking on-board one of the facts of life of Scottish football.

 

To repeat something I have written before. Celtic (and Rangers) both face, every time they take the field in a domestic game, an opposition team which will contain, an uncertain number of fans of the other side - determined to do their best to beat the enemy - and a certain number of their own fans - equally, if not more determined to show that they are good enough to wear the hoops, or the blue shirts.

 

It takes the foreign mercenaries some time to become aware of this, indeed, some, on both sides, never did. This is why, the Old Firm do HAVE to have one or two fans on the park, otherwise, they are vulnerable.

 

I submit that the same scenario is in play as regards Rangers' indifferent away form in SFL3. However, unless the Celtic squad pull up their socks, quickly, the SPL will be anything but the cake walk it is supposed to be this season.

 

 

 

 

The Whispering Has Started - Cheerio Craig

I AM indebted to my old mate Roddy Forsyth (in today's Daily Telegraph) for the not surprising news that one or two (still unidentified) Hampden "blazers" expressed less than whole-hearted support for the embattled Craig Levein following Tuesday's disappointing draw with Macedonia.

 

We are, I fear, being prepared for oor Craig being oot on his erse if (when) we fail to secure all six points from next month's away double-header against Wales and Belgium. Aside from the long-ago days of George Young, Billy Steel, Lawrie Reilly and Co in the 1950s, we have never had a good record in Cardiff. Our last visit to the Taff capital did for George Burley - and interestingly, isn't wee George's reputation being re-assessed in the face of his successor's current travails? If the Boyos bounce back from their Serbian stuffing, we could be in bother, particularly Levein.

 

Then we come to winning in Belgium. I am old enough to remember the following Scottish team being gubbed 3-0 in a European Championships qualifier in Liege in 1970: Jim Cruickshank; Davie Hay, Tommy Gemmell, Pat Stanton, Ron McKinnon, Bobby Moncur, Archie Gemmill, John Greig, Colin Stein, John O'Hare and Charlie Cooke, with Tony Green and Jim Forrest coming off the bench.

 

In 1979 in another European Championships qualifier in Brussels - Alan Rough; Sandy Jardine, Iain Munro, John Wark, Alan Hansen, Willie Miller, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness, Joe Jordan, Asa Hartford and John Robertson, plus substitutes Frank Gray and Davie Provan lost 2-0 to the Belgians.

 

Three weeks later, Rough; Jardine, Danny McGrain, Wark, Gordon McQueen, Kenny Burns, Dalglish, Roy Aitken, Derek Johnstone, Eamonn Bannon and Robertson, with Provan again coming off the bench, lost 3-1 to the Belgians at Hampden.

 

Three years later, in another European Championships qualifier, we were back in Brussels; Kenny Dalglish scored one brilliant goal and one which was merely a very good one, but we still lost 3-2. That team was: Jim Leighton; Davie Narey, Frankie Gray, Aitken, Alex McLeish, Hansen, Gordon Strachan, Stevie Archibald, Dalglish, Jim Bett and Souness, with Kenny Burns and Paul Sturrock coming off the bench. These 1979 and 1982 teams were managed by Jock Stein lest we forget.

 

OK, Levein is no Stein, but, he doesn't have the quality, or depth of quality of player available to the Big Man. But, I would submit that, unless Belgium - who are still ranked above us, on the FIFA rankings, have gone back faster than a WWII Italian tank, we are still unlikely to reverse form. Lest we forget also, the last time we were in Belgium on competitive business, in September 2001, we lost 2-0.

 

So, the portents are not good, for us, or for Levein. That said, I repeat, who else could do better - we don't have good enough players and until we change the system, we will struggle.

 

 

 

WHICH brings me to my second point. This morning's BBC Breakfast programme made great play of a change to Under-12 football in England, which will see more small-sided games, on smaller pitches, with smaller goals.

 

Of course, the whole shebang doesn't have to be enforced until 2015 and already, the Luddites are making their voices heard to the effect that these changes are unnecessary and will "kill" football.

 

Scotland is ahead of England in bringing-in small-sided games on smaller pitches, but, even up here, it is not yet universal, some ten years down the line. The McLuddites have particularly hard heads - but, in spite of the opposition of the reactionaries, in this field at least, the Hampden "blazers" are forging ahead.

 

However, I refer again to an old friend of mine. I will not name him, but he is a big name in age group football, a major player in age group football in Europe and an SFA councillor, with a seat on one of the influential SFA committees.

 

Every time I meet him he says the same thing: "Up to age 16, Scottish players are as good as any in Europe - and a lot better than many; however, once they get into our professional club system at that age, they start to go backwards and the rest of Europe forges ahead".

 

His message is simple - our clubs pay lip service to and are only playing at proper youth development. We don't put the resources, the time or the determination into youth development at our clubs.

 

I fear, until we waken up to this and do something about it, poor saps like Craig Levein will be asked to battle with players totally unprepared for the modern game at international level; and will pay the price for the failings of others.

 



Time For a Bonfire Of The Blazers

WITH Scotland playing back-to-back World Cup qualifiers at Hampden and (at last) movement in the Rangers EBTs issue - albeit at SPL level, rather than, as will be really interesting, at HMRC level, this was not a good time to be hit by the triple whammy of illness/software/hardware computer problems.

 

However, events conspired to give me time for real consideration of the issues, and once again, I fear, we - the ordinary football fans of Scotland, were badly let-down by the mainstream media and the opinion-formers and leaders therein.

 

Of course, "draw nae fitba" with Serbia and an unfortunate 1-1 draw with Macedonia was not the start we all wanted, or hoped for, to the 2014 qualifying campaign. But, it happened, we have to live with it, so - what have we learned.

 

I have to say - very little. We Scots continue to kid ourselves that we are better at football than we actually are, or have been for years. We still have this self-image of Scotland as almost the Brazilians of Europe - the keepers of the flame of vibrant, attacking football. Our ethos is: "you score three goals - we'll score four".

 

Of course, unlike the Brazilians, who always qualify: we find it all but impossible to reach the finals of the two big competitions. Between the European Championships and the current, on-going World Cup qualifying tournament, we have been involved in 29 qualifying tournaments since the 1950 World Cup. We qualified that time, but elected not to travel, however, counting that campaing as successful, we have qualified from only 11 of 28 tournaments entered: the World Cups of 1950, 1954, 1958, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1998 and the European Championships of 1992 and 1996.

 

This is a 39% success record when it comes to qualifying tournaments, a figure which sadly becomes a 0% success rate when it comes to getting out of the preliminary group stage of the finals, far less getting to the sharp end of the events - when the trophies are decided.

Overall, since the first official international, that 0-0 draw with England, at Hamilton Crescent on St Andrew's Day, 1872, Scotland has won just over 40% of the internationals it has played - so our World Cup record is poor, even in comparison with out overall record, although that is somewhat boosted by our successes in the early days, when we only played against the three other Home Nations - yet we kid ourselves that we always rise to the occasion when it comes to the World Cup.

Since 1872, from Bob Gardner to Ian Black, 1132 players have been "capped" by Scotland, 125 or 11% of these players have been capped since we last qualified for one of the big shows - the 1998 World Cup.

This, to me, seems to say, we are clutching at straws and have not been producing international class footballers for the past few years. Yet, when we do fail, we blame managers - Berti Vogts, George Burley etc, whilst our media talks-up the likes of Walter Smith and Alex McLeish, who, like the denigrated Burley and Cogts, failed.

I wouldn't blame the bosses, or at least the team bosses. I will blame the men at the top, the decision-makers within Hampden's corridors of powers, who have presided over an overall lowering of standards within our domestic game, which has had a debilitating knock-on effect on our international team and on Scotland's standing in world football.

The managers, either at club level or international, can only piss with the cocks they are given and if the clubs are happy to soldier along paying mediorce players to produce mediocre football at club level, why are we surprised when they go on to produce mediocre football at international level?

Am I alone in thinking that the Macedonians were technically more-proficient footballers than the Scots on Tuesday night? Their first touch was better, their ball control superior, their passing and movement sharper. They created more chances, they created better chances and it is probably down to Allan McGregor that we won.

However, did the opinion-formers and leaders of our media notice this? Did they ask why this was so? No, they merely asked how long Craig Levein, the poor sap who has to work with one hand tied behind his back could carry the support of the Tartan Army and the nation.

Sir Alex Ferguson, a much-better manager now than when he was stand-in Scotland boss 26 years ago, could not get that lot to Brazil. Unless he was given day-to-day charge of our best players with the sole remit of getting us to Rio, with a four-year plan aimed at nothing else.

We have, over the past few months, marvelled at the programmes of excellence which produced such success for our cyclists and rowers at the Olympics. We ask: "why cannot our footballers do as well"?

The answer is obvious. Rowing and cycling have "hot-housed" our best talent, both in athletes and in backroom staff. They treat each year as one-quarter of a four-year Olympics cycle; sure, they want to do well at the annual World Cup and World Championship events, but, each of these is but a stepping stone towards the four-yearly quest for gold at the Olympics.

Football cannot do this, but, surely it can learn some lessons from other sports which would help us improve our game and get us where we want to be, on the podium at the World Cup.

But no, football ignores these lessons or guidelines and struggles along the under-achieving path which it has followed these past two generations. They will not learn, because they do not want to.

My message to the Tartan Army is - leave Levein alone; turn your fire on the men who are really holding back Scotland - the Hampden Blazers. 

Templeton - A Rangers Man In Time Of Need

THE transfer window has now closed and our teams must, at least for the next four months "piss with the pricks they've got". Until January, or in Rangers' case, for the next 12 months, managers will have to manage with what they have in squad terms.

 

In poor, financially-challenged Scottish football, this simple premise ought to involve, hopefully, bringing through bright, shiny, new thrusting home-grown talent, the heirs to the great and in some cases mythical tradition of the "Scotch professors" who taught the world how to pass and move, and whose mastery of the "tanner ba" made Scotland a by word for football excellence - at least in Scotland.

 

However, though the numbers of home-grown Scots plying their trade in the SPL is rising, for me, it isn't yet high enough. Here we are, one week into September, already reduced to only one team in Europe, and that team barely has a home-grown Scot in their ranks.

 

If we are going to plod along in the margins of Europe, at least let's plod along with haun-knitted Scots players; you never know, they might learn something and imporove.

 

 

 

I DON'T know young David Templeton; I've only seen him play twice in the flesh and he impressed me both times. I appreciate he lacks consistency, but hey, he's in many ways an old-fashioned Scottish winger, a creature famed the world over for his inconsistency and ability to both delight and despair during any given 90 minutes. One need only think of the icon after whom young Templeton is named - the late, great and sometimes galling, other times glorious Davie Cooper.

 

I may not know David, but, ah kent his faither, the wonderful Henry Templeton, a man who often lit-up drab Somerset Park with his pyrotechnics on the wing for Ayr United.

 

Wee Henry was a free spirit, Ally MacLeod, whatever his failings as a manager, knew how to get the best out of mavericks such as Henry. In his first incarnation as a thrusting young boss, Ally allowed George McLean licence he did not give other key Ayr players, such as his other goal-scoring forward, one Alex Ferguson, and was rewarded with goals galore from "Big Dandy".

 

Likewise, as an older, but scarecly wiser manager, MacLeod kept a tight rein on John Sludden and Tommy Walker, who both scored goals for fun, whilst smiling indulgently at the antics of his third star striker of that team, wee Henry - it worked.

 

I would suggest to Ally McCoist, a bit of a free spirit himself as a player, to indulge David Templeton, should he have, as I suspect, have inherited some of his dad's outlook on football. The result might be glorious for the player and Rangers.

 

There has been much debate about the Templeton move. Does he lack ambition? Can he cut it at Ibrox? I suspect the answers to these questions are: 1), No; 2), Yes.

 

Templeton is "a Rangers Man" as his faither was. Rangers need "Rangers Men" to get them back to the top, which is why I feel they have boobed in releasing Kirk Broadfoot. Big Kirk was and is a better player than he is widely assumed to be. I accept, as a full-back/centre back, he is no John Greig, far less a George Young, but, he is and always will be "a Rangers Man" and if I was McCoist I would have kept him at the club.

 

A COUPLE of weeks ago the back page of the Cumnock Chronicle carried the shock news that Lugar Boswell Thistle was on the verge of folding. This grand old junior club has a special place in my heart. I grew up watching their great team of the mid-fifties and still today the names drop off my tongue: Jock Fraser, Davie Love, Charlie Cathie, Andy McEwan, Jim Baird, Jim Donnelly, Alex Bingham, Jimmy Collins, Sanny Sharpe, Hughie Neil and Eric Wilkie, plus the stand-ins: Jock Stirling, Jim Neil, "Kitch" McDonald - that was a team and squad.

 

Lugar invented the 2-3-5 formation of legend; the club produced legends such as Andy Kerr and Bertie Black, plus a whole host of greats back in the 1870s and 1880s.

 

Well, what do you know; the crisis has been averted for now and this week, the "Well" are sitting proudly atop the Ayrshire District League. More power to secretary Kenny Young and his committee, to keep this grand old team going.