Socrates MacSporran

Socrates MacSporran
No I am not Chick Young, but I can remember when Scottish football was good

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Duncan Edwards - A Blast From The Past Worth Remembering

I BOUGHT a new book this week - 'Duncan Edwards - The Greatest' by Jim Leighton. No not oor ain, bandy-legged, short-sighted goalkeeping great, just an English chap who grew up to tales of the Manchester United icon, so-tragically taken from us by the Munich Disaster of 1958.
 
Edwards is a player who has always held a fascination for me. One of my all-time favourite football pictures is one of Edwards clearing the ball from the England penalty area during the 1957 international; that picture oozes power and charisma. I also recall his part in the first Scotland v England Under-23 match, at Shawfield in 1955, when Walter Winterbottom switched him from left half to centre forward, whereupon he scored a hat trick in a 6-0 English win and in the process put paid to Doug Baillie's hopes of ever playing for Scotland. Years later I plucked up the courage to ask big Doug about the game - he was in no doubts, Edwards was the best player he ever faced.
 
Bobby Charlton is equally adamant about his big pal's greatness: "He's the only player who ever made me feel inferior", he says.
 
Edwards had it all, he was in the Manchester United first team at 16, the England team at 18 and surely, all else having remained the same, had he survived, Edwards and not Bobby Moore would have captained England when they won some wee trophy in 1966.
 
In a world where Sky's hype has made major stars of nonentities, we should remember the likes of Edwards, from a simpler era, where football was somehow cleaner and meant more.
 
 
 
THAT'S one of the reasons why I looked forward to Rangers' journey back to redemption from the Third Division of the SFL. The journey would, I felt, be good for the younger Rangers players. They might just learn something from it - don't ask me waht that something might be, but, anything which deflated the egos around that club, would be no bad thing. By the way, any Rangers fans out there - huge egos are not exclusive to Rangers players, there are plenty of others in Scottish football who believe, because they are being ridiculously well paid these days, think they are stars - when they clearly are not.
 
I must say, in the wake of Rangers' draw at Berwick on Sunday, we might be in for a bad case of the same-old, same-old, from McCoist's men. When the decision to demote the club three divisions was made, I immediately felt that one or two players might struggle to get their heads round the new reality of where the club was playing, and a few away draws might be on the menu.
 
The fact they have yet to win a league game on foreign soil, and ok yes, these are early days, does not surprise me. Bad attitudes are harder to erase than bad technique faults and that's another cross for McCoist and his management team to bear. Home games will be no bother, even a half-full Ibrox is worth a couple of goals of a start to Rangers in the SFL, but really and truly convincing his players that points have to be earned at some of these wee away grounds will be a major task for Ally this season.
 
That's why I had hoped to see more youngsters in the team. They will, I believe, take the lessons on-board far faster than some of the more-experienced players. However, if, as I suspect, the buy your way to glory management model is so-embedded in the Ibrox psyche that they can see no alternative, I fear further problems lie a few years down the road, when the club is back in the SPL.
 
I hope too that, after the wasted years under Murray, when Rangers thought themselves almost too-good for Scotland and made enemies with this mental approach; having learned where that approach got them - they had no friends when they needed them - I hope everyone at Ibrox takes time to foster good relationships with the other SFL clubs as they progress back to the top. For they now know, while the other clubs in the SPL badly need Rangers' fans and their cash, they will do them no favours.
 
Making friends and influencing people, whilst beating them on the park - that's a really hard one to pull off, but it's something Rangers have to do.

Friday 24 August 2012

The harder I work - the luckier I get

THE dignified response to Hearts' narrow loss to Liverpool in Thursday night's Europa League game is to say: "Well done Hearts, hard luck". Bad enough to lose, but, to lose to an own goal, so late in the game was unfortunate.
 
However, I don't think Andy Webster, one of the hardest-nosed professionals in the game today will be feeling hard-done-by and cursing his bad luck, as the man who conceded the og. More-likely big Andy will have gone home last night, kicked the cat and will generally be like a bear with a sore head until he can get back on the pitch this weekend and put the matter behind him.
 
I will not be saying: "Hard luck" to Hearts, although I will feel thus. For, in the harsh reality of modern-day football, this was a chance lost. Of course, they could still go to Anfield and win, but, having been fore-warned of the danger than Hearts could pose them, I expect Liverpool to re-introduce the big guns,not least Steven Gerrard, to ensure victory at home in the second leg.
 
In the pre-amble to the game, there were fears of another Tottenham white-wash for the Jambos, similar to last season's heavy defeat from the London club. However, most people forget, the second leg was amuch-closer affair. The plain fact is, as has so-often been the case in Anglo-Scottish match-ups: if the English team doesn't treat the Scots as country bumpkins, leave out their class acts and take it too-casually, regardless of what the Scots do - the English side, with their greater resources and greater depth of quality in their squad, will win at least nine out of ten matches.
 
However, if the English side's attitude is wrong, if they go in with the: "We're only playing a bunch of thick Jocks" attitude and if the Scots side then play at the top of their game - a "surprise" win will follow for the Scots side.
 
The truth is, while there are some wonderful individuals sprinkled across the English Premiership, on the whole they are not a world apart from their SPL counter-parts. Most of this "Greatest League In The Wolrd" nonsense and the obscene sums of money being squandered down there is flannel and bullshit. All 20 Premiership teams are not better teams than all 12 SPL teams.
 
We have perhaps bought-into the media hype about the Premiership, as similarly, I think many of us have bought-into the hype and spin to the effect that Celtic will win the SPL by Christmas. Scottish footballers and teams have always liked nothing better than knocking down icons, so, maybe with a wee bit of that age-old Scottish belief, allied to the traditional Scottish Presbityrian work ethic, Hearts can go to Anfield and win, and that perhaps they, and one or two other SPL teams can make life awkward in the league for a Celtic team which is, in truth, a pale shadow of the Lisbon Lions.
 
OK, suppose Hearts were "unlucky" on Thursday night, time to change that luck - in which case I can only re-itterate the sage words of the great Gary Player, he who said: "The harder I work - the luckier I get".
 
 
 
I NOTE Stewart Regan, in a media briefing this week, announced that plans are already afoot for the much-needed league reconstruction in Scotland. This worries me.
 
We all know the decision to kick Rangers out of the SPL was driven by chairmen's fear of a fans backlash, should "the Cheats", as Rangers were known at the time, be allowed to remain in the SPL. We then had the horse-trading with the SFL, geared to ensure the SPL kept a hold of at least some of the TV money which the Rangers name brings.
 
Reconstruction is necessary, however, I feel the driving force for change now is the SPL's need to have Rangers back inside their tent, bringing in the cash from their loyal fans. On the basis of it is better to have someone inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside pissing in, clearly the SPL chairmen should have stuck with their default position and kept them there, while flashing the Vicky at their indignant fans. Then they could have more-easily punished Rangers for their "still only alleged" misdeeds.
 
Now they will be loudly castigated when, as they will, they gerrymander change to get Rangers back in the SPL earlier than even successive promotions would have ensured.
 
Hurried change in structures is always bad change - prepare for more carnage.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Pygmies: v Zulus: In The Long Run,My MOney's On The Zulus

I HAVE to admit, I don't get this tribalism in Scottish sport, and in particular football. Maybe it's got something to do with my youthful exploits on the rugby pitch - where you kick, punch and generally knock lumps off your opponent, then you shower, change and become best mates in the bar. This doesn't happen in football - which is more the pity for that game.
 
So I've always thought all the aggro which surrounds Scottish football was very silly, but, apart from the quasi-religious/political undertones which wurround the Old Firm, not too-serious.
 
I had cause to pause and reflect earlier this week, when I met one of my mates for our regular weekly bowling matches. This mate is an ex-polis, who reached the upper echelons of Strathclyde's finest, and one of his jobs whilst in navy blue was to act as Match Day Commander at Ibrox. So, he would, you think, know his way around the game. But, he surprised me this week when, as we spoke, he confessed - he had never been aware of the loathing and hatred for Rangers from elsewhere in Scotland - until Rangersgate broke.
 
As he said: "Nothing has yet been proved against Rangers during the Murray years; yes, there is strong evidence of probable wrong-doing, but no proof, as yet. So I have been surprised at how many people are keen to believe rumours and to strike out at Rangers - even when, by so doing, they hurt their own club".
 
But hey, that's Scotland for you.
 
 
 
WELL done to Celtic in Europe this week. They rode their luck a wee bit, but, they got the two away goals and will see the job through at Celtic Park, but, in truth I don't see them doing too-much in the Champions League this season, or even the Europa League when/if they drop into this.
 
Celtic under the Lawwell/Lennon axis are still, to me, totally unprepared to revert to the management model which worked - that of the Stein Years, when young Scots were moulded into one of the finest teams in football history. I for one do not believe that talented young Scottish footballers are no longer being produced. A percentage of the best will always move to England's greater riches, but, if the club's system is right, enough will stay to give Scottish teams a chance in Europe.
 
Rangers do not currently have to worry about Europe, but I am disappointed in the club's response to the loss of Goian - by bringing-in a veteran Brazilian  and a young Frenchman. I have never seen the young French boy, but, if he's better than Ross Perry or Darren Cole, then he'd have been going to a bigger club than one currently doing time in the Scottish senior football basement.
 
Their exile from the SPL, I felt, gave Rangers a once in a generation chance to nurture a squad of gifted Rangers men from the start of their football careers. But no, the failed Murray model of buying-in second and third-rate non-Scots seems to now be implanted in the Ibrox DNA, and that is sad.
 
We need a lead from our two biggest clubs, again, we are not getting it.

Thursday 16 August 2012

A Gordon For Me

CRAIG Levein dodged a potential bullet this week, when he finally managed to get Matt Gilks onto the park during the Easter Road meeting with Australia. I would hate to think we might have had to hand him his first cap against Serbia in a competitive game.

Of course, some 70 minutes in a meaningless friendly is hardly ideal preparation for a World Cup qualifier, but, over the years we have had so many goalkeeping disasters it is always good to have had your back stop blooded before a big game.

That said, maybe Allan McGregor wouldn't have got hurt, if he'd stayed in Turkey rather than coming home for the Australian match, but, you never know. For added security, I just hope Craig Gordon gets a new club soon and is quickly back in top-flight action.

The transfer window slams shut in less than two weeks, we don't have that many top-class 'keepers in Scotland, so I am confident that if some SPL team was to make him an offer, they would be quids in. A fit Gordon is by far the best current Scottish 'keeper, it is madness to have him out of the game.



I SEE the English papers were this week running a story that Team GB would not be seeking to enter football teams at the Rio Olympics in 2016; the London effort was indeed, a one-off.

In which case, what was it all about? The BOA were told, as soon as they first considered running football teams, that this would be more bother than it was worth. In the end, while the women, essentially "England" augmented by the excellent Kim Little and Ifoema Dieke, did very well, the Anglo-Welsh men's team less-so; it was all a great deal of sound a fury for very little.

The whole organisation was wrong, it stunk, mainly due to English arrogance and if they had been serious about playing Olympic football, they should have organised it properly, prepared better and thought about legacy.

I didn't want an English-dominated compromise, I felt and still feel the FA took a gamble, which had it back-fired would have had dire consequences for British (including English) football at international level.

But, that said, I see a place for Olympic football as a staging post between Under-21 and full international football. However, it needs to be thought about and organised properly. But now, it will almsot-certainly, never happen.





Do We Get Australia To Keep?

JINGS, crivvens, help ma boab - Scotland actually won an international. I long ago stopped having any, far less great expectations when it came to our clubs or our international team's performances against opposition from outwith Scotland. The culture of Scottish football is firmly set against preparing our players and teams for confrontation in the wider world. For the last 30-years or more we have concentrated on "character", "physical fitness", the desire to run through a brick wall and ignored ball skills, passing ability and the other technical skills.

That said, there were a couple of cameos in last night's game versus the Aussies, when Scots, particularly Robert Snodgrass, had me thinking that all was not lost - but, while I hope I am wrong, I still don't see us getting to Rio in 2014.

At least we did beat the Australians last night. Just as they would expect to beat us nine times out of ten at cricket, I cling to the notion that we should enjoy the same level of success against them at our game.

We beat them at rugby in the summer, we have now beaten them at football and Chris Hoy beat their best man in the Olympic keirin race - does that mean we get them to keep?



YESTERDAY afternoon I was speaking to a journalist pal who is an unashamed Rangers supporter. Indeed, he is, to some of us in this game - the life-time Right Worthy Master of the Lap Top Loyal.

He was heading for Easter Road and when I told him I would not "out" him as a Scotland fan, he scoffed, as I knew he would. He and I are both of the generation who grew up in a Tartan Army the majority of whose membership was overwhelming Rangers supporters. He has no time for those Ibrox men who sport England shirts and profess to being England supporters at international level.

My mate reckoned, between Hibs fans who hated him, Hearts fans who were unhappy at his decision to leave and Rangers-hating fans of other clubs, Ian Black would get a mixed reception when Craig Levein put him on off the bench last night.

We both knew that Levein, after the flak he has taken since the squad was announced, would blood Black. That was a no-brainer.

Mind you, I still feel that Black isn't Scotland class; neither is Charlie Mulgrew and for all he put in a terrific cross for the opener and has obviously improved since returning south, I am not convinced about Danny Fox. Also, while he still bombs forward brilliantly, Alan Hutton's defensive frailties still concern me. A full back's first function is to defend and sadly, the guys we currently have vying for the numbers two and three jerseys with Scotland are all to a degree deficient in that department. How I long for my Jardine and McGrain of long ago.



A NEW season and still Rangersgate rumbles on. When oh when are BDO going to come in and sort out this on-going mess? When they do, just watch the fun begin, because, if they do their job properly, nobody, David Murray, Craig Whyte, Duff & Phelps, Charles Green, the SFA and the SPL will emerge with their credibility intact. This latest row, about the Dundee United cup money, surely indicates that something needs done, and quickly.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Rangers Still Rule - Where Cash Is Concerned

AM I alone in thinking that the SPL and the anti-Rangers element within Hampden's corridors of power boobed badly in their handling of Rangersgate?

Because, from the way events have unfolded over the past six months, I reckon they boobed badly when they cast Rangers into the outer darkness of the SFL's Third Division; amidst loud and prolonged shouts of "sporting integrity" and so on.

I am not too-good at remembering the source of quotable quotes, even when I do remember the quote. In this instance the epigram which comes to mind is: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". To the other SPL clubs, Rangers was the enemy, to some, the Great Satan. Even when financially hamstrung, badly managed and wounded and in administration, Rangers still finished second to Celtic last season. Sevco and Charles Green might have bought the husk of the once-mighty Rangers, but that "sale" might not survive the due diligence of BDO.

At the moment, regardless of Green's bluster, Rangers are still technically "in administration". Had the SPL kept them inside the tent, peeing out on the rest of Scottish football, they could have deducted points, they might have been able to place other sanctions in Rangers' way, but the other 11 clubs would have had a modicum of control over the situation.

The way they scurried to re-negotiate with Sky and ESPN, their rush to keep their grubby paws on the TV money which even a tainted Rangers "brand" accrues, demonstrates that, even in level four of the game in Scotland, Rangers are a big, dangerous and, wounded though they are, pitiless beast.

Perhaps now, some of the SPL chairmen, as they face uncomfortable interviews with their bankers, and seeing how Rangers could, at Peterhead on Saturday, prove themselves a bigger draw than most of the SPL, the chairmen realise - as Killie's Michael Johnson does - that commercial interests in football out-weigh "sporting integrity" every time.

Even in SFL3, Rangers are still very big fish.



AS FOR Rangers, hopefully Ally McCoist will call a players' meeting this week and present a reality check to his squad. Winning SFL3, far less SFL 2 and more-so SFL1 isn't going to be the cake-walk they thought it might be.

As the only full-time team in the Division, and with almost a full 11 full-internationalists to pick from, if Rangers do not win the division this season, then McCoist will deserve the sack. But, they, the players, will have to battle. They ought to have superior skills; they will have superior fitness; the question will be - do they want it more?

I have always maintained that the unique challenge which faced Celtic and Rangers teams in the old days - when domestic squads were almost always comprised of 11 Scotsmen - was that every other Scottish team they faced would contain maybe three fans of the team they were actually facing - all keen to go out and beat them; four fans of the other OF side, desperate to beat them; and four of their own fans, equally desperate to show they were a better player than the guy wearing their number in the OF side they were taking on. That was pressure.

McCoist's squad hasn't had that challenge of late, given they are more-used to taking on SPL sides containing more foreign mercenaries than home-Scots. This season, they are back to facing the traditional Scottish make-up of opposition squads: fans of the team they are facing, plus players who belong to either half of the Old Firm tribal mass. Also, the SFL3 players they will face will not be as sharp or as fit - the Rangers players better get used to being hit late in tackles. They will have to adapt.

If I was one of the Rangers coaching staff I would be working on moving the ball quickly, keeping the opposition chasing shadows, then, in the final half hour, using the Rangers' squad's superior fitness and technique to win games. They will have to play to a higher tempo than has been their want in the SPL. Only once they have exhausted their opposition's energy and enthusiasm, will they be able to show their superior skills. This season and the next tow, should they gain promotion, will not be easy.



FINALLY, I cannot help but wonder what might have become of George Burley, or Berti Vogts, had they, as Craig Levein has done this week, initially appeared to have ruled Rangers' players out of Scotland contention while the club was in disgrace, then back-tracked and called-up one of them.

For a start, I don't think Ian Black is "Rangers Class" - that is old Rangers Class - measuring his abilities as a midfield player against the likes of Jim Baxter, Graeme Souness, Ian Durrant or either of the Ferguson brothers - far less "Scotland Class". But, if he was good enough for the national squad as a Hearts player, I don't think three games at a lower level with Rangers has weakened his case for inclusion.

By the same token, Danny Fox has never, for my money, been "Celtic Class" - he didn't last long there don't forget, far-less "Scotland Class". Again, if I had to choose a left back, I'd have gone with Lee Wallace.

And, by the way - for my money, Charlie Mulgrew has, in his international appearances so far, struck me as a perfect example of the old Craig Brown trick. Whenever Bleeper faced strident calls to: "cap so-and-so", he would give the player being talked-up an international call and allow him to play himself out of the reckoning. I think Mulgrew has done that, but Levein is maybe a bit more forgiving than Brown, either that or he has yet to be convinced of Mulgrew's lack of internatinal class.

Monday 13 August 2012

Don't Look Back In Anger

WELL, that's that - we can put the Olympic Games back in the box until 2016. Fair does, that lot up in that there Lunnun done good. I see there have been calls for Seb Coe's Life Peerage to be upgraded to a Viscountcy; that won't happen, today's political class are all agin hereditary honours, so, apparently, Seb will be made a Companion of Honour - a rare and in this case justified honour.

Then, thanks to the populist touch started by that Fettesian twat what ran New Labour, various athletes will be knighted - look out for "Sirs" Bradley Wiggins, Ben Ainslie and Mo Farah and "Dames" Katherine Grainger and Victoria Pendelton, while MBEs will be upgraded to OBEs and OBEs to CBEs elsewhere.

But, what do we do about the likes of Sir Chris Hoy? I would love to see him being admitted to the Knights of the Thistle, but hae ma doots aboot that yin. Still, big Chris is a Watsonian and can therefore be expected to know how to behave around St Giles, something which might not be said about some working-class oik from a Glasgow scheme.

I would like to see Dave Brailsford, the brains behind British Cycling's success and his rowing counterpart Jurgen Grobbler being honoured - they, as much as the great athletes they inspired and guided, deserve a wee visit to the Palace.



BUT, the Olympics are over and it's back to the purritch and auld claes of Scottish football, where, as we know, mediocrity rules. We've got an international this week, against the kangaroo catchers, I am not confident of the outcome.

The official records show Scotland and the Aussies first met in 1986 in the inter-continental play-off, which decided the final team into that season's World Cup finals in Mexico. We won the first leg in Hampden - which, as the first game following the tragedy of Jock Stein's death, was always going to be a tough one mentally for Alex Ferguson and his squad. Then, we held out for a draw in Melbourne, thanks to a brilliant late save or three from Jim Leighton. Our reward, a place in The Group of Death with West Germany, Denmark and Uruguay in Mexico.

However, in reality, Scotland's first crack at the Aussies had come in a three-game "Test" series, down under, in June, 1967, as part of a World Tour.

With both halves of the Old Firm in European finals, manager Bobby Brown had to pick a shadow squad. The tour started a month after that 3-2 Wembley win over World Champions England, and the only one of the '67 Wembley Wizards to feature was Jim McCalliog, the youngster who had made his Scotland debut on that unforgettable day.

Squad captain Ian Ure had to come home with a broken jaw after the opening game against Israel was reduced to a kicking match (Alex Ferguson gets the blame for starting the bother) and Doug Fraser of West Brom took over the captaincy.

A Hong Kong XI were then beaten before the party arrived in Sydney, where, on 28 May, Fergie scored the only goal of the game in a game played on a virtual ploughed field at the Sydney Showgrounds. The Scots then moved-on to Adelaide where, three days later, Jim Townsend and Willie Morgan got the goals in a 2-1 win for the Scots.

On 3 June, in Melbourne, Ferguson scored both goals as the Scots completed the Australian leg of their round the world odyssey with a 2-0 win. They then moved on, via two games in New Zealand, to complete the circumnavigation with two wins in Canada, the second being a 7-2 win over the Canucks, in Winnigpe, during which Joe Harper scored five goals.

The bare tour statistics read: played 9, won 9, scored 33 goals, conceded 9 goals. In all 19 players played in that tour; six of these 19 players never got caps, because, unlike the Israelis, Australians and Canadians, the SFA has resolutely refused to recognise the games played as A internationals, worthy of the presentation of a cap to any participant. So goalkeeper Harry Thomson of Burnley, the Hearts defenders, Alan Anderson and Jim Townsend, Harry Hood - then with Clyde, but better known from his Celtic days - the Bury and former Partick Thistle full back Hugh Tinney and Alex Ferguson, then with Dunfermline and top-scorer on-tour with 11 goals, all played in internationals but never were capped. While Arsenal reserve John Woodward, after being summoned to New Zealand as an injury replacement, played in three games, none of which was an "international".

Forty-five years on, with Scotland playing Australia this week at Easter Road and with the SFA badly needing some good publicity, would it hurt them all that much to declare the internationals on that tour "official" and belatedly give Fergie his cap?

The SFA might also wish to ponder on how, in a period of 45 years, we have fallen from a position whereby we could send a shadow squad round the world unbeaten, to today, where Australia will start as favourites against us, in Scotland. Because, that is the reality of our fall from grace.

The winning Wembley team in 1967 is well-known, but, the next international, on 10 May, 1967, pitted Scotland against the USSR, who beat us 2-0 at Hampden. The Scotland team that night was: Ronnie Simpson; Tommy Gemmell and Eddie McCreadie; John Clark, Ron McKinnon and Jim Baxter (captain); Jimmy Johnstone, Frank McLintock, Jim McCalliog, Denis Law and Bobby Lennox - with Willie Wallace coming on for the Lawman. Clark, McLintock and Johnstone had replaced John Greig, Billy Bremner and Wallace from the Wembley winners.

The team which beat the Israelis 2-1 in Tel Aviv, six days later, was: Harry Thomson (Burnley); Willie Callaghan (Dunfermline) and Eddie Colquhoun (West Brom); Alan Anderson (Hearts), Ian Ure (Arsenal) and Doug Fraser (West Brom); Andy Penman (Rangers Reserves), Bobby Hope (West Brom), McCalliog, Ferguson and Willie Morgan (Burnley), with Hood replacing Penman during the game. Fergie and Willie Morgan got the goals.

Can we honestly say today that Scotland has the depth of player quality which would allow Craig Levein to make ten changes inside a week and win? I don't think so and I fear that, until the SFA gets its act together and creates a system whereby we can produce talented players in bigger numbers, we will only slip further behind the best.




Friday 10 August 2012

Reality Bites - So I'm Losing Myself In Old Newspapers

THIS is the weekend on which reality bites for the SPL. They've had the grand opening weekend, which left the Scottish football public distinctly under-whelmed. They were given a reality check, when more fans turned up for Rangers' first home game - a Tuesday night cup tie against East Fife - than for the five SPL opening games which didn't feature Celtic combined. Now, with Celtic otherwise engaged, the rest have to try to attract a following.

The Edinburgh Derby will take care of itself, but it is a racing certainty that the largest caravan of travelling fans this weekend will comprise the Bears on buses who will follow-follow as far as Peterhead.

Of course, ~Rangers' support will wane this season, but, there remains a sufficiently-large hard core of supporters who will turn out to emphasise just which club is the big beast in Scotland.

Rangers had to be punished, but, starting this weekend, the SPL clubs will surely begin their season-long process of regreting the way they chose to inflict that punishment.



I AM currently researching an article on Scotland's oldest living former internationalists. This has involved a part of this job which I love - poring over old newspaper reports from the days when the selection of the Scotland team was in the hands of the less than magnificent seven members of the SFA's Selection Committee.

Today, when a Scotland game hoves onto the horizon, the hack pack is summoned to Hampden; we are ushered into a big room, wherein we are handed the squad list. Craig Levein then emerges, does a set-piece presentation, which is mainly for the benefit of the TV and radio companies, before sitting down in turn at two round tables - at the first of which sit the men from the dailies, with the Sunday guys at the second. That's where he answers the (not so) hard questions which form the basis of the papers' stories on the squad.

Back in the day, the hack pack would stand outside Carlton Place or Park Gardens and await the distribution of the list, no questions were allowed, which permitted speculation and comment - often barbed. There was one ocassion, way back in the 1880s, when the gentlemen of the press were allowed into the room to watch the selection committee at work, but that, apparently, was a once-only aberration by the SFA.

For instance, checking-out a Scotland team from the immediate post-war era I noticed, in addition to the chosen XI, the selectors announced a reserve team, from which replacements would be called-up if required. One particular reserve team I noticed had Sammy Cox (then playing left half for Rangers) listed as reserve right back and reserve right half, while Jimmy Stephen, who actually played left back for the Scotland team, was also listed as reserve left back.

The team was badly beaten, seven changes were made for the next international, five weeks later but while both the right back and right half were dropped - Sammy Cox didn't get either gig in the second match. Talk about team building.

When the selectors ruled, it was not uncommon for unheralded Anglo-Scots to be picked, particularly for the annual clash with the English. Many of these guys were "one-cap wonders" - goalkeeper Ian Black of Southampton, v England in 1948, Willie Moir of Bolton Wanderers, v England in 1950 and John Dick of West Ham at Wembley in 1959 being the stand-out post-war examples, while Tiny Bradshaw of Bury was surely the ultimate "one-cap wonder", getting his solitary cap as one of the 1928 "Wembley Wizards".

These "one-cap wonders" were probably justification for the selectors' huge expenses incurred while scouting for talent in England; but, in reality, is there any real difference between the likes of Black, Moir and Dick and some of the current Scotland squad, such as the two Blackpool Matts -  Phillips and Gilks - other than the fact Black, Moir and Dick all had Scottish rather than English accents?

Mind you, these old-time Anglo-Scots could all play a bit, not something I have always ascertained about some of the guys picked of late under the grand-parents rule; but, that said, the worst individual performance I ever saw in a Scotland shirt was produced by a Home Scot. Nobody has ever, for my money, been as bad as Motherwell's Jim Forrest was in his solitary international, against England, at Hampden in 1958.

Another thing I love about  the old ways is the way the football writers of the time could write with authority: "I suggest the selectors should pick the following team" the Waverleys and Rexes would thunder, then be lucky if they got six of the eleven names announced correct.

Of course, this merely gave them the freedom to get stuck into the seven faceless "blazers" if Scotland played badly.

The worst/best example of the selectors getting it in the neck from the press was surely during the end of season European tour of June 1963. After the tour opener, a 3-4 loss to Norway in Bergen, John McKenzie, the Daily Express's "Voice of Football" thundered that Denis Law should never play for Scotland again. The Lawman had scored all three Scottish goals.

The caravan moved on to Dublin, where they lost 0-1 to the Republic Of Ireland, after which McKenzie was not alone in calling for the tour to be abandoned there and then, before Scotland were humiliated in the final game, against Spain in the Bernabau.

Remember that game - Sunday, 13 June, 1963? The final score was Spain 2 Scotland 6 and less than a year later that Spanish team were European Champions.

But, that's the joy of following Scotland, the sheer unpredictability. It has often been said that the real Tartan Army, the Jocks of the old 51st and 52nd divisions of the British Army would follow their English public school-educated officers anywhere - mostly out of a sense of morbid fascination as to what kind of pickle they would lead them into - I would suggest the same thought processes are still at work with the modern day footballing Tartan Army.



FINALLY, Australia has had, by all accounts, a dire Olympics; they been nowhere in their usual stronghold, the swimming pool, only the wonderful Sally Pearson has performed on the track and as I write, Advance Australia Fair has only been heard seven times to the 25 times we've heard God Save The Queen. This is not good news for the Aussies, so we can safely put our money on the men in green and gold to beat Scotland at Easter Road in midweek.


Thursday 9 August 2012

Too-many lawyers, too-little football - let's sort this out

I HAVE long sympathised with the proposition that the world would be a much-happier place if a minimum of half of each of the members of any graduating class at any law school was immediately taken out and shot - in short, we have -many lawyers and too-many laws.

In the "old" days when Members of Parliament were rawn from a proper cross section of society - where left-wing former coal miners sat beside former soldiers or journalists, the House of Commons had status. Today, with the major parties increasingly drawing their representatives in the House from the ranks of former student rebels who have gone on to become "career politicians" or from lawyers who cannot cut it in the cut-throat world of the English bar, the House is a by-word for incompetence and corruption.

Westminster is apparently awash with people with LLB after their names, who keep framing and passing bad law - which keeps their erstwhile colleagues with the legal profession in work because of the fall-out from the inadequately-framed laws passed.

What's this got to do with fitba? You ask.

Well, much of the fall-out from Rangersgate has burst around what are now seen as inadequately-framed rules within Scottish football. "Old" Rangers, apparently, got away with not filing accounts on time, being less than scrupulously honest in terms of filing contracts - as well as killing the first-born of Roman Catholic football families, setting fire to various grandstands, raping and pillaging, starting World Wars I and II, the Famine in the Horn of Africa and imprisoning Nelson Mandela.

The SFA was implicit in all these crimes and is not fit for purpose.

Now, when it comes to criticising the SFA and pointing out that body's imperfections, count me in - it comes with the territory. However, for all their many imperfections and failures, we cannot be too-harsh on the SFA and its army of "blazers".

Unlike the pigs with their snouts in the Westminster trough, the guys who make the decisions inside Hampden do so in their free time from their more-important duties as business-men, accountants, yes lawyers even, school teachers and so-forth. There is a secretariat, headed by Stewart Regan which keeps the wheels turning. Few of these employees have professional qualifications, and it could be argued that those who have might well be better-paid within the mainstream of their profession. But, they are in football - because they love the game and want to do something for it.

Football, in spite of the words of my kinsman Bill Shankly, is just a game, a pastime, a means of diversion from the travails of real life. As such, in the grand scheme of things, whether or not England's third "goal" in the 1966 World Cup Final actually crossed the line matters not a jot. Yet still, we get het-up about it.

The football associations such as the SFA are mere instruments for organising professionally what is still, at heart, a pleasant way of passing 90 minutes. The SFA and the other similar associations around the world are basically big clubs, gatherings together of like-minded people.

Football doesn't need many rules (or in the case of the code of conduct for playing actual matches: "laws"). It is one of the simplest of all games to play - a mere 19 laws, most of which refer to the playing field and equipment.

It should be easy to organise and run - provided we keep the lawyers away. Yes, the SFA have got in the past, and will again no doubt in the future, get some rules wrong - but, in the past the occasional mistakes in rule-making and application which were made were sorted-out in-house and life went on.

Today, with social media and the internet, trolls with too-much time on their hands are increasingly highlighting minutaie and finding nits to pick -this is not good for the game.

Can we please get back to concentrating on the basics, which are: the game is played between two teams of 11 men, of whom one on each side is the goalkeeper and is allowed to use his hands within his penalty area. The object of the game is to score more goals than the opposition, within the 90 minutes of playing time - which is divided into two, 45-minute halves - by propelling the ball past the opposition goalkeeper and into the net, which is stretched behind an 8 foot by 24 foot, three-sided wooden frame, stuck into the ground.

The referee is the sole judge of fact, accept his decisions and get on with it.

Maybe if we went back to that, and remember, when organised football began, there was no referee, the two captains settled disputes between them, the game would be a better one.

And, for a start, let's keep the lawyers, certified and barrack-room, out of the game.  

Tuesday 7 August 2012

SPL - Car Crash Football Which Nobody Wants To Watch

CELTIC Park was 80 per cent full for Saturday's SPL opener against Aberdeen, before which last season's Championship flag was unfurled. Last night, Ibrox was 75 per cent full for new Rangers' first home game, against East Fife.

We can deduce from that that the Old Firm's core fan base is holding-up pretty well in these strained times. But what of elsewhere? What happened to all this internet big talk about big crowds for the big kick-off, of the fans rolling back now that the traditional Old Firm hegemony at the top of the Scottish game had been temporarily perhaps broken?

Not a lot in truth. Ross County's little Victoria Park was 80 per cent full for their SPL bow, Tynecastle was 80 per cent full for the Jambos' march to the head of the SPL table, at the expense of St Johnstone, while on Sunday, Tannadice was 52 per cent full for the Arabs' win over Hibs.

Overall, in the first of the 38 rounds of SPL games, only two-thirds of the available SPL seats had bums on them. Take Celtic out of the arithmetic and on the opening day of the most-eagerly-anticipated season in years, only 54 per cent of the available seats were occupied - hardly a resounding vote of confidence for the Rangers-free SPL.

The two lowest percentages of bums on seats were reported at Rugby Park and at new St Mirren Park, where respectively only 36 and 39 per cent of the available seats were occupied.

I saw for myself that, at Rugby Park, visitors Dundee, the manner of whose entry into the top flight was, like so many other matters, woefully mis-handled by the SPL, brought a good support, many no doubt anxious to be able to claim: "I was there" on the day the 'Dee ended their top-flight exile - but, yet again, there was a shrug of disinterest among my fellow Ayrshiremen and women.

We're a funny lot here in God's County, I have long felt the comparative lack of real home-grown Ayrshiremen in the team is Killie's Achilles Heel, when it comes to attracting a crowd, that, plus the lingering damage done by many years of playing merely to survive rather than to entertain and win - while the economic downturn of recent years has hit Ayrshire and in particular Kilmarnock hard.

To walk around Killie these days is to be conscious of a town on the downward slope; the place looks shabby, the people even shabbier. Maybe if Barclay's was still producing railway locomotives, Massey Ferguson tractors and combines, Saxone shoes, BMK carpets, Glazier motor industry components, Glenfield & Kennedy heavy engineering equipment and they still bottled Johnnie Walker Whisky in Kilmarnock, there would be more people in work in the town and with spare cash to spend at Rugby Park.  Maybe if today's Killie Kids had Frank Beattie as a role model, rather than "Starvin Marvin" from 'The Scheme', or if the charismatic Bobby Fleeting was still Chairman, rather than the charisma-free Michael Johnson, things might be better.

Up at St Mirren, Scotland's Largest Town's proximity to Glasgow will always be a drawback to locals following the Buddies rather than the Bhoys or the Bears. They've got a great stadium, a good, hard-working board, a hard core of fanatics, but here again, Paisley's great days as a manufacturing town, like Kilmarnock's are gone and those working class men with spare cash have found places other than across the turnstiles at St Mirren Park in which to spend it.

The SPL is over-priced, the product isn't that good and I feel that, until the clubs re-discover their roots in the local community, and start filling-up their squad places with local players, the game in Scotland will not recover.

A good start might be made by NOT hurrying through league re-construction, purely as a basis for getting Rangers back to the top flight sooner. Knee-jerk reactions are never good ones.

Right now, we have too-many "Senior" clubs, too-few home-grown players and we're charging first rate prices for a third-rate product. Find a way to freshen-up the senior game, while sorting-out these deficiencies, and we might, in time, have a game in Scotland which the public will wish to support in numbers.

But, getting the product and the mix right will be a tough job and, in all honesty, I don't see the men to make the tough calls and implement the tough changes necessary as being inside Hampden's corridors of powers today.



I AM a trifle under-whelmed by Craig Levein's latest Scotland squad, for the upcoming Easter Road clash with Australia. I appreciate the game will be a glorified squad run-out prior to the start of the World Cup qualifying later in the Autumn, so he has to go with what he considers his core squad.

But, the timing is wrong, the home-based players will be going into the game on the back of at best four competitive games, which will be four more than the Anglos will have had. Maybe the game should have been scheduled for a couple of weeks later-on; but then, I am not up to scratch with UEFA and FIFA edicts as to when internationals may be played, so perhaps it had to be next week.

I also feel, it might be better if he didn't play a full-strength team (assuming we have such a thing). He needs to get guys like Matt Gilks "blooded", so we know if they have what it takes to play for Scotland. In truth, the whole exercise doesn't enthuse me for the World Cup matches to come.

In fact, the entire Scotland set-up I feel, needs freshening-up. There doesn't seem to me to be a pathway of progression, from age group teams to the full squad. Berti Vogts introduced "Futures" internationals and "B" internationals - something which the German FA play frequently. But this idea was never popular with either the Hampden blazers or the Scotia Nostra in the press seats - which was a pity.

The trouble with UK football is, in my opinion, that the clubs, overwhelmingly come first, well ahead of the national team, and, until we sort this out and make Scotland our main focus, we will, I believe, continue to be on the outside, gaping in, when the big internaitonal tournaments are being played. 

Olympic Legacy - Let's Make Our Footballers "Professional"

I AM still struggling somewhat to be arsed about the start of the new Scottish football season. I cannot be bothered with mince,when fillet steak is on offer all day, every day, on the BBC - which has, to the chagrin of some of my mates on the important pages on newspapers - those are the ones before the page after the centre-spread, since, in papers, the content gets siller the further from the front you get - gone totally ga-ga over the Olympics.

As one Editor I was speaking with last week said, more in sorrow than anger: "People are being massacred by their government in Syria and what's the main item on the BBC News? Some guy from Dunblane wins a game of tennis.

Well, look at it as if you were the Chairman of an SPL club. You are trying to persuade your local populace that you have a squad of top-quality, talented, dedicated footballers on offer: when the reality is some of them couldn't trap a bag of cement; their idea of a hard training schedule is about an hour a morning, four mornings per week; when you're paying them way over what they are worth and when they're a surly bunch, mostly only interested in which daft local burd they can get their end away with.

You are trying to persuade enough gullible locals to part with over £20 to come into your stadium to watch these "stars" "perform" - and the alternative is, the public remain in the comfort of their own homes to watch the best sportsmen and women in the world strut their stuff on TV. They can see real sports stars such as Andy Murray, who, at 15, went off to Spain to learn a new language, improve his tennis skills, learn to be professional and finally reap the benefits, or Chris Hoy, who had to uproot himself from his comfortable, middle-class life-style in Edinburgh for a small flat in Manchester and the chance to be part of the most-professional sports team in Britain, GB Cycling. Then there is Katherine Grainger, a graduate of Edinburgh University, who has spent the years since she got her degree chasing that elusive gold medal which she finally won last week.

Katherine could long ago have settled into a career, perhaps married an Edinburgh lawyer or corporate banker, had the nice house in Stockbridge, the two kids - Rebecca at Mary Erskine, Findlay at Watson's - and been doing the round of pilates, aero-biking, coffee mornings, maybe part-time work, involvement with a worthy charity, dinner parties and charity gatherings which are surely the life-style of some of her university contemporaries.

Instead she has endured over a decade of early-morning rows on cold lakes, of gruelling weights sessions, of training camps abroad as she pursued her goal. Along the way she has thrice fallen just short, but, she kept going and, in her 36th year, she achieved her goal. No, I cannot think of a Scottish professional footballer that driven, and that worthy of praise.

Team GB's successes have come because the men at the top of the various individual sports organisations have clear goals in sight, clear and concise plans in place and where there is a culture of excellence.

It is, I admit, easier for these "minority" sports to do well. British Cycling does, certainly, run Team Sky in the Tour de France for instance, but there aren't individual clubs: Manchester Sprinters (star men J Kennay and C Hoy); Manchester Keirin (C Hoy); Manchester Pursuit Team (Clancy, Thomas, Burke and Kennaugh) Manchester Ladies Pursuit Team (King, Trott and Rowsell) - there is simply Team GB.

But look at the business set-up of British Cycling: there is Dave Brailsford, THE main man, the Performance Director, who picks the various units and is in overall charge of strategy and direction - the Manager in football parlance. Below him there are the various specialist coaches, a squad of dieticians, nutritionalists, physios, psychologists mechanics and so forth. The British Cycling mantra is: "attention to detail" - nothing is too-small to be overlooked.

Compared to this, Britain's most-successful team (and also to the rowing team, which all but matches their cycling counterparts in ethos, attitude, search for perfection and attention to detail) with the haphazard manner in which our football teams are managed and run.

I can only hope that the real professionalism which has brought Team GB so-many medals at London 2012 will jump across to Scottish football and that the game  up here can reap the benefit - now that would be a real, wonderful and lasting legacy of London 2012.

But, I am not holding my breath.

Friday 3 August 2012

A New Season - Am I Bothered?

THE SPL kicks off tomorrow, the big start to the new season, you know something - I haven't a clue, which club is facing which other club, and where the match is being played. Since I refuse to subsidise Uncle Rupert and don't have a Sky contract, I couldn't tell you which match or matches are being shown live on TV, or when. Indeed, as things stand, at 3pm tomorrow, it looks as if I'll be following "management" round some supermarket.

And I will not be the only former football fanatic doing this. For all the sound and fury of Rangersgate, throughout the end of last season and the summer break, I have no desire to help make tomorrow "Sell Out Saturday".

There was much talk of such a day; the cyber warriors on the fans' forums - many of whom, I suspect, don't go to matches in any case - this was NEVER going to happen. It is one thing to pen online posts calling for castration, hanging, drawing and quartering of everyone who has pulled on a Rangers strip or been on the staff of that club since David Murray bought it. Figuratively putting the boot into Rangers felt good, but, actually paying-out good, hard-earned cash to go to an SPL game; to pay the over-inflated prices to watch the over-paid,under-talented players in the SPL, at a time of recession and financial hard times in the real world.

No, we Scots have never been that stupid.

One half of the two-headed monster has been, temporarily, taken out of the equation. The other half will still, barring a major sensation, walk the league. Do I see a genuine challenge to Celtic? Can we see some other club win the SPL? Will the critical wounding of Rangers be the catalyst for a re-birth of Scottish football? Are we on the verge of a Brave New World?

The answers: no, no, no, no.

It will be the same old, same old. A lot of sound, even more fury, and, by the end of the season, Scotland will still be sliding down the league table of world football - because, I don't see there being a genuine desire to make things better, and that is very sad.

You enjoy the football tomorrow. I will not be there, I will be keeping my powder dry to enjoy the Olympics, watching really-talented, well-trained, well-motivated Scottish and British Champions bursting a gut on the biggest stage of all - the Olympic Games.

They will not all win the medals they crave, but, they will put more into the effort than the vast majority of our highly-paid SPL footballers, and those of us who watch them will, I believe get more out of our Olympics experience than the men whose entrance money - the fans - get from the SPL experience.

If the club officials from the SPL clubs can lift their eyes higher than their knees and decide to embrace the Olympics ideal and really INSIST that their players get, faster and stronger, and aim higher - then the SPL and Scottish football can regain lost ground.

Insist on higher skills levels; demand and accept no less than greater effort; put in place and adhere to greater professionalism in all aspects of the game - and we can get back.

But, guddle along as we always have and we will only slide deeper into the slime of under-achievement and failure.

Come on everyone - go fot it.

Thursday 2 August 2012

A New Season - So What

AFTER all the heat and noise of speculation which followed Rangers' spectacular crash into administration and the machinations of the bidding process for the carcass of the beast, it is now becoming difficult to get one's "game head" on in anticipation of the start of season 2012-13.

This "so-what" feeling is exacebrated by a couple of things - the way football, which once upon a time began with a big bang: everyone kicking-off on the same day for the first group games in the old League Cup, for instance - now stumbles into action with a series of inoffensive pre-season "challenge" games or high-profile, made for TV overseas friendlies. The "challenge" with the "challenge" games, is to get excited about them.

The second stumbling block to getting excited this season is the continued wall-to-wall Olympics coverage on TV.

When you are seeing genuine world-class athletes competing, even if you have barely a clue about what is happening in white-water canoeing, clay pigeon shooting or judo, it throws the whole, absurd, over-hyped, under-talented world of Scottish fitba into sharp relief, and you are forced to ask: Just why do we bother with this shite?

Celtic began their quest for Champions League glory on Wednesday night with a 2-1 win over some Finnish side we've never heard of before and perhaps never will again.

OK, Celtic are still in pre-season mode domestically; they were on a hiding to nothing in this game. Win, which they did: "so what?" Lose: "You're shite". Talk about a no-win situation.

I expected Celtic to be less-than-uplifting, to be under-cooked; but, I still expected them to win, which they did.

Scottish football is now decidedly "Second Division" in European terms. We are ranked 26th in Europe; there are 53 nations in UEFA membership, and, one or two of these are, I would suggest, about the level of the Caledonian Amateur League.

So, we are, at best, struggling in the relegation zone of the Second Division of European Leagues, while the Finnish League is probably even deeper in the relegation zone than we are, or, more likely, in the top half of the Third Division. Our sides should win, but it will always be tight.

We can do, I would suggest, one of two things. We either adapt our season to mirror the reality of our current situation; perhaps adopting the Scandinavian solution of splitting our season so our teams are match-hardened when the European qualifiers come along - or, we immediately give ourselves the kick up the backside we need and get back to where we like to think we should be - in the top flight of European Leagues.

Option one is the more-realistic one and, I feel, has much to recommend it. We bring in a winter break, perhaps playing March to December. There could be a bonus from this, with the SPL games on TV at a time (June and July) when there is no EPL competition.

I would also like to see the SPL and SFL, like the English Rugby Premiership, bringing in a rule whereby 70 to 75 per cent of any squad had to be Scotland-qualified. We keep hearing EU Law will not allow this, but, I ask, if English Rugby can get away with imposing an England-qualified rule, why cannot the SPL at least have a Scotland-qualified rule?

The victorious 18-man Celtic squad, which, I need not remind you merely has established a first leg lead - the tie is still to be won in Finland - contained a mere four "Scotland-qualified" players: Charlie Mulgrew, James Forrest, Scott Brown and Kris Commons. At least, two of them came through the ranks at Celtic Park, even if Mulgrew had to leave to flourish, before returning.

When you see the way British Olympians in other disciplines have worked to win their medals. When you hear of the ultra-professional way our elite Olympians are coached, trained, have access to psychological and physiological experts, to sports scientists, video analysts, specialist coaches, you can only wonder at the way Scotland's richest teams and richest sports still guddle through as it always has done.

"But it's aye been done this way" is the most-common and biggest brake on Scotland and particularly Scottish football's quest for better times and more-success.

If having the Olympics in the UK this year blows away some of these age-old drawbacks within Scottish football, it will be worth while.

Will it happen? No, I cannot see it either; we will continue to muddle along at the back, the way we have done for years of non-success.

We will continue to get extremely over-heated through games of (on-line) whataboutery between fans of rubbish teams, playing rubbish football, in a rubbish league. Nothing will change, because, while there was a wide-spread desire for Rangers to be given a good kicking, there wasn't the same desire for the bad practices, bad decisions and old boys network which has held us back for so long to be totally got rid off.

The Olympics has had many Britons asking: "What if?" "Why not?" and "Yes we can". Sadly, in Scotland, it is still: "no-way, never and there's nothing wrong".

Inspiring? Maybe, but not yet in Scotland and Scottish football.