Socrates MacSporran

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

Thursday 3 September 2015

Put The Fans First - Not In Scotland Pal

AS someone with a healthy interest in the long history of Scottish football, both domestically and at international level, I ken well how things used to be. This, however, does not mean I am one of those who shake their heads and mutter: "Naw, naw laddie, it's aye been done this wey".
 
 Some of the old ways were clearly wrong, but, some of the more-modern ideas are not exactly, I would suggest, in the best interests of Scottish football.
 
Take this weekend, for instance. In far-off Tbilisi, on Friday night, Scotland will take-on Georgia in our latest Euro'2016 qualifier, before flying home to prepare to face Germany on Monday night.
 
 This international double-header means, the entire SPFL Premiership programme for Saturday, 5 September, has been wiped-out. WHY?
 
Only five SPFL Premiership players are included in WGS's Scotland squad - the Celtic quintet of Craig Gordon, Charlie Mulgrew, Scott Brown, James Forrest and Leigh Griffiths. OK, there may be players from other Premiership sides involved with other nations, but, the SPFL's sole concern should be domestic Scottish football - the SFA has, under its articles of association, a duty to care for, support and encourage Scottish football. I don't think scrapping an entire tranche of fixtures, because the national team has a game on Friday night and another on Monday night, meets this criteria.
 
It wasn't always this. Doing some research on the Wembley Wizards, a year or two back, I was reading contemporary reports of this iconic match. "Waverley", then the Daily Record's Football Correspondent - the Keith Jackson of the 1920s, except, Waverley knew his football - wasn't even sent to London, he was at Ibrox, reporting in Monday's paper: "There was a great roar went round Ibrox when the score from Wembley was broadcast over the tannoy". Would this happen today?
 
More recently, a long-standing rugby friend once told me, on his way bac to Kilmarnock from witnessing that magical game in which Willie Waddell's men beat Hearts 2-0 at Tynecastle, in a "winner takes all" final day clash to decide which of the clubs would win the 1965 Scottish League Championship, he met some Celtic supporters, coming away from Hampden, having seen Celtic beat Dunfermline to lift the first of the many trophies Jock Stein woud win as Celtic boss.
 
There would surely not be a virtual Championship decider played on the same day as the Scottish Cup Final today. But, why not?
 
Scottish football is tribal. Do we really need to clear the decks for a national game - particularly an away fixture, not even a Saturday one>
 
Then there is the example of Scotland's most-successful male sports team of last season, Glasgow Warriors. Warriors kick-off the defence of their Guinness Pro12 title on Saturday night, at Scotstoun, against Welsh side Scarlets.
 
Yet they will be without 20 of their players - all of whom are on World Cup duty. There are 16 Warriors in the 31-strong Scotland squad, who will be in Paris on Saturday night - while another four Warriors are in camp with other World Cup nations, and another, new boy Tequele Naiyaravora is with an extended Australian squad, although he is not in their World Cup 31.
 
Warriors are therefore, 21 players down, plus one or two more carrying injuries, but, are still playing league games. Celtic are five men down, so need not play, while the other 11 Premiership clubs, without a Scotland squad member between them, are also idle.
 
When you consider, Charlie Mulgrew was the only one of Cleti c's Scotland quintet who was in the team which hammered Dundee United 3-1, at Tannadice recently, calling-off games on spurious reasons such as the Georgia game is, I think, daft.
 
We are always hearing complaints about games being switched away from Saturday afternoons. This Saturday, the weather will be no worse than cool and maybe wet, but certainly a lot better than it will be some Saturdays in deep mid-winter. There is no genuine reason why we should not have a full programme of Premiership games. After all, there are full fixture cards in the Championship, Division One and Division Two.
 
No Premiership games - it's a nonsense.  

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