I Gave It Up For Running And A Big Jamaican Man

CONFESSION time: I gave up on East Stirlingshire v Rangers last night. I stuck it out until half-time, then I - abandoned ship. Well, the athletics on BBC 2 was coming nicely to a simmer – with the prospect of big Usain later on. Now, that guy has star quality in spades; I don't think any sportsman, in any discipline, has had that-much appeal, since Ali was in his prime – and, needless to say, the Big Man delivered.

 He's The Man

I followed the athletics with my usual Friday night on BBC 4, where the wonderful Rick Wakeman was doing his thing on concept albums, with a rare clip of Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Band to complete my evening.

The Great and Sadly-Missed Vivian Stanshall

Against, that watching a pedestrian Rangers huff and puff before over-powering East Stirlingshire – naw, nae chance. By the way, having seen some wonderful goals from John Sludden in his Ayr United days, good luck to him at the club.

East Stirlingshire boss John Sludden

Meanwhile, the importing of has-beens, never-will-bes and never-weres, whose USP is the fact, they are not Scottish, continues in epidemic form by our clubs. I despair. We need to get back to a system whereby we positively discriminate in favour of young Scottish talent but, I cannot see the “blazers” ever changing their ways.

Scottish fitba is going to Hell in a hand-cart, and the “blazers” are pushing it.

I HAD a look at this afternoon's fixtures in the Whatever They're Calling It – It's Still The League Cup To Me campaign. Underwhelming in the extreme, with only the Hamilton v St Mirren and Kilmarnock v Morton meetings in any way stirring me.

This competition doesn't really matter – the winners will not get a European berth; it is simply a Saturday afternoon filler. So, why doesn't the SFA and SPFL do something to stir it up, to maybe make it a wee bit more exciting?

I know they've done away with extra time, going straight to penalties if the match is all-square after 90 minutes; I welcome this. But, perhaps the High Heid Yins could have been a wee bit more inventive in their changes. In Scottish Cricket, for instance, in certain games, the overseas professionals cannot play – why not insist in entirely-Scottish squads for this?

The competition starts in a group format, so, why not bring-in rugby style bonus points for scoring three or more goals? Why not handicap the teams from a higher division in some way? At this time of year, the weather is reasonably-good, we have to do something to try to get the punters in. Only the masochists will be attracted by the quality of the fitba on offer.

I GET my broadband from BT, so, I get BT Sport on-tap. Now, it is overwhelmingly English, almost as bad as the BBC, but, there is some excellent stuff on there. At the moment I am watching the '30 for 30' series of films which ESPN produced to mark their 30^th anniversary.

These films are nearly all about American sport, mainly of the college variety. Of course, being American, the jingoism is a bit nauseating: everything is bigger and better in the good ol' U S of A. I had to laugh at the way the rivalry between the Universities of Auburn and Alabama State was pumped-up in the film 'Roll Tide – War Eagle' - “The greatest rivalry in sport”.

Aye right, try telling that in Barcelona or Madrid, in the slums of Buenos Aires, in Liverpool or Manchester or, most-definitely in Glasgow or in Auchinleck and Cumnock, the natives would laugh at you. The thing is, these films demonstrate how poorly our media serves us, in comparison to the USA. ESPN has access to film of some of the greats of gridiron, the basketball court or the baseball diamond, when they were at high school, or university, never mind when they were in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL.

The sheer scope of sports coverage over there is miles away from the superficial coverage we give fitba and the virtual zero coverage we give every other sport here.

I do not see our fading media, at this late stage, as they whirl around just above the stand plug, doing anything about it, but, I live in hope. One thing I did notice, some of the more-enjoyable films were bank-rolled and made with the full co-operation of the SEC – that's the South Eastern Conference of the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The SEC comprises: University of Alabama : University of Arkansas : Auburn University : University of Florida : University of Georgia : University of Kentucky : Louisiana State University : University of Mississippi : Mississippi State University : University of Missouri : University of South Carolina : University of Tennessee : Texas A&M University and Vanderbilt University. These 14 schools compete against each other in 21 different sports, but, the main focus is on the big three American sports of American Football, Baseball and Basketball.

Some of the biggest names in American sport began their careers with SEC schools, before going to the NFL, NBA or MBL, and the coverage of their early years has earned the SEC big bucks through its SEC Network. This is an internet-based 24/7 rolling sports news network which, in 2014-15 earned $465 million, shared between ESPN – who provide most of the coverage, and the 14 schools.

Now, I am not saying the SPFL could, if it was to set-up its own dedicated TV channel, whether internet-based or featured on Sky, or BT or Virgin, or even BBC or ITV, generate anything like that income. But, surely, with the right marketing and journalists who were neither Celtic-minded nor members of the Lap Top Loyal, Scottish fitba could generate a bit more cash than it currently gets from the various TV and broadcast companies.

Of course, if such a media set-up was to be mooted, the Bigot Brothers would almost certainly veto it, and start their own propaganda channels, and, even if the diddy teams went ahead, it would all fall apart quickly between the clan wars which are built into our Scottish DNA and the fact the teams would never be so media-savvy and pro-active as to allow the media the co-operation and access it needs to do a proper job.

And that's before we even consider the paucity of talent in today's Scottish media. Pity really, there are some great Scottish football, indeed Scottish sporting stories out there, waiting to be told.

The SEC Network has as one of its main attractions a phone-in host named Paul Finebaum, who is maybe what Chick Young could have been had his self-control micro-chip ever been activated, or Graham Spiers if he had been given a personality.

Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network