What's In A Name - This Competition Needs A Reason To Survive

Like Dame Elizabeth Rosamund Taylor-Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Burton-Warner-Fortensky, The Scottish League Cup has gone through many names in its 70-year history. On Sunday, in its latest incarnation, the Betfred Cup, it was won by Celtic, the club's 100^th trophy. Was anyone surprised?

As Sir Alex Ferguson correctly identified all those years ago, to gain respect in Scottish football, a provincial team such as Aberdeen has to win, and win regularly in Glasgow. This is something which Derek McInnes's Aberdeen has yet to start doing on a regular basis. To have had a chance yesterday, they would have needed to score first – when that didn't happen, it was obvious, the trophy was heading for Celtic Park.

The League Cup might offer the diddy teams their best chance of lifting silverware, but, it remains beyond doubt, if either of the Bigot Brothers is in the final against a provincial outfit, then, the Glasgow club will start as favourites and generally justify the tag. Thus it transpired yesterday.

The League Cup does not carry European entry the following season as a bonus, alongside possession of the actual trophy. It has, as I said at the start of this post, had various names, as the justification for this late arrival in the realm of national trophies has fought to justify its existence.

I have long felt, if there was even an ounce of ambition within the sixth floor corridor at Hampden, rather than periodically re-arranging the deck-chairs around the League Cup, the High Heid Yins would come up with an innovative formula – to make the League Cup matter.

For instance, Cricket Scotland runs a couple of national competitions – in the Scottish Cup, the clubs are free to field all their players, including their professional, generally an overseas player, and the overseas amateur whom the top clubs now also sponsor. In the other, whose current name escapes me, the XI fielded has to be all-Scottish.

Now, imagine this in football, if entry to the League Cup carried with it the demand for an all-Scottish squad. If that was the case, the teams which both sides fielded yesterday would have been very different from what they did field.

The teams listed 18-man squads for the game. Only seven of the Celtic squad – starters: Craig Gordon, Scott Brown, Stuart Armstrong and James Forrest and substitutes Leigh Griffiths, Gary Mackay-Steven and Callum McGregor were “Scottish”.

Of Aberdeen's 18-man squad, again, only seven were Scottish: starters Andrew Considine, Graham Shinnie, Ryan Jack and Kenny McLean, and substitutes Neil Alexander, Mark Reynolds and Peter Pawlett.

Thus, 36 players were stripped and available to play yesterday, in a national cup final, but, less than half, 14 of the 36 were Scottish. How does this square with the SFA's remit to foster and encourage Scottish football?

I know the clubs will squeal that, under European freedom of movement legislation, they cannot positively discriminate in favour of Scottish players, and force the clubs to only field Scots.

Well, the English Rugby Premiership operates under the same European legislation, but, somehow, they can insist that 70% of every 23-man match-day squad has to be “England-qualified”. I have asked various Hampden “blazers” how come English rugby can enforce this rule, but, Scottish football cannot? You've guessed – none can answer.

I am not saying demanding all-Scottish squads would offer the provincial clubs a better chance of winning the League Cup; or that making this demand would handicap the big clubs, but, it just might encourage the Scottish clubs to stop recruiting in the lower leagues in England, or in the football Aldis and Lidls in Europe, and encourage native talent.

Making the League Cup an all-Scottish competition just might give it the boost it needs. But, having said that, I don't expect the stumblebums in the Hampden posh seats to take a blind bit of notice.

THE on-going paedophile scandal in English football is worrying. As yet, there has been no spill-over into Scottish football. Yes, we all know about the ancient Celtic BC scandal involving the evil Jim Torbet, but, when full-time “on the tools” with a Scottish daily newspaper, I can recall we tried, unsuccessfully as it turned-out, to “out” a well-known local football club organiser, about whom there was a lot of gossip.

We failed to nail the story down well-enough to get it past the paper's lawyers, and, the highly-experienced journalist who fronted our campaign was upset at our failure. His gut instinct, honed over many years on the crime beat, plus the gut instincts of the several long-serving cops to whom he spoke was – the guy was a paedo. Sadly, we couldn't prove it.

However, he retired fairly soon afterwards, so, maybe we smoked him out.

There was also the director at the local senior club, who took a very close interest in the club's excellent youth development scheme, to the extent one manager effectively banned him from going anywhere near the youth team. That very-experienced manager simply did not trust the director around the young lads.

The nonces have ways of infiltrating to get their evil way with vulnerable youngsters. We can never be too-vigilant in protecting our kids. I fear, there is a lot more to still emerge from the on-going events in English football, and, we in Scotland need not think the fall-out will escape our game.

We lost big Davie Provan last weekend, after a lengthy battle against ill-health. Now, not even Davie would claim he was one of the all-time greats, but, he never gave less than 100 per cent on the park, and, without the hod-carriers such as Provan, the artists such as Jim Baxter could never have built such memories for those watching.

There is You Tube footage of wee Jinky making big Davie look particularly foolish, however, while Jinky was enjoying himself, nutmegging the big man twice and three times, the rest of the Rangers defence was getting into position ready to deal with the cross when it eventually came.

Provan, unlike big Greig, never gave Jinky an up close and personal meeting with the crowd in the Jungle, which says a lot for him.

My own personal memory of Provan was in the Scotland v Italy game at Hampden, in November, 1965; the match we won 1-0 thanks to that wonderful last-minute Greig goal. Well earlier in the second half, with Scotland goalkeeper Bill Brown a limping passenger with a thigh strain – no substitutes back then remember. The great Sandro Mazzola broke clear, an Italian goal seemed certain, however, on the edge of the box, big David got back to scythe him down. His foul prevented the goal, the Italians mucked-up the free-kick, and, this being the 1960s, Davie didn't even get booked for what, today, would be a certain red-card offence.

Cue David Francey, doing the radio commentary. David's comment was: “Of course, we should never applaud such blatant fouling, but, well done Big Davie, a wonderful foul to commit”.

I WAS at Rugby Park on Saturday, for the Scotland v Georgia rugby international. There were 15,401 fans inside the ground, this will probably be the biggest crowd at Rugby Park this season, and, I have to say, that number showed up the deficiencies of the main stand – it was just too crowded.

But, I could not help thinking, how come a rugby crowd can enjoy a drink at the game, but, a football crowd cannot. There were guys there who turn up on a weekly basis to watch Killie; they could get a drink at the game last Saturday, but, this Saturday, when Dundee come calling, and there are some 10,000 fewer spectators inside the ground, no drink will be available.

It does not make sense, and, football is losing access to a potentially-profitable revenue strain – because a bunch of nutters, whom the football authorities are unwilling to bring to heel or get rid of, cannot be trusted to act responsibly.