Today In Football - You're Only A Loyalist Until Money Talks

'THE CELTIC SONG' claims: “If you know their history.....etc.” Well, if their fans are as well-up on their club's history as many claim to be, they will not be surprised at Brendan Rodgers' speed in seeking to swap Paradise for the King Power Stadium. Was Rodgers not hailed as: “A life-long fan, living the dream,” by managing the club?

Brendan Rodgers - living the dream until a better offer came along

Well, Celtic was the only team Mo Johnston ever wanted to play for – and we all remember what that led to. I am afraid, the decision of Mr Rodgers to exchange managing the 45th ranked club in Europe, one almost guaranteed European football every year, for the 70th ranked club in Europe, one with just one European campaign in the last five years, demonstrates just how much of a football backwater Scotland is these days. It is apparently not only Scots who see the High Road to England as leading to a pot of gold.

Personally, I give Rodgers about 18 months at Leicester, then he will be looking for a new job. Again personally, I think City went for the wrong Scottish manager. Had I been them, I'd have gone for the perhaps more-able but less high-profile option: Kilmarnock's Stevie Clarke. I reckon Clarke would have been the better fit.

Apparently, Neil Lennon is being lined-up to succeed Rodgers, at least until the end of the season, after which, who knows. I dare say, even as I type, the churnalists and stenographers of the two Glasgow-published red tops are sitting down together in some Merchant City cafe-bar or coffee house, discussing how they will spin it regarding Celtic interest in Stevie Clarke, before deciding which improbable foreign coaches names they can throw into the click bait mix.

This situation is tailor-made for the red-top rottweilers, they can let their fevered imaginations run riot, and it will save them focusing on the realities of what a shite hole Scottish football currently is.

But, spare a thought for wee Jamesie Traynor, who now has to really up his game, to stop Celtic dominating the back pages for the remainder of the season. Still, it might stop somebody really looking into the impending disaster of Rangers' finances under the Glib and Shameless Liar.

CAN I suggest, you search out the You Tube footage of Auchinleck Talbot's 3-0 Macron Scottish Junior Cup win over Pollok, at Newlandsfield Park, on Saturday.

It will be worth the browsing time, to see two goal of the season contenders in one game. I refer to Talbot's opener, fairly whacked home by full back Gordon Pope, and their clinching third goal, knocked-in from just inside his own half, by Stephen Wilson.

 Stephen Wilson - his goal at Pollok is worth searching out

The 'Bot machine is revving-up nicely as we approach the end of the season, and I reckon they will again be seen in the final this season.

That win at Pollok took them into the semi-finals, where they were joined by Largs Thistle, who crushed Kilwinning Rangers 5-0, and Lochee United, who won 2-0 at Troon. The fourth quarter-final will require a replay, after Hurlford United and Clydebank drew 1-1 at Blair Park on Saturday.

I think I shall write to Tom Johnston, the SJFA Supremo, and suggest he adopt an old idea from the Wimbledon tennis championships. Back in the day, the championships went ahead as usual, to produce a winner. Only, that winner was not declared Champion, until he had beaten the reigning Champion, in what was called the Challenge Round. The reigning Champion was not back then required to actually defend his title from round one, merely to wait for a Challenger to emerge.

Why not do that in the Junior Cup? Play down to a winner, who would then challenge Talbot for ownership of the big trophy.

WHAT ABOUT that over-rated, over-paid Chelsea goalkeeper, Kepa Arrizabalga, refusing to be subbed on Sunday? I can just see really strong characters such as Harry Gregg, Ray Clemence, Peter Shilton, Peter Schmeichel or Hamish McAlpine having tried that with Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough, Alex Ferguson or Jim McLean.

They would have found themselves, as Jim Leighton did, doing the loan rounds of lesser clubs until they had got themselves a transfer, banished to football's equivalent of that old Outer Mongolian power station, to which fallen Soviet politicians were sent.

 Kepa Arrizabalga - lucky he's dealing with a weak manager

Football's balance of power between players and managers has now surely swung too far in favour of the player, if he is not summarily dropped. Money has ruined the game, but, we knew that any way.

With any of the legendary bosses I have named, the game would not have resumed until the goalie was properly benched. I just wonder what the correct protocol for the incident was. If the manager insisted to the referee: “I wish to make a substitution and that is the guy I want off;” then the goalkeeper still refused to go.

Might the referee then have to red card him – probably by cautioning him for delaying the game; then cautioning him again if he still refused to go – thereby triggering a second yellow and a red card. The manager would then, however, have to haul off an outfield player to put-on his second goalkeeper.

That would be an interesting subject for the old: “You are the referee” column.

JOHN VALENTINE died this week. If you don't know the name, you should. John was the unfortunate Rangers centre-half who carried the can for “Hampden In The Sun,” Celtic's 7-1 League Cup win in 1957.

The late John Valentine - icture courtesy of Easton Thain

As such, he is along with poor Frank Haffey – who carried the can for Scotland's 3-9 loss to England, at Wembley in 1961, one of the two biggest victims of being in the wrong position, in the wrong game.

Valentine, who had won Amateur Scotland caps as a member of the last Queen's Park side to grace the top flight of Scottish football, was bought by Rangers to replace the retired George Young and the sine die suspended Willie Woodburn as their centre-half.

His first game for Rangers was in the 1957 Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup final, at Hampden, in which he helped his new club beat his old one. His tenth and final game was that League Cup Final, back at Hampden.

After it, he was banished to the Reserves and quickly off-loaded to St Johnstone, whom he would captain to the Second Division title.

Valentine was a graduate of Glasgow University, and on graduating, he joined the Civil Service, in the Department of Agriculture, eventually moving back to his native Moray First area, and retiring to Inverness.

Rangers treated him badly, I interviewed him once – he was a total gentleman.