Wanted - An Acebric Academic's Take On Scottish Fitba Journalism

RESIGNED Professor John Robertson, late of the University of the West of Scotland's Media department is often accused of hermeneutics – when it comes to Scottish political journalism. This is because, on a daily basis, through his 'Thought Control Scotland' website, he destroys the “Scotland is shite” orthodoxy of our English and overseas-owned unionist media, with their daily messages of how Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to ever be an independent nation.

 Professor John Robertson

Come that not-too-far-away now day when Scotland is free from the toxic grip of London, I trust the first government of Independent Scotland, when dishing-out the Medal of Freedom, makes certain the good Professor is a recipient.

Any way, I feel I should perhaps perform a similar job on Scottish fitba, except the purveyors of spin and shite in that area of journalism are even-more embedded in Scottish fitba culture than their colleagues in the political sphere, and therefore far-harder to argue against.

For instance: right now:

• This is the worst Scotland team since 1872
  
  
• Alex McLeish is our worst manager ever
  
  
• Scottish fitba is going to Hell in a hand-cart unless he is immediately removed.

There is just one thing wrong with this – the fact is, this terrible, disgraceful, embarrassing 2018-19 season is, as things stand, Scotland's most-successful international season since 2006-07, when, under first “Walter,” then a certain Alex McLeish, we won five of the seven competitive games we played – a 71.4% winning ratio.

Thus far this season, we have played six competitive games, winning four – a 66.6% winning ratio.

Let's be clear:

• Fitba is not ice dancing
  
  
• You do not get points for artistic impression
  
  
• You do not have to have certain elements in your performance: step-overs, mazey dribbles, 40-yard thunderbolts that almost burst the net don't get you a bonus
  
  
• All you have to do is WIN; and if you win “ugly”, is doesn't matter a jot
  
  
• Only the three points count.

This is our 11^th qualifying campaign since our last appearance in the Big Show, in France in 1998. This campaign is different from all the rest, since, if it all goes tits-up, we can still “play our joker” and qualify via the Europa Nations League.

I am not going to try to argue against the motion: losing in Nursultan, to Kazakhstan was, as far as we can measure, Scotland's worst international result in 770 games since 1872. At least we got a 0-0 draw in Luxembourg in 1987, and the Iran game, a 1-1 draw, was in the actual World Cup Finals – these being the other two contenders for the “worst-ever” title.

But, even with that Kazakh result counting, we are still sitting with that 66.6% winning record and we haven't had that good a season since the glory days under Craig Brown, when qualification in the big events was almost a given for Scotland.

I mentioned our two previous contenders for “Worst-ever Scottish performance.” in Cordoba, for the Iran game, on 7 June, 1978, our team was: Alan Rough; Sandy Jardine, Willie Donachie, Archie Gemill, Kenny Burns, Martin Buchan; Kenny Dalglish, Lou Macari, Joe Jordan, Asa Hartford and John Robertson; with Tam Forsyth replacing Martin Buchan and Joe Harper coming on for Kenny Dalglish during the game.

 Archie Gemmill - captained us against Iran

In Esch-sur-Alzette, on 2 December, 1987, we lined-up: Jim Leighton, Derek Whyte, Maurice Malpas; Roy Aitken, Alex McLeish, Willie Miller; Pat Nevin, Paul McStay, Graham Sharp, Maurice Johnson and Ian Wilson; with Gary Mackay subbing-on for Derek Whyte and Eric Black replacing Nevin.

Now, compare these two squads with that which lost in Nursultan last Thursday, and if you were asked to pick a team from the three squads, I can guarantee, none of the current lot would get a game.

I should add here something from a couple of blog posts ago, how, in the early 1980s a bunch of players, half of whom have since been inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, many of whom are on the SFA's Roll of Honour for having won more than 50 caps, and managed by one of the greatest managers of all-time, produce our two worst qualifying records in 70 years of trying to get to the World Cup or European Championship finals.

The fact is, Scotland, the wee nation which took a rough game, designed to allow the young blades at some of England's finest public schools work-off excessive energy, refined and modified it via the Scotch passing style into “The Beautiful Game”, has stood still and allowed the rest of the world to pass us by.

We have been shite for years and sacking Alex McLeish and replacing him with whoever will not change a thing. The Tartan Army can stand there and boo the players and the manager, but, until we change the entire system, starting with a cull of the numpties on the SFA committees and in the posh seats, we will continue to be shite.

The definition of madness is repeatedly doing the same thing in the hope of a different outcome. Well, in that case, Scottish fitba is clearly mad, since we seem to think changing managers without changing the system will suddenly see us qualifying for the major finals.

We have qualified from 9 of the 18 World Cup tournaments we have entered – a reasonable 50% strike rate, until we remember, we have bombed in our last five straight qualifying campaigns going back 21 years.

Our record in the European Championship is even worse – 2 successful campaigns in 13 attempts, a 15.4% success rate. Overall, we have qualified in 11 of 31 campaigns – a 35.5% success rate, or by any reasonable standards – A FAIL.

Another thing – we are told the Tartan Army's ranks are swelled by the followers of our “Diddy” teams. The Old Firm battalions either follow England, or one or other of the Irish nations, or, they don't care for the SFA, because they are against both of the Bigot Brothers. If this generalisation is correct, you would think, following clubs who don't have a track record when it comes to winning trophies, they would be a wee bit sanguine about watching pish performances from Scotland, since that is their staple diet at club level.

I don't know about Scotland being too wee, or too poor, but, there is certainly an under-current of stupidity there, particularly when it comes to fitba.