Please Shelley and the Girls - Prove Me Wrong

YESTERDAY's narrow defeat for our Women, in Rennes, at the hands of Japan, was simply the latest in a long line of World Cup and European Championship set backs for Scotland teams.

I have personally been let-down by our teams on football's biggest stage for 65-years now. I doesn't get any easier, but, over that length of time, I have learned to roll with the blows.

 The Boss

I would love it if Shelley Kerr and the Girls proved me wrong and qualified for the knock-out stages, but, I fear we are in line for the same old song reprised. How, I wonder with the girls go out this time? Will we:

• Beat Argentina, but, still finish fifth or sixth of the third-placed sides, with only the top four qualifying
  
  
• Could we draw, and find out we have only just missed out, on goal difference or something
  
  
• Could it be a replay of Mexico 1986? The Argentinians have a player sent-off early in the game, and we spend the rest ofr the game, unsuccessfully playing shootie-in, to fail to qualify
  
  
• We are up 1-0, and sure to qualify, when we concede a bizarre late equaliser
  
  
• We are ahead, and we concede another soft penalty
  
  
• We, again, fail to be awarded a stonewall penalty, which is not sent for VAR review

Let's be clear here – it's Scotland, anything can happen, and, if we fail to qualify, there is sure to be some kind of hard-luck story behind it. It's Scotland after all.

I AM sorry to see Lee Wallace depart Scottish football, following his signing for Queen's Park Rangers. For me, he has always been a class act and the way he was quite deliberately frozen-out at Rangers says much about the small-minded and shallow people currently running that once great club.

OK, he was almost-certainly not on “washers” when it came to his Rangers' salary, but, the fact he has been allowed to go south, along with Livingston goalkeeper Liam Kelly, is a sad indictment on the recruitment policies of our top clubs.

Lee Wallace - badly treated by Rangers

Yes, Wallace is now 31, but, he has kept himself fit, but has barely kicked a ball in anger these last two seasons, he is a 31-year-old age-wise, but, perhaps in reality a 28-year-old in terms of his “engine.”

I reckon he could still do a job up here. Perhaps no Scottish club could have matched the deal he will get in London, but, did many try?

I fear we are going to see a lot of our clubs get a big shock once the effects of PM in waiting Boris's No Deal Brexit kick-in, and we can no longer import cheap European players at will. The English clubs will need to hang onto their home-grown players – the ones they currently off-load to willing Scottish clubs, and we may well have to go back to growing our own.

This will be a serious shock to some Scottish club managers, who prefer to deal in the English rejects market, but, in the long run, could be good for Scottish football.

For me, I still feel, the SFA doing what the RFC did in England, and insisting the top clubs field a match-day squad with at least 70% of the players “England-qualified,” (in football's case Scotland-qualified) would do more to resurrect Scottish football than any other initiative.

CLICKBAIT, the word, has only been around for a little over a decade. The word was apparently coined back in 2006, and, in its strictest sense, it refers to those false advertising posts you encounter when you perhaps click onto a link on a website page

You perhaps see an advertisement: “You will not believe what these 1980s TV stars look like today,2 so, you click on it and before you know, you have wasted an hour of your life you will never get back.

But clickbait also refers to those website posts which are, to use the Donald's favourite expression: “fake news.” Mind you, fake news is nothing new to followers of Scottish football, having been a way of keeping the esteemed members of the Scottish Football Writers Association – those legendary fans with lap tops – chained to their desks and out of the pubs during the close season, these many years.

Scottish clickbait is those “EXCLUSIVE” stories that Celtic or Rangers are about to sign every player from Messi and Ronaldo down – few, if any of which ever come to fruition.

The idea is to come up with a story which might be credible, then “spin it” for all you are worth to get the fans to think there might be a grain of truth in it. It also helps if you can get a player's agent to give the story even a modest hint of truth. It's fairly harmless fun, and, it sells papers.

My own favourite senior team – Kilmarnock – is currently a bit-part player in the 2019 Clickbait Stakes, as the foot soldiers of F Troop, that's those SFWA PBI members who don't get to cover the big two, do their bit to justify their continued employment.

Their quest, is to be first to name the new Killie boss, in succession to Stephen Clarke, now he has taken possession of The Poisoned Chalice, as Scotland boss. And, to we Killie fans, it's good fun watching the names they come up with.

Kilmarnock's main man - Billy Bowie

I will be amazed if any of the troops has got it right. Billy Bowie has his own way of doing things, and I am sure he, Cathy Jamieson and the other Killie directors are well-capable of keeping the new man under wraps, and ramping-up the clickbait, for a day or so yet.

But, I expect an appointment in the coming week, since Kilmarnock's Europa League second qualifying round draw will be made on Wednesday, with the first leg due to be played on 11 July, less than four weeks away. Now is the time to appoint.