The Famine Is Over - But Stupid Sectarianism Isn't

THE OLD FIRM has just been trumped, put in their place, telt tae shut-up – by Manchester United's outrageous re-signing of CR7. That deal knocks Graeme Souness's swoop to snatch Mo Johnson from the clutches of Celtic all these years ago into a cocked hat.

Now Cristiano doesn't come cheap, but, given the insane finances of the English Premiership, United will be able to afford his two-year deal. Many are questioning the signing of a 36-year-old, I feel this is a great deal for United.

That the Portuguese superstar is still turning it on in the top flight at his age is remarkable testimony to his love of football, his dedication and his fitness. Even if United were merely to use him off the bench for cameos, he'd be worth his mega-salary, for the effect he will have on others.

See the pictures of him, shirt off, at the end of games – that marvellous physique screams hard work. He's a big man, but his touch and control also screams hard work. If he can persuade, coerce or bully the younger United stars such as Pogba, Rashford or McTominay to go that extra mile in training; if he can say to them: “try this,” then make them do as he asks – the pay-off will still be being felt after he has departed.

I have long felt Ronaldo's greatest performance wasn't on the field, it was his single-handed cheerleading from the technical area, after he had gone off injured, which drove Portugal to victory in the 2016 European Championships final, beating France 1-0 in Paris.

Injury took him out of the game after just 25 minutes, and with him, apparently, went Portugal's hopes. But, he prowled around the technical area, totally upstaging coach Fernando Santo as he coaxed and cajoled his team to an extra time win. He has never played better, answering all the allegations of being a prima donna one-man band, caring only for himself.

That part of the complex Ronaldo make-up will, I am sure, further burnish his already glittering reputation around the Theatre of Dreams. Like an old actor, given one final big role – this is Ronaldo's big Oscar chance, I think he will take it.

How about a PSG v United Champions League final – Messi v Ronaldo? It would be like putting Meryl Streep and Cher in the same Abba movie.

I KNOW I am in the minority on this singularly unimportant issue, but, I have always considered 'The Famine Song' to be one of brighter wind-ups in the twisted history of Old Firm fan relations.

• It doesn't half get the Celtic Family aerated and upset – Strike One

• It's a load of pish in any case, best ignored for the historical inaccuracies – Strike Two

• The parts which have a grain of truth strike a raw nerve in the opposition – Strike Three.

So, it provokes a reaction from the opposition – job done. Some have suggested, the ditty is anti-Irish, I don't think so, although it is certainly anti the cult of Plastic Paddyness, which you see in the West of Scotland. You know the sort of conduct whereby a Celtic supporter sees nothing wrong with at the same time: supporting Irish reunification; being word perfect in every “Rebel” song ever written; having a seat in the Directors' box at Celtic Park and, at the same time, one in the House of Lords; and being vehemently against Scottish Independence.

It's almost as bad as marching in support of the same Protestant Queen, whose government keeps you in poverty in the East End of Glasgow.

The Famine Song, indeed any “party song” on either side of the great Glasgow football divide, however, has no place in my view, in 21^st century Scotland. More so when we see footage such as was shown, of that group of fuckwits marching down a street in Glasgow singing it.

If ever there was a case for strong Police “kettling” of football fans and immediate arrest and incarceration of the offenders it was that. Mark my words, at some point, public patience with these out-of-control fans will snap, and a massive police crack-down will follow.

The club(s) concerned – for the other lot has its lunatic fringe too – have shown little desire to lance the boil on the public face of their club, beyond the odd welcome ban, when the media heat gets too much. The politicians bottled it, when they abandoned the Offensive Behaviour At Football Act, without an adequate replacement (and yes, I know OBFA was flawed legislation) but, footage like Sunday's does no good to Scotland. It cannot be allowed to go on.

Mind you, one of the problems with elimination is, there are still a good number of polis, many in promoted posts, who are not unsympathetic to Protestant supremacy and “keeping Timmie in his inferior place.” Again, this has no place in 21^st century Scotland.

Why Can't We Discover Who's Best In The West (Or East)?

A POST on Facebook earlier this week got me thinking. Someone mentioned the old County Cups – The Glasgow Cup, The Ayrshire Cup, The Renfrewshire Cup, The Lanarkshire Cup and so on – now, sadly, no longer played for.

There demise came about when the SFA dissolved the various County FAs and, in the West anyway, replaced them with the West of Scotland Football Association, whose founding secretary was the excellent Scott Struthers, then with Hamilton Academical.

I wrote at the time, and still feel, this was a chance missed – to initiate a West of Scotland Cup, similar to the Junior football version, which was the number two competition below the Scottish Junior Cup.

I thought the Senior version of the West could have been a great competition – perhaps run as a condensed competition at either the start or end of the season. It might have given the West of Scotland FA, on behalf of the SFA proper, to initiate new ideas.

For instance, imagine if the competition rules stated the clubs had to have seven or eight players, born in the West of Scotland, on the field at all times. This might encourage them to give local boys a chance to show what they could do.

Or make it an Under-23 competition (or use both constraints). I mentioned a condensed competition – this makes for an easily-organised event.

There are 17 senior clubs from the West of Scotland:

• week one – preliminary round, team 16 v team 17.

• week two – round of 16

• week three – quarter-finals

• week four – semi-finals

• week five – the final.

Seed the draw according to how the teams finished the previous season, then let it rip. If we use the finishing positions of last season as a rough guide, had the West of Scotland Cup been competed for this season, the draw would have been:

Preliminary round: Albion Rovers v Annan Athletic

Round of 16:

Rangers v winners of the preliminary round

Morton v Stranraer

Queen of the South v Queen's Park

Hamilton Academical v Dumbarton

Kilmarnock v Clyde

Motherwell v Airdrie

St Mirren v Partick Thistle

Celtic v Ayr United

Quarter-finals:

Rangers v Hamilton Academical

Morton v Queen of the South

Kilmarnock v Motherwell

Celtic v St Mirren

Semi-finals:

Rangers v Morton

Celtic v Kilmarnock

Final:

Guess who?

In each game, I have assumed the home team will win, but, even allowing for a seeded draw, this cannot be taken as read. But, what's not to like about such a competition? And surely a similar competition could be held in the East of Scotland.

ASSUMING – and yes I know, you should never make assumptions about what might happen in Hampden's corridor of power – the game's high heid yins were to go for my left-field thinking, might we not see more young Scots playing in our top teams, and maybe improved results in Europe.

Here we are again, going into the group phases of the now three European competitions and, as always, Scotland's fate and our co-efficient is down to the two usual suspects.

They might give us a feeling of respectability, but, they represent a veneer of average competence, resting on shifting sands of incompetence.

The draw for the Group Stages of the three UEFA competitions were made today. Rangers were drawn to face Lyon from France, Sparta Prague from the Czech Republic and Brondby from Denmark. Celtic were drawn with Germany's Bayer Leverkusen, Spain's Real Betis and Hungary's Ferencvaros.

The draws involved 96 clubs. So, where does our league lie in the European pecking order?

To try to ascertain our current position, I adapted the Olympic medal table protocol. If you like, The Champions League is the gold standard, the Europa League silver and the Conference League bronze.

This gave me a “medal table” which looked like this:

Spain 5 – 2 – 0

England 4 – 2 – 1

Italy 4 – 2 – 1

Germany 4 – 2 – 1

France 2 – 3 – 1

Belgium 1 – 3 – 2

Netherlands 1 – 1 – 3

Portugal 3 – 1 – 0

Austria 1 – 2 – 1

Denmark 0 – 2 – 2

Ukraine 2 – 0 – 1

Russia 1 – 2 – 0

Turkey 1 – 2 – 0

Czech Republic 0 – 1 – 2

Switzerland 1 – 0 – 1

Scotland 0 – 2 – 0

Greece 0 – 1 – 1

Serbia 0 – 1 – 1

Cyprus 0 – 0 – 2

Israel 0 – 0 – 2

Sweden 1 – 0 – 0

Croatia 0 – 1 – 0

Hungary 0 – 1 – 0

Poland 0 – 1 – 0

Armenia 0 – 0 - 1

Estonia 0 – 0 - 1

Finland 0 – 0 - 1

Gibraltar 0 – 0 – 1

Kazakstan 0 – 0 - 1

Norway 0 – 0 – 1

Romania 0 – 0 - 1

Slovakia 0 – 0 - 1

Slovenia 0 – 0 – 1

That list involves clubs from 33 of the 54 UEFA member leagues. It shows, we are (just) in the top half of the leagues who managed to get at least one team into the group stages of one of the three European competitions, and in the top third of all the European leagues.

OK, we perhaps cannot realistically compete with the top European leagues – Spain, England, Italy, Germany and France. But, Belgium can get six clubs through to the group stages in Europe, The Netherlands five, Austria and |Denmark four each. Surely we should be upsides with these nations, at the very least.

Is there nobody along that sixth-floor corridor at Hampden looking at these qualification results and asking: “Why are we not doing better?” “Are we happy with how we are doing in Europe?” Or: “What should we be doing that we are not, to get more of our clubs going deeper into the European season?”

I believe, until we ask these questions, and answer them adequately, we are going nowhere, other than down the stank.

Rangers Banning Fans - A Beacon Of Hope

I HAVE 'a dustbin brain.' Odd facts, stories and ephemera get in there, and lie there, to be dragged out some way down the road.

For instance, there is this largely forgotten 1961 minor hit record: “Warpaint” - performed by the even-more forgotten Brooks Brothers. It includes the lines: “There's still time and there's still hope – let me introduce you to a bar of soap.”

The first of those lines came back into my head yesterday, when I read that Rangers had banned the Supporters Club and its members, who had sung then uploaded that offensive little ditty about new Celtic signing Kyogo Furuhashi.

It's a long-awaited breakthrough in eliminating the lunatic fringe from Scottish football. I have maintained for some time, to paraphrase that line from “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “We have the technology – we can exterminate them.”

The technology has been in use for some time which would have enabled our football clubs, particularly the Big Two and always assuming they had the will – to get shot of their more-embarrassing and upsetting followers.

But, what's a few sweery words, some unacceptable chants between friends. These are the most-faithful of the Faithful, Ra Peepul who will Follow, Follow to the ends of the earth; buy all the replica strips, the scarves and the videos. OK, they frequently have gone and will continue to go too far, but, the bottom line is, if they continue to spend, it's good business for the clubs involved.

OK, bad behaviour by fans is not an Old Firm monopoly, but, they do have more nutters per square metre than all the other clubs put together. Mucking the Ibrox byre properly will be a lengthy process, but, this is a welcome start.

CONTINUING this blog's theme of pop songs and lines there from – I refer now to the Neil Diamond classic: 'Forever In Blue Jeans' and that opening: “Money talks, but it don't sing and dance and it don't walk” - well, for almost as long as football has been played, money has talked, in England they have been suited and booted, up here, in comparison, we've been forever in blue jeans.

Until comparatively recently, Rangers were immune from the big money south of the Solway. I reckon Jim Baxter, who in any case had grown tired of living in a goldfish bowl in Glasgow, was the first Rangers first-team regular to move south. Previous Rangers' players to have gone to the English League, such as Billy Stevenson or Alex Scott, had departed after losing their place. Celtic on the other hand has always been, like the other Scottish teams, a selling club when English clubs came calling.

I reckon the Rangers' board were actually glad to be shot of Baxter, they could clearly, had they wished to, kept him at home, but, his transfer to Sunderland was mutually beneficial. Any way, fast forward 56 years and apparently, there is a tug of war going across Liverpool's Stanley Park, with both Everton and Liverpool keen to sign young Nathan Patterson.

Now, I can understand the blue half of Liverpool being interested, young Nathan clearly has a bright future – but Liverpool. Pardon the cynicism, but, whichever journalist came up with that one needs to get out more. The Reds have a 30-strong first-team squad, which includes no less than ten defenders. The right-back spot is currently filled by Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is but three years older than Patterson, and 11 caps more-experienced in international terms.

To put it bluntly, Liverpool don't need Patterson, I reckon that one is the work of an over-inflamed imagination. If the Everton interest in genuine, Patterson will go, Rangers can no longer hold-off the big English clubs.

Selling him might actually be good business for the club, except, they are most-likely to spend any transfer money in bringing in a lower-cost, inferior foreign replacement, rather than grooming the next Nathan Patterson.

Denis With Dementia - Devastating For Those Of Us Who Marvelled At His Playing

THERE IS, sadly, but one football story with which to start this blog – the devastating news that 'The King' - Denis Law has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and Vascular Dementia, sadly being afflicted like his great friend and team mate Bobby Charlton, with whom he is pictured below, in 1965.

 

This is a crushing blow to those of us old enough to remember Denis in his pomp in the 1960s, when he was one of a clutch of genuinely World-Class Scotland players. That Scotland team of the early 1960s, with Law and Alan Gilzean or Ian St John to score the goals, Jim Baxter and John White bossing the midfield and Willie Henderson and Davie Wilson running riot on the wings was a joy to watch.

Sadly, though Ian McColl did a sterling job as manager, the side was picked by the butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers of the SFA's selection committee, most of whom couldn't pick their noses and wouldn't have known a player had Dave Mackay chosen to boot them up the bahookies, time and again came up with a duff selection to hamper our cause. Also, back then, if the big English clubs didn't fancy releasing their players for Scotland duty – they didn't.

Scotland were really good back then, with Law to the fore. I prefer to remember him, his long-sleeved shirt cuffs clutched in his fists, darting onto a through ball from Baxter, or getting on the end of a Wilson cross. He was very-special.

They say you should never meet your idols. In a professional capacity, I had the pleasure of talking to Denis once or twice, he was always a joy to speak with, utterly without side or arrogance. My thoughts are with his family as they come to terms with this terrible news and assess how to care for him going forward.

I AM old enough to remember the USSR – Union of Soviet Socialist Republics – when it was on the go. Everything within that vast superstate was run and regulated by the Communist Party. This control went as far as the newspapers, of which there were two – PRAVDA and ISVESTIA.

PRAVDA – the official party of the Central Communist Party - meant Truth; ISVESTIA – the newspaper of the USSR government - meant news. The popular story was, you never found the truth in PRAVDA, and you never found news in ISVESTIA. Today, here in Scotland, The Celtic View is often referred to as PRAVDA, strangely, the same name has never been given to TRN. That title is fair enough for TCV, however, since it offers The Celtic Family the official thinking of the football club.

Rangers, of course, given the Hell the institution has been through since 2012, tends to play the media game somewhat differently from Celtic. Jock Stein, for instance, when managing Celtic, used to delight in releasing his best snippets to the newspapers on a Friday evening, to be certain of grabbing Saturday's back page Splash from Rangers.

Rangers, even when Willie Waddell, himself a football writer of some experience, was in charge, never played this game. As The Establishment Club they expected to get the Saturday sports splash as of right. In today's utterly-changed media market, that expectation no longer holds good.

I understand, in this 21^st century, if you want media access to The Rangers Football Club, you have to pay dearly for the privilege, and, they control what you get: which player or staff member you can speak with, when you can speak, and which subjects are off-limits. The concept of a free press no longer apparently holds good down Edmiston Drive. They are even at war with the SPFL over a sponsorship deal, agreed with ALL the clubs, but, which doesn't suit the business interests of the Rangers' Chairman.

This has been coming for some time. I remember, a decade or so ago, one of my pals, Chief Football Writer for a major Sunday paper telling me, he had less trouble getting to speak to European Footballers of the Year, with major foreign clubs, than he had getting a chat with some wan fittit “hammer thrower” (© Graeme Souness) who played for Rangers.

Somebody should maybe tell them: “You are no longer Ra Peepul.”

(A Wee Story) - About 25 years ago, when I was single-handedly running the sports desk of the UK's smallest daily newspaper, we had a strict pecking order on the Sports Desk:

1. The local football team

2. The local ice hockey team

3. Everything else.

The football team had to be first, 'twas ever thus, the ice hockey team were second, because that was their place and in any case the Editor was a fanatic. This position meant, for five of the six weekly editions of the paper, the fitba team got the back page, but, on a Tuesday morning, that position went to the ice hockey team.

All went well until I had a wee fa'-oot with the ice hockey team. I was chucked out of the rink mid-game. I was not an innocent victim in this, I will admit, but, and I have always been grateful to him for the stance he took, he backed me to the hilt – to the extent, he ordered me that week, rather than giving ice hockey the Tuesday back page, to cut their cover back from two mentions of the weekend games, one paragraph, detailing the two results.

This caused me a fair bit of angst – it was a lot of space to fill, but, we did it, and sat back to await developments. I got the first call at 9.01am, one of the ice hockey club's major sponsors. I passed him onto the Editor, they spoke for about two minutes.

Ten minutes later, the Editor summoned me to the inner sanctum – the ice hockey club had capitulated totally, normal service was resumed.

Now, I write this utterly convinced – it will never happen. But, I am prepared to believe, if ALL the media, all the newspapers, the television stations, the radio stations, the football magazines were to get together and decide, until they drop this ridiculous pay for access nonsense and go back to supporting a free press – the name Rangers will never appear anywhere in the Scottish media. I don't think it would take the club too-long to come down off their high horse.

For instance, Rangers and BBC Shortbread have been at war for at least the past two years, maybe longer – but, it's such a silly stair-heid rammy, I long ago lost the tiny interest I had in it. The BBC are apparently still not let into Ibrox. OK, why, lang syne, didn't the Head of BBC Scotland tell that club: “Either we get the same media privileges as everyone else, or the name Rangers is never uttered on BBC Scotland.” I bet the club would have capitulated very quickly.

There's another line the media could take with the club. Tell them, the days of free advertising are over, you pay us to cover you, or, we don't report on or broadcast your games. Again I don't think the club could let the media black-out last too-long.

They could, and probably would, try to get bye with the blue version of Scottish PRAVDA, but, I don't think the talent is there to make that work.

Sadly, we will never see this. Received wisdom in Scotland has it that the red tops rely on their racing coverage and their Old Firm coverage for sales – even their currently sinking circulations. Therefore, for as long as they feel they need to have Old Firm stories on the sports pages, they will suck it up and bow to the club's power.

After all, when even the “posh” Scottish papers have dedicated Celtic and Rangers reporters, you can see where the power lies. But, this does not help make for proper coverage of Scottish football. And the game is the poorer for this.

Big Clubs Can Waste Money on Over-Priced Imports. Celtic And Rangers Don't Have That Luxury

TO ME, few things condemn the management policies of Scotland's two biggest football clubs than the present minor stooshie over the right-back position in the Celtic first team.

 

 

The man currently in possession is Anthony Ralston, but, if you get your (dis)information on what is going on at Lennoxtown and in the offices back at Celtic Park, from Scotland's failing mainstream media, then apparently much energy is being generated in finding someone to fill the role on a more-permanent basis, and that Anthony is merely a stop-gap.

Since the members of the Celtic family all know their catechism off by heart – let me direct you to the Old Testament, and to those boring bits which all but the most-devout skip over, the books which go on endlessly: “Amos begat Boaz, who begat Caleb, who begat David, who begat Ephram, who in turn begat.....” unto the days of Zepahniah.

Mike Haughney begat Duncan McKay, who begat Jim Craig, who begat David Hay, who begat Danny McGrain, who begat Craig Burley, who begat Tommy Boyd, who begat Mark Wilson.

On the other side of the park: Jim Kennedy begat Tommy Gemmell, who begat Jim Brogan, who begat Tosh McKinlay, who begat Stephen Crainey, who begat Derek Whyte, who begat Brian O'Neil, who begat Danny Fox, who begat Kieran Tierney, who begat Greg Taylor.

I may well have overlooked one or two Celtic full backs who were capped by Scotland between the end of World War II (actually, from Haughney winning his only Scotland cap, against England in 1954) and the present day, for which I apologise. However, there you have a list of 18 Celtic full backs to have worn the numbers two or three jerseys for Scotland in the modern era.

Twelve of these players came through the ranks, while there were others such as Ralston, who won age group caps for Scotland, but were denied lengthy first-team careers by the club's decision to follow the Souness lead and buy-in ready-made, rather than follow the time-honoured Celtic path of growing from within.

I think here too of the likes of Scott Cuthbert and Paul Caddis, both of whom were regulars in Scotland age group squads, but were allowed to leave the club. Indeed, Caddis subsequently went on to become a full Scotland cap during his time with Birmingham City – albeit his full Scotland career is perhaps the shortest of the 1200-plus players to have worn the lion rampant since 1872 – two minutes.

But, back to young Anthony Ralston. He's been with the club since 1 July, 2014, when he signed from Celtic Boys Club. He made his first-team debut, aged 17, in May, 2016, he's already played for the club in Europe; he's had loan spells at Queen's Park, Dundee United and St Johnstone. He has won 16 Scotland age group caps and counting his senior club performances with Celtic, his loan spells and his age group internationals, he is on the verge of having played 100 senior games.

Yet, the jury is still apparently out on him. Come off it, all these figures say to me is: Neil Lennon wouldn't know a player if Alan Shearer kicked him in the head. Or maybe he wouldn't know a player BECAUSE Alan Shearer kicked him in the head – discuss!!

Ralston got his initial chance courtesy of Brendan Rodgers, maybe Brendan knew something, Neil Lennon didn't.

Might I suggest, instead of combing the football galaxies for a replacement for Ralston, Celtic could save themselves some cash by working with the boy and maybe getting in a younger, cheaper back-up. After all, young master Ralston has already shown the cajones for top-flight football by making Neymar look like a spoiled brat.

For all I know, maybe manager Ange Postecoglou is thinking along these lines, leaving Keith Jackson & Co to do what they do best – make-up fairy stories to try to keep the Faithful reading.

Any way, back in the days of The Lisbon Lions, when Celtic FC were a major force in Europe, they bred from within, they nurtured players who were Celtic to the core, part of the Family.

I believe young Ralston is such a player, let's hope their Aussie manager shows his faith in the boy and allows him to grow into the jersey. I think he has the talent to fill it well. And we do want to see young Scots flourish.

Across the city, the even-younger Nathan Patterson has shown, talent will out if encouraged. I can recall, 50 years ago, there was a major argument inside Scottish football, as to who should play right-back, David Hay of Celtic or Sandy Jardine of Rangers.

Could Ralston v Patterson be a repeat of that, and might we, in time, see them together in a great Scotland team, as happened with David and Sandy back in 1974?

European Football Is Back and, In Scotland, It's An Old Familiar Story Of Failure

WITH THE start of each new season of Scottish Football, I find myself hoping: “This year will be different, and we will get it right.” But, each year comes and goes and nothing changes. Sure, the stumblebums who stalk the sixth-floor corridor of power at Hampden periodically shuffle the deck-chairs but the RMS Titanic, which Scottish Football has become, steams on regardless, towards that head-on with the iceberg that will sink it.

Already, before August is out, we have seen the Daily Record and Sun subs dust-off those well-used Celtic cracked crest graphics; however, a couple of wins on the bounce and they are filed away for future use and, because The Other Lot are having their own mini-crisis, a loss to Dundee United book-ended by defeats in Europe to Malmö – so, best get the other cracked crest graphics out boys.

We remain, 54 years post-Lisbon and 49 years post-Barcelona, stubbornly clinging onto the myth that Rangers and Celtic are 'BIG' clubs. Sure, in normal times, they attract crowds, the size of which the other Scottish clubs can only dream about – they enjoy, in our own small minority area of a small island off the north-west coast of Europe, a media presence which other, bigger clubs, in bigger nations, can only envy, but, the fact has to be faced, in pan-European terms, they are mince.

Celtic are currently ranked at number 46 in UEFA's Clubs Co-efficient table, with Rangers at 52. Midtjylland and Malmö, the two teams who knocked them out of the Champions League, are respectively ranked 113 and 88.

In international football, Denmark are ranked at 10 in the FIFA rankings – the number 7 European nation; Sweden are ranked 18 – the number 13 European nation. Scotland are ranked internationally at 44 in the world and 25 in Europe.

Scottish club football is ranked as the number 11 league in Europe, the Danish League is ranked at 14 and Sweden at 23.

From these facts we can perhaps deduce:

• Currently, Denmark and Sweden have better players than Scotland, better-organised for international football.

• But, The Scottish domestic league is stronger than the Danish and Swedish leagues

• Celtic and Rangers are assumed to be better teams than the Scandinavian sides who beat them.

So – how did they manage to lose?

In professional sport – money talks. It has been obvious for years, the best-chance these two clubs have of making anywhere near the same money as the really big European clubs, is to have lengthy runs in Europe. It is also a lot better for their finances if that run is in the big-money competition – the Champions League.

However, qualification in that particular competition is slanted in favour of clubs from the supposed bigger leagues in Europe: The English Premiership, the Bundesleague, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 in France; so, to get even a sniff of participation in the money-making Group stage of the Champions League, far-less gain access to the mind-boggling rewards on offer in the knock-out stages, our domestic heroes must first of all qualify.

Qualification started in July, before the domestic season kicked off. Did the two clubs adjust their preparations properly, to be ready for European qualification matches? I would question if they got this right, and they paid the price.

Certainly, Celtic made an absolute pig's breakfast of getting themselves ready, between the timing of recruiting Dominic McKay in to replace Peter Longwwell and Ange Postecoglou in for the departed Neil Lennon.

But, after such a great domestic season, one might have thought, Rangers merely had to do some fine-tuning to be ready for Europe.

Did the two clubs do the proper due diligence on the clubs they were liable to be facing? Were they as well-prepared as they might have been for Europe in 2021? Did they disrespect their opponents? Or, perhaps, their players are not as good as they and a tame and somewhat submissive press would have us believe.

OK, it's not quite the same thing but, Olympic Champions know, well in advance, the date of their particular final. They know the dates of their preliminary rounds, so, all their preparations are geared towards peaking on the right date.

The likes of Andy Murray or Rory McIlroy know that, for most of the weeks of any year they will be competing in tournaments. But, to these guys – in Murray's case The Australian, French, Wimbledon and USA Championships are the ones that matter. To McIlroy it's the Masters, the US and The Opens and the PGA Championship which define each season – and their preparations are geared around being right for these challenges.

The Champions League qualifying rounds are, I would suggest, every bit as important for Celtic and Rangers. Sure, if they can survive the rush to qualify for the group stage in the Europa League, they will still make good money, but, not nearly as much as they would have made by staying in the Champions League until the group stages there.

To put it bluntly in an amended form to one of these posters which right-on coaches love to put up in dressing rooms:

• They failed to prepare and were prepared to fail – which they did.

But hey, that's Scottish fitba for you. “Aye Beenism” has long been a facet of Scottish Rugby. This is supposedly expressed by veteran former players and administrators in the Borders railing against change by saying: “But it's aye been done this way – and aye will be.”

There is a degree of Aye Beenism in Scottish football too, and the sooner it is swept away the better.

The two biggest clubs could set the ball rolling, by getting their European act together.