SOME 20 YEARS AGO, or it might even be further back in time – Bill Leckie tore off his headphones, swore as only a Paisley Buddie can swear and figuratively had steam coming out of his ears. What had caused the normally phlegmatic Mr Leckie to lose his cool? Some banal observation from Keith Jackson on Radio Clyde.
As I was forced to remind the good William, he was, after all, the man who had foisted young Master Jackson on Scottish fitba, so, he had to take a modicum of blame for the outburst of pish which had so upset him.
I am from a different time. I shared press boxes with some class acts: Dan Archer, Doug Baillie, 'Chiefy' Cameron, Brian Scott, the young James Traynor and his even-more-talented elder brother John. I was a journeymen alongside these stars, but, given that the likes of Mr Leckie and Hugh Macdonald are no longer front-line football writers, there are few today I have much time for. After The Times' two distinguished 'veterans' – Phil Gordon and Graham Spiers, The Scotsman's Alan Pattullo, The Sun's Roger Hannah and freelancer Graham Macpherson, I am struggling.
So I am not at all surprised that the 'fans with lap-tops' of the scottish Football Writers Association have began a sniping campaign against Scotland boss Stevie Clarke. It goes with the territory, only being England Manager or maybe in-charge of Brazil is a more-thankless task than being Scotland boss. In the three cases I mention, you are holding a poisoned chalice, in terms of managing fans' expectations.
It's way past time we faced facts:
we have not, for about 100 years, been anywhere near as good as we like to think we are
the way we run and manage our game is fatally-flawed
the guys who make the big decisions don't really care about the national team – they're own wee team comes first
if two Glasgow-based clubs don't like anything, it doesn't happen – because they think they are bigger than the game
The governing body of the game in Scotland is the Scottish Football Association. That body was formed because, back in the early days of the game, at the height of the Victorian British Empire – a bunch of public school old boys down in London had formed The Football Association, and sought to run the game the length and breadth of the United Kingdom.
In 1870, they picked a 'Scotland XI' to play England, and one or two only got into the Scotland team, because they owned large tracts of our country. The good gentlemen of Queen's Park FC took umbrage at this, picked an all-Scottish XI and drew with the men in white – international football was born, so, we had to form the SFA to run our end of it.
I wonder how Bob Gardner, Charles Campbell and the other giants of the 1870s and 1880s, when Scotland was the best team in the world, would feel about players today being picked on the basis of a Scottish grannie. And I wonder how they would feel about “Scottish” teams playing in European club games with hardly a Scotsman in their line-up.
I have nothing against Scottish teams employing non-Scots, but, I just feel, we should be pro-actively encouraging Scottish players and am a firm believer in what Chick Young called: “The eight diddies rule,” whereby only three non-Scots could be on the park for a team at any one time.
Every non-Scot who is playing for a Scottish team, in the Scottish League, is one fewer Scot available for Stevie Clarke's national team. Maybe the SFA should be looking at how rugby in the UK tackles this nationality issue.
In English Rugby's Gallagher Premiership, 70% - that's 16 players out of a match-day squad of 23 have to be “England-qualified.” In Wales, the National Coach is limited as to how many players with fewer than 60 caps – but playing outside Wales – he can pick for the national side.
OK to be fair, the SRU does go in for non-Scots “project” players – generally South Africans – to qualify to play for Scotland through residence, but, in their defence, we have the smallest number of players and clubs of any of the Tier One nations.
French clubs used to be free to employ players from all over the world, but, in recent years, their focus has changed to bringing through young, French talent, while, since there are only five full-time, fully-professional clubs in Ireland: the four Rugby Union provinces – Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster, plus the ice hockey Belfast Giants, Irish rugby has a definite financial advantage and can keep their best talent at home.
So why do Scottish clubs keep denying opportunities to young Scots, by employing journeymen English and foreign players. I have no beef with the Laudrup, Larsson or Sauzee-level players coming to Scotland, but, some of the average players we have imported were no better than the Scots they were displacing.
Of course, the Big Two, who like to kid us on they're important European clubs, will skweam and skweam and skweam, and threaten to take their ball away, were the diddy teams to attempt to impose a more Scottish look to their squads, but, bring it on I say. They appear to have forgotten, their only European trophy-winning squads were all-Scottish. Importing Europeans, even good ones, hasn't seen them match the Lisbon Lions or the Barcelona Bears on the big stage.
Here's an idea – why don't we bring in the 're-Scottishing' of Scottish Football by making the League Cup, a competition which winning it doesn't bring European qualification, a Scottish players only competition. No non-Scots could be fielded, that would give the diddy teams a chance, and let the big sides see how much native talent they had.
If it worked, the same rules could be applied to the Scottish Cup, then, maybe, we could introduce the three foreigners rule into our domestic league. Come on SFA, be brave and give our home-grown players a real chance.
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