Scotland - Consistently Disappointing On The Biggest Stage

OK – We are coming home, another tournament, another early exit, another “Best Supporters” battle honour for the Tartan Army. We've been here before, and, unless there is a sysmic change within Scottish fitba's corridors of power, we will be here again – perhaps in two years, maybe in four, maybe further down the line. It seems to be some sort of Caledonian Curse, guaranteed to continually gie ye the boak.

So, we're back to our normal position around the big football shows: outside looking in, assuaging our hurt by enjoying the fun as the English Media turns on their under-performing team, while we mutter “ABE – Anyone But England” and waiting for the moment when football does not come home.

Before we go any further, let's kick the elephant out of the room – the “Stonewall Penalty” we didn't get, late in the day. That Argentinian referee had never heard of Scotland's 100% support for “The Hand of God”. My view, we don't often gtet those sorts of decisions. To me, it was a penalty, but, the referee decided, both players were wrestling so let it go – we live with it.

This was yet another example of the Jock Stein dictum: “you don't give referees a chance to make a decision which can hurt you.” Maybe, if Stuart Armstrong hadn't had a grab at the Hungarian defender's shirt, we might have got it. But, that said, when you have as much possession as we had in the first half, and don't force the opposition goalkeeper into a save – you don't deserve to progress.

In any case, just as the Diddy Teams seldom if ever, even with VAR, get penalties at Castle Greyskull or the Estadio del Giro, Scotland doesn't get many refereeing breaks on the big stage. When we do: Peru 1978, England 1996 for instance, we find scoring from the spot a bit of a problem.

What happens next? Stevie Clarke might, or might not, resign/be sacked, leaving someone else – David Moyes perhaps – to carry forward the poisoned chalice of trying to match Scottish expectations with the reality of a football system which has been broken for years and which the game's high heid yins show absolutely no inclination to fix.

The BBC ran a graphic in their build-up to the game, in which they showed the number of Scottish players in the first season of the English Pfremier League, compared with this season. It was a decline from something like 40 players, playing a total of nearly 70,000 minutes over the season to some 15 players playing fewer than 20,000 minutes today.

Wullie Shankly used to say the secret to winning in England was to have”Enough Scottish players to make a difference, but not so-many that they start fighting with each other.” Back in Shankly's day, they could hold Scotland v England training games within the squad. These days, Scottish players in the Premiership are like rocking horse shite.

Our development of young players is now terrible. I remember the Chairman of one of our bigger Diddy Teams, attempting to sell-on a young “star” to an English Premiership club and trying to use the fact the teenager was already a Scotland Undeer-21 cap, to elevate the transfer fee, being told by the representative of the purchasing club: “You get a Scotland Under-21 cap for knowing we play with a round ball”. That representative was a 30-times-capped Scotland player.

That kid, by the way, never played a first-team game for his English club. The manager who signed him was let-go and his successor, another Scot, didn't fancy the youngster and never picked him.

A friend of mine, sadly no longer with us, had played for an English club in the old First Division, before it became the Premiership. He went down for a team reunion, to be asked by one of the older backroom coaches at his old club: “What are you teaching young players up in Scotland now. It used to be, you Jocks came down here, demanding the ball and able to dominate games, the kids we are bringing south today can barely trap the ball”?

So where do we go from here? Has Stevie Clarke reached his sell-by date? Do we sack him, or has he perhaps earned the right to say: “I've taken this squad as far as I can, it's time to give somebody else a shot”?

In which case – who? Some of the television-watching corps of the Tartan Army felt Davie Moyes has been auditioning for the role over the course of the campaign, but, big Davie apart, who else has the combination of experience and the background for the job?

Top-flight Scottish managers used to be ten a penny, today, they are an endangered species and, after Berti Vogts are we ready for another non-Scot, assuming somebody would want to take a job which is a bit like missionary work in a third world country, given the structure of our game?

Before posting this entry, I took a long hard look at our record over the 34 World Cup or European Championship campaigns we have mounted. It does not make encouraging reading:

• In 34 qualifying campaigns over 74 years, we've played 266 games, winning 133 (50%), drawing 58 and losing 75.

• We have qualified for the finals 12 times (38%)

• Our average finishing position in those finals is 15^th out of 20 teams

• We have only topped our qualifying group 5 times in 12 successful campaigns

• In only 6 of the 12 successful qualifying campaigns have we had a winning record (winning more than half of the games)

So qualifying has always been a struggle, but, that's the easy part, it's when we actually get to the big show that Scotland's troubles really show.

• In 12 Finals tournaments since 1954 (70 years), we've played 35 games, winning just 6 (17%), drawing 10 and losing 19.

• These 12 tournaments have covered 8 World Cups and 4 Euros.

• Our average finiishing position is 16^th of 20 teams

• In World Cup Final tournaments we've played 23 games, winning 4 (17%), drawing 7 and losing 12

• Our average finishing position is 16^th of 21 teams

• Our best World Cup finish was 9^th of 16 in 1974

• Our worst World Cup finish was 15^th of 16 teams in 1954

• In our 4 European Championship Finals appearance we've played 12 games, winning 2 (17%), drawing 3 and losing 7

• Our average finishing position is 21 of 24 teams

• Our best Euros finish was 5^th of 8 teams in 1992 - our first finals
  

• We are on-course for our worst performance when this season's group games are concluded, since we are looking likely to finish 23^rd or 24^th of the 24 teams participating

Such consistently poor performances have consequences, we keep changing Managers after each and every one of them fails to match Scottish expectations with performances. The job has been given to some of the most-celebrated of Scottish managers, it appears to make little difference.

I have long held, it is our system that is wrong. Our game and the way we organise it, manage it and promote it is badly broken and, until we get people onto that sixth floor corridor at Hampden, where apparently all the big decisions are taken, capable of not only saying: “These repeated failures are unacceptable”, but forcing through the necessary changes which will make the national team capable of at least getting out of the groups and competing at the sharp end of the international game, then we might as well stay at home and do impressions of John Laurie in his role as Private Frazer.

Because we appear doomed to further years of anguish and bitter disappointment.

 

How Will We Blow It This Time?

I CAN STILL vaguely remember the first time I saw a Scotland team tank in a big tournament: Uruguay 7 - Scotland 0; that match was played in Basle's Sankt Jakob Stadion, on 19 June, 1954.

Seventy years on, last night in Stuttgart, we had a better Swiss experience, but, I remain convinced we will again be back home, wearing our Anyone But England tee-shirts come the sharp end of these Euros. It's the Scottish way: the Tartan Army turns up, gets the party started, but has the good grace to decamp for home before things get serious.

The nation which gave The Beautiful Game form and substance is now a peripheral, slightly comic warm-up act for the serious stuff of the knock-out stages. Yes, we were a lot better than in our opener against Germany, however, tournament play is all about winning and progressing, and last night, we failed to win.

Indeed, in terms of chances created, of working the opposition goalkeeper, we took second prize to a workmanlike but hardly inspiring Switzerland.

Long experience has taught me, somehow we will find a way to miss out on the knock-out games. My own low expectations are that we will probably scrape a narrow victory in our third group game, against Hungary, back in VfB Stuttgart's magnificent MHP Arena on Sunday, but finish fifth of the six third-placed finishers from the group stage, and miss-out on the last 16, probably by a single goal.

The pre-game forecast, as things stand is that there is a 37% chance of a Scotland win, a 38% chance of the Hungarians winning and a 25% chance of a draw. This ties in nicely with the Scotland fan experience: It's the hope that kills.

OK, Scotland hasn't had a World-Class Player – ie an individual who is in the conversation when the really great players of an era are being talked about, since Jim Baxter and Denis Law were in their pomp, some 60 years ago. Yes, Kenny Dalglish was a star in a very-good Liverpool side, but, for me he never carried the individual threat or aura of the true greats – Pele, Maradona, Cruyff etc.

We have some good players in our squad in Germany, but, apart, possibly from Captain Andy Robertson, not a single player who will be spoken-of as a contender for the Team of the Tournament.

In this, Royal Ascot Week, to apply a Horse Racing approach: We have plenty of selling platers, but the Euro '24 is a Group One race. We are the football equivalent of the 50/1 shot, entered by over-optimistic connections for the Grand National, destined to fall at the fence after Beecher's Brook on the first circuit.

To continue the Horse Racing line, our course and distance record is not encouraging:

• European Championships entered – 15

• Qualified for the finals – 4 – 26.7% success rate

• Matches played in the finals – 11

• Record: p 11 – w 2 – d 3 – l 6 – for 7 – agnst 16 – pts 9/33 – 27.3%

• Finishing place in past finals: 1992 – 5/8 : 1996 – 12/16: 2020 – 22/24

Hardly earth-shattering, but, still the Tartan Army turns up, brings a bit of colour and noise to the party, before going home early – it's become something of a football tradition.

The above is our record in those four versions of the European Championships where we have actually qualified for the big show – please, do not examine our record in the eleven tournaments where we crashed and burned in the qualifiers, believe me, it is too-painful.

I have no way, as yet, of knowing how this year's tournament will pan-out, but, I suspect my pessimistic forecast of the second paragraph of this entry will not be too far-out.

There is a – I feel rather dangerous – atmosphere growing around Sunday's game, a sort of attitude of: “It's only Hungary”. Haud oan a meenit pal:

• FIFA world rankings: Hungary ranked 26 : Scotland ranked 39

• UEFA national rankings: Hungary ranked 14 : Scotland ranked 21

• Hungary qualified as group winners

• Scotland qualified as group runners-up

• Hungary has a superior Euros record to ours

• Hungary, like Scotland, are in League A of the European Nations League

So, while the Tartan Army might be exuding confidence in the build-up to the game, we will not be facing a team of duds in the match. During season 2023-24, in the build-up to the Euros, both nations played ten full internationals. The respective records over these games is:

• Scotland – p 10 – w 2 – d 3 – l 3

• Hungary – p 10 – w 6 – d 3 – l 1

OK, we have won one and lost one of our two matches in Germany, while Hungary has lost both of their games to date, but, the fact they lost to Switzerland, with whom we drew, cannot be taken as definite confirmation of Scotland being better than Hungary, after all, although b oth sides lose, they performed better against Germany than we did.

Sunday's match will be tight, and it will be tough. As ever, when looking ahead to a Scotland game, we ought perhaps to lower our expectations and definitely not get ahead of ourselves.

Stephen Clarke has worked wonders with the talent available to him. Injuries have definitely not helped us in the run-up to this tournament, but, the brutal fact is, compared to other nations – even Hungary, we are light on players competing, on a weekly basis, at the sharp end of the major European leagues. A look at where our players play is revealing:

• Scottish Premier League – 8

• English Premier League – 5

• English Championship – 9

• Other Leagues – 4

1. Playing in one of Europe's top four leagues (Spain, Italy, Germany, England) – 6

2. Playing with a Champions League club next season – 5

3. Playing with a Europa League club next season – 4

This assumes players remain with their current club

As I wrote above, we do not, at the moment, have any truly-great international players. Andy Robertson might rate a mention in the discussion around a Greatest-ever Scotland XI, but I would suggest he'd be the only one of our squad in Germany to get a nomination for that hypothetical team.

Our five EPL players are all first picks for their clubs – so we have a small core of top-rated players in a top-rated league. That said, the majority of our players have to be considered journeymen -no slouches but lacking that wee bit of quality which makes the difference in the big matches.

So, while there is life, there is hope; but, given my long experience of seeing Scotland do an Ian McKellen, falling down on the big stage, I am resigning myself to yet another Scottish failure at the group stages, come Sunday night.

I'd love to be optimistic, but, bitter experience has taught me: it's not for us is the default position for Scotland in the major international competitions.

 

Ive Seen That Movie Before

ON THE BASIS – If I wasn't laughin', I'd be greetin' – I have had a quiet chortle at the reaction to last night's events in Munich. Anyone who knows anything more than diddly squat about fitba could tell you – you cannot play even a middling Mannschaft with ten men. So, perhaps we got off lightly, and those who are calling for the head of Stevie Clarke and several of the players need to have a long, hard look at themselves.

OK, they don't have a Beckenbauer at the back, or a Gerd Muller up front, but this was still a Germany team, playing at home, in a major tournament. Even a good Scotland team, with a sprinkling of World-Class players – which with the best will in the world doesn't describe the squad Clarke has at his disposal, would quite happily take a draw against any German international side.

Yes, Ryan Porteous picked the wrong night to revert to the sort of tackle which made him an occasional liability at times in his Hibernian days, but, he still had to go for that ball and unless he had been playing, at home, for one or other of the Bigot Brothers in a domestic Scottish game – it was a red card every day of the week.

There is an ongoing debate in Rugby Union around “the 20-minute red card”. If introduced, this would see a side, reduced to 14 men by a red card, able to replace the sent-of player after 20 minutes. The reasoning being, when a side goes down a man it immediately spoils the entertainment value of the match.

Now, it's maybe something we could also look at in football. In some of the team sports I have covered, sports such as Basketball and Ice Hockey, when a player is chucked out of the game, he is replaced, in ice hockey after the requisite power play, and in that sport, a goal scored against a depleted side cancels-out the one-man disadvantage immediately – so, there is something to be said for looking at replacing a sent-off player in Football.

Maybe then, we would only have lost 1-3, but, we would still have lost.

Another thing about last night's defeat was the immediate mobilisation of the 'Disaster for Scotland' headlines. Friday night in Munich was hugely-disappointing, but, when sat alongside such disasters as Wembley 1961 and 1975, Peru 1978, Iran 1978, Morocco 1998, this was a large traffic bump.

This match was always going to be an Iffy international:

If we play as well as we really can, and all 11 players burst a gut, and if their top players fail to turn up, and one or two others are below par; if we take one of the few chances we will create, we could snatch a draw.

Ignore the: “We are Scotland, we fear nobody” bullshit from the lunatic platoon of the Tartan Army, the preceding paragraph, I think, come close to the rationale of the thinking Scottish football fan.

Just considere the reality of our group in Germany. Germany are ranked an extremely, for them, lowly 16^th in the FIFA World Rankings. Switzerland, our next opponents, on Wednesday, are ranked 19^th. We then face Hungary, on Sunday, 23 June; they are ranked 26^th in the FIFA standings – we are ranked 39^th.

If you consider only the rankings within Europe, Germany are ranked 9^th, Switzerland 10^th and Hungary 14^th, we are ranked 21^st. Then, if you look only at the 24 nations playing in Germany, you find we are ranked 17^th – so, not expected to get out of our group.

As a veteran, in my eighth decade of supporting Scotland, I have been on the roller-coaster for a while. I can vaguely recall the 0-7 loss to Uruguay in 1954. I have better recollection of the unmitigated disaster of Sweden 1958. I took an afternoon off school in 1961 to see us lose to Czechoslovakia in a play-off in Belgium, a defeat which kept us out of the 1962 tournament.

In 1965 there was another afternoon off work to see us lose to Italy in Naples, so we didn't go to England the following year. Then, after being in the crowd when we drew with West Germany at Hampden in 1969, like every other Scot I had to be content with: “That cheatin' bar steward had it comin;” when Tommy Gemmell booted Helmut “Hamlet” Haller up the bahookie, as they beat us in the return game – so no tri to Mexico in 1970.

Things then got better for a time and we became regular qualifiers for the World Cup, however, the European Championships, from our first excursion in the 1968 qualifiers, have largely been disastrous. This is our 15^th go at the Euros and we have qualified for the finals just three times – a 20% success rate – not exactly inspiring.

In some Euro qualifying campaigns our squad had been stuffed to the gills with inductees into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame, but, we still crashed and burned. Either, we have seriously over-rated these playeres, or, maybe we really are generally shite. These are some of the reasons why I now refuse to get worked-up about Scotland's chances in the big games.

Another reason for not getting over-excited about our chances, is the fact, we have lost the knack of producing quality players. Look at the current squad, aside from skipper Andy Robertson, we don't have a single player who is a guaranteed starter with one of the real heavyweight European clubs.

Robertson, might, depending on the formation we wanted to play, be a contender for an all-time Scotland squad, but, the skipper apart, we lack genuine quality across the squad.

We could still qualify for the last 16 in Germany, but, I am not confident of this. Steve Clarke might, when it is all over, decide he has taken us as far as he can. Time will tell, but, and not just because of my misery at last night: “forward tho' Ah canna see, Ah guess and fear.”

 

A Milestone Passed

YOU WILL NOT often see these words written in this blog, but: Well done BBC Shortbread. They at least, on Monday night, acknowledged Andy Robertson's feat, in surpassing George Young's achievements, by becoming the Scottish footballer who has won the most full international caps, as Captain of the Men's A team.

 

 When he led us out against Finland at Hampden on Friday night, Robertson was wearing the armband for the 49^th time, eclipsing Big Corky's 67 year old record. It's an incredible achievement, when you consider that iconic Scottish captains such as Billy Bremner, Graeme Souness, Richard Gough, Roy Aitken, Paul Lambert, Colin Hendrie and Gary McAllister never remotely-challenged Young's mark.

Young's Scotland record is remarkable. He played 54 times for his country, between 1946 and 1957, a time when the side was selected by the SFA Selection Committee, a body of men who could give today's Hampden High Heid yins schooling in how to keep your noses in the trough, put self and club first and wheel and deal like Del Boy Trotter to take advantage of the SFA credit card.

It took nearly two decades for Denis Law to beat Young's appearance record, since we played far fewer international than we do today. But Young, a somewhat forgotten figure nowadays, was more than just the Captain. Back then, with the selectors choosing the side, it was down to the Captain and the Trainer, men like Celtic's Alex Dowdalls and Clyde's Dawson Walker to organise things around the actual games.

Other nations, notably England, with Walter Winterbottom, were appointing Managers to organise the team for internationals – although, during Winterbottom's 16-year tenure with the England side, their selectors still picked the team.

The gentlemen of the Scottish Football Writers Association regularly demanded that Scotland too appoint a team manager, but, Sir George Graham, trhe autocratic Secretary of the SFA always insisted: “We don't need a manager, George Young does that job”.

 

 It is significant that when they did appoint a Manager – Andy Beattie getting the job for the catostrophic !954 World Cup Finals in Switzerland, Young was missing – on-tour in North America with Rangers. Beattie, lest we forget, found the Selectors of the time so easy to deal with, he bailed-out before the end of the tournament.

Since 1872 – over 1200 players have represented Scotland in a full international, yet only 37 – a mere 3% - have won 50 caps and been admitted to the SFA's Roll of Honour' Grant Hanley becoming the latest member of that elite group, also in the Finland match.

For Robertson to have achieved that number of appearances as Captain, is a remarkable testimony to his consitency and to the aura he brings to the national side. You can never say never, but, it may well be another 60-plus years before his new record is broken.

THIS BEING my personal blog, I can say what I like and be as outrageous as I want to be. So, if you feel I am being unnecessarily political here – just scroll-on past. But here goes.

Those of us – Independence Fundamentalists - as we are known, had further proof in the last week of the fact – Scotland is a colonised nation. In a televised debate, in which little or nothing was debated and which was only slightly less-boring that watching paint dry, Rishi Sunak for the Blue Tories, and Sir Keir Starmer for the Red Tories, both took the opportunity to wish England well in Germany. No mention of the other United Kingdom constituent nation which is also taking part in the Euros.

If that wasn't sufficient proof of how lowly the Sassenachs regard us, further proof followed when HRH The Prince of Wales high-tailed it up to St George's Park to wave England off. The future King of England is of course, Honorary President of The Football Association, so I suppose that wee jolly was part of his job description.

But, he is also Duke of Rothesay, Prince of Scotland, and in-line to become, unless by some miracle we get our Independence back before his dear old Dad pops his clogs – King of Scots. Mind you, we Independence Fundamentalists believe, his Dad is not yet fit to bear that title, since he has failed to take the Scottish Coronation Oath, far-less come up here to be crowned.

At least his Aunt, The Princess Royal, has taken her responsibilities as Patron of the Scottish Rugby Union seriously enough to turn-up at almost every Scotland international, and to learn and sing Flower of Scotland.

Anne, unlike her nephew, didn't go to Eton and be brought up to believe the Jocks are only useful as gamekeepers, ghillies and as cannon fodder for England's wars. Rant over.

FINALLY – to rehash one of my favourite sporting stories. The great Jim Telfer, after an absolutely stand-out performance for Scotland, in putting England to the sword at Murrayfield, remarked that his two-tries performance that day was maybe a good time to retire.

He didn't of course, soldiering on for another five or six years in the nation's cause, before switching seamlessly to become a sort of Rugby Unikon version of Wullie Shankly.

But, as that great fictional sportsman – Rupert Campbell-Black – observed, timing one's retirement is the toughest decision any sportsman or woman has to make.

So, I felt this week for David Winters, who has stepped away from being interim manager of Darvel Juniors, to seek opportunities elsewhere. David, hitherto, better known as: “Robbie's wee brother” was only in charge at Recreation Park, during his brief spell in the hot seat he managed to deliver both the West of Scotland and Scottish Junior Cups into the club's possession – the two most-prestigious trophies in the Junior game.

I fear David, after that double – anything else is downhill. But, I wish him well wherever he goes. I would, however, caution him – their present committee is a good bit more-intelligent than the mob I had to deal with when writing locally, but, if you want to retain your sanity – never, ever, take the Scumnock job.

 

Internationals - Totally Different Gravy

I HAVE THIS WEEK started my training for the Euros – by watching international football – with mixed results.

Scotland v Gibraltar found me wondering how it happened – that Scotland, the nation of Hughie Gallacher, Lawrie Reilly, Denis Law and Ally McCoist has sunk so low that against opposition who would not worry an average Auchinleck Talbot side, they could not hit a coo on the erse wi' a banjo, rather than the 192 square feet of the goal area.

Eventually we did score the two goals which guaranteed victory; however, two goals, and only four shots on-target, from some 24 efforts on goal is not an international-class return.

Our two goals were certainly finished with aplomb, but, I would be loath to criticise our strikers, I felt, over the entire 90 minutes, the service they go was rank rotten and too-often non-existent. Our midfield had an off-day, John McGinn was a peripheral player, while Billy Gilmour, perhaps our midfield creator best-equipped to play the “killer pass” - for me he plays too deep.

Our problems on the right flank were also obvious. I would not wish to criticise Ross McCrorie, who had a sound debut. But, he's primarily a defender, he has spent the bulk of his career in central defence, before, since his move south,being converted to a right wing back. However, breaking forward and creating is a bit of an alien concept to him; if we have to have a go-forward threat wide on the right, then I think the under-rated Anthony Ralston is the better bet.

Premier Sport did a competent job of broadcasting the game; they told it like it is. How different from the coverage of the next international – England v Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Like the Scotland game, this was in effect a pre-season warm-up, albeit one being played at the end of a campaign. I dare say Gareth Southgate knows who will be the bulk of his squad in Germany – same as Stevie Clarke knows who will be the bulk of the Scotland squad.

The only question for both managers is – which players will fill the last few places in the 26-man squad. They will worry about their teams for the first game when they get to Germany. So, it stood to reason, we were going to see experimentation from Southgate at St James Park.

In which case, the over-hyping and over-kill from the Channel 4 team covering the game was cringe-worthy. However, that's one of the main burden England teams have to carry.

Their media cheer-leaders build England up as potential winners before every tournament. However, their record of one win in 34 World Cup or European Championship campaigns rather categorises their efforts as much ado about nothing. For all the shouting, boosting and high hopes, it is now nearly 58 years since that single victory.

Still England expects, and nobody expects more than their media. Also, when they don't live up to expectations, Fleet Street is always in the vanguard of those calling for the head of their Manager.

My third international of the week was Tuesday afternoon's Israel v Scotland women's international from Budapest. This was played behind closed doors at what looked like a junior ground and, as such, the atmosphere was somewhat unreal.

I would not say the women were as far on top as the men had been the previous day, but, they still dominated play to excess. The difference was, they took more chances, with Martha Thomas stealing the show with four goals in our 5-0 win. What's happening in Scotland these days, we've barely got a male striker who can bother that coo's erse, while we've got women who score for fun.

IF THE INTERNATIONAL game is currently driving the football narrative, as we gear up for the Euros, domestically, the troubles up in Inverness are to a degree encouraging our football hacks to come up with something other than their annual summer game of making-up stories about which big money foreign mercenary is about to join one or other of the Bigot Brothers.

It took an elephantine digestion period to bring Inverness Caledonian Thistle into the world, and I amreliably informed, there are still people in the so=called Capital of the Highlands whose loyalty to one or other of the rival sides who were combined into the new club, who refuse to set foot inside Caledonia Stadium.

But, by the way they climbed through the leagues to the Premier Division, the new club – along with neighbours Ross County demonstrated the value of new blood coming into a hitherto moribound lower league system.

Looking on from afar, I fear ICT's troubles really began when they got there, and tasted some success by winning the Scottish Cup. On the way up, they were generally a homespun outfit, giving the better players from the top third of the country a platform on which to show their abilities.

But, once into the top league, they decided to follow the lead of the other “diddy teams”. They had decidedto ape the practices of the Big Two. They could afford to buy-in second rate non-Scots for their squads, so the DTs, including ICT, in trying to keep-up, bought-in third and fourth rate mercenaries.

The problem for the Inverness club then was, these incomers had to be housed, in an area where housing is notoriously more-expensive than in the Central Belt, and where they found themselves, to a degree, competing for the few homes on the market, with cash-rich “White Settlers” - cashing-in on the windfall they had made from selling their old home in the Sudentenland and moving north, to take advantage of the better social welfare system we have in Scotland.

So, suddenly, non-local playefrs were less keen to move up the A9, performances dropped off and the club has, in a relatively short time, dropped two leagues. Now, suddenly, shocked at the backlash against a plan to relocate their training base to Fife, there are fears for the club's future, its survival even.

The fact is, away from the traditonal big four cities – Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland struggles to justify full-time football clubs. Indeed, I have long felt, a genuine challenge to the Big Two will never happen until we revert to just one big club in both Dundee and Edinburgh – and we get a proper Combined Bargaining Agreement in place to counteract the financial pull of the Big Two.

Getting ICT back to the big league will be a long-term job. A good place to start would be to jettison the incomers, perhaps revert to part-time for a spell, and promote local talent.

Put much of the energy into a well-run Academy system, but, while the youngsters develop and mature, a period in the lower reaches might be no bad thing.

FINALLY – I will give tonight's Scotland v Finland game a body swerve, in favour of a Rugby Union match. I will be watching the final of the FOSROC Super Series Sprint competition, between Ayrshire Bulls and Stirling Wolves, on BBC ALBA.

I will record events at Hampden, and watch later. The rugby match matters, more than a Friendly, in which, I suspect, a good number of the home team might be disinclined to burst a gut, in case it costs them their place in Germany.

Any way, long experience has taught me – we rarely play well in friendlies; I have endured some stinkers over the years.

 

Reflections On A Weekend Of Football Contrasts

MANY YEARS AGO a golfing friend of my father's – a veteran member of Kilmarnock Barassie – observed that normal golfers, “weekend hackers like me” as he described himself, were wasting their time seeking inspiration from tournament professionals. “These guys inhabit a different galaxy – they're generally taking an eight iron where we club golfers are looking at a four or five,” he opined. His advice was, if you seek inspiration from better golfers, go and watch the women professionals, the game they play is more like that we male club golfers play.

Never having been much into wasting a good walk, I cannot give a firm opinion on his thesis, but, fellow club golfers in his audience were not inclined to argue against his point. Mind you, I do feel some of the top women golfers today are now also inhabiting a realm far-removed from your average monthly medal.

But, to the gist of today's sermon. Other than to have a titter at watching that ongoing con trick, being pulled by the High Heid Yins at our two great club football institutions – pretending their bargain basement recruits give them a chance of European football after Christmas – I don't generally bother with the modern-day European Cup.

Once upon a time this competition meant something, it really was the best of the best competing for pan-continental hegemony. You had to be champion of your country to even get in, nowadays, it's almost a private boys club for oligarths.

But, the teams which reach the sharp end, generally have recruited some of the best contemporary players. For me, the trouble is, today's top pros are so technically proficient, they've made the game boring. You long for the sight of your classic Scottish defender, unable to trap a falling bag of cement, but capable of sending a six foot Brazilian into orbit.

However, as I was reminded when watching Real Madrid v Borussia Dortmund on Saturday night, some olf footbaling truisms still carry weight.

One of the things I learned in my travels around the press boxes of Scotland is: “If you don't score when you are on top – you don't win the match.” This example of footbal gospel came back to bite Borussia on the bum in no uncertain terms. Over the first hour, a combination of Belgian heroics from Thibaut Courtois, the woodwork, terrific defending and poor shooting prevented the German side from establishing a defendable lead.

When the opposition has the quality players available to Real, you cannot be so profligate in front of goal, and, as I suspected might happen when the game reached half-time still all-square, Real's attacking quality told and they came through to claim title number 15.

The format of the competition will change again for the new season, but, I will be very-surprised if this Real Madrid team, even without the retiring Toni Kroos, and possibly too the wonderful Luka Modric – granted only a cameo with the game won – back next season, when they will be bolstered by the arrival of Kylian Mbappé.

I mentioned Courtois in the last paragraph. Belgium must be well-off for goalkeepers, since, after his injury-ravaged season, he hasn't made their squad for the Euros. And, on the same tack, Germany, who don't forget we play in the opening game, must be well-off for defenders, if they can leave Borussia's Mats Hummels out of their squad. He and Nico Schlotterbeck – who we will have to get round in the Euros - were again immense in central defence, before the seemingly inevitable Real win.

I am still struggling to make sense of the new format for the new season; which will see 36 clubs qualify for the league phase. It makes no sense to me and is further evidence of how football at this level is now a rich boys' club.

I would have more respect for the guys ruining our game if they would go the whole hog and simply start a Europe-wide football version of the NBA or NFL and let the rest of us get on with enjoying the domestic game.

Just think how much more fun Scottish fitba would be if we didn't have the Bigot Brothers and their toxic followers to worry about.

A YEAR OR TWO back I voluntarily opted-out of covering the Junior Cup Final, a match I had enjoyed covering for many years. However, old habits die hard and I still find myself drawn, like a moth to a flame, to each year's broadcast.

So, 4pm on Sunday found me switching-on BBC ALBA for this year's edition. I was a wee bit conflicted this year. Number Two daughter stays a good clearance away from Darvel's ground, and, like every other Ayrshireman, I want to see that magnificent trophy remaining in God's County. On the other hand I enjoyed many a good afternoon covering Arthurlie during my near decade working for the Paisley Daily Express.

Mind you, it is a wee bit strange to see this game without Auchinleck Talbot being involved, however, several of the Darvel team have enjoyed previous Scottish Cup success with Talbot and, they finished seventh in the West of Scotland League, Premier Division, while Arthurlie were relegated.

Add Darevel's semi-final victory over Talbot into the mix and they were definitely favourites. However, in what was a game reminiscent (to a degree) of Saturday's European Cup Final, the underdogs made the better start and all the running from the off.

'Lie striker Scott Anson is hardly your average lean, mean, scoring machine – I've seen fourth XV prop forwards with a better physique, but he knows the way to goal, heading 'Lie in front in the second half, without even having to jump for the ball.

But Darvel boss David Winters, in his last game in the hot seat, tweaked his formation and Graham Wilson did what he does in Junior Cup finals, scoring the two goals which took the cup to Darvel for the first time in the club's history.

It wasn't a great game, but, in the end quality told – it will be a hot few days in the Irvine Valley this week.