Enjoy Brugge Killie Fans - I Fear It Might Be Your Only Continental Trip This Season

AS A KILMARNOCK fan since, in December, 1959, I was taken to Rugby Park to see the newly-signed Andy Kerr, I was looking forward to Thursday night's Europa League clash with Cercle Brugge. Given how many fond memories I have of my near decade of covering St Mirren, I was also keeping an eye on their Confefrence League clash with Valur.

Andy Kerr - What a player

In the end, both games finished level, 1-1 at Rugby Park, 0-0 in Rejkavik, so, while it's all to play for in next week's second leg games – I find myself in distinctly Private Frazer mode as I look ahead to these games, more-so in the case of Kilmarnock.

I am sorry, but, lumping hopeful balls into the goalmouth for a big striker to attack is not the way to advance in Europe in the 21^st century. I fear, unless Killie can add a level of sophistication which was missing on Thursday night, then their European adventure this season will be over before the leaves fall.

I hope I am wrong, but, I honestly have grave reservations about the current Killie squad. Given they have home advantage in the second leg, the Buddies might well fare better in their second game, but, again, I have serious doubts about their squad.

Both clubs recruit heavily in what I call the “Poundstretcher” level of football – buying-in guys from the lower reaches in England, or in Ireland. OK, the better players in the UK can earn a lot more in the lower reaches in England than they can in Scotland, which makes recruiting ready-made players, released by even lower league English clubs an attractive proposition to the “Diddy Teams” up here, such as Killie and St Mirren.

But, how I wish the SFA would grow a pair and, perhaps by introducing a, and thanks to Buddies fan Chich Young for this one: “An Eight Diddies Law”, so that each club had to have at least that many Scots on the field at all times. That way we would be promoting home-grown talent.

Although, with his Ibrox upbringing, Willie Waddell was always willing to buy-in talent when he needed to, the great Kilmarnock team that I watched has a hard core of regulars who either came from Ayrshire, or Glasgow/Renfrewshire.

The St Mirren team I covered on a daily basis, I was never fitter than when I walked the mile from the office to Love Street, sometimes twice a day, and that squad was choc-a-bloc with young home-grown talent.

I know, if a young player breaks into a “Diddy Club's” first team, in no time at all, he will have acquired an agent who will be hell-bent on selling him to the first English team to pay his agent's cut, that's a problem the SFA has to deal with, and I wish they would.

I know too, many managers believe it's better to buy ready-made than have the hassle of starting and maintaining an Academy programme, but, I honestly don't think our players here in Scotland are nowadays prepared to put in the work necessary for success.

In addition, I don't think the great boardroom minds running our game are prepared to properly fund an academy system, or, more-importantly give it the time needed for it to work.

The greatest-ever Scottish club side wasn't put together overnight, or even over a couple of seasons – the Lisbon Lions were ten years or more in the making, from the time the likes of the teenaged Billy McNeill first came under the influence of the then injured player Jock Stein, who was just dipping his toes into the coaching pool under the benevolent eye of Sir Bob Kelly.

Kelly took years of flak from his own supporters, for his belief in his Kelly Kids, but, on a hot night in Lisbon, he got payback. I still think that trick can be repeated, if the will was there within a Scottish board-room.

As I see it, most of today's players are over-rated, over-paid and seriously under-talented. They don't work hard enough at their craft. Sure, they are probably a lot fitter than the guys I watched as a boy, but, the skills level is way down.

From what I see, today's Scottish players train for maybe 90 minutes per day, four days per week, to play 90-100 minutes on a Saturday. That's less than eight hours per week. In a normal job, a guy working an eight-hour week could never be considered a tradesman. They are conning the fans, and the clubs are letting them get away with it. No wonder crowds are falling.

I watched a documentary about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders recently, these lassies and they are all part-time, work a damned sight harder than Scottish footballers, mind you, to be fair, they are better-paid.

WHILE I AM having a moan. I have never held in high reard the talent spotting abilities of the High Heid Yins at BBC Shortbread. Over the years they have hired some pretty duff commentators, yes you Archie Macpherson.

The current lot are playing up to that low bar. They came away with a pile of poo about “a sold-out Rugby Park” on Thursday night.

The BBC likes to quote and praise their “Independent fact-checking department” when it comes to its political coverage. They maybe ought to expand its influence into their sports coverage.

When the ground was redeveloped into the curent all-seater format, the capacity was supposedly a touch over 18,000. This has now been reduced to just over 15,000. The crowd on Thursday night was given as just over 10,000 – roughly two-thirds full. Two-thirds is not “A full house”.

If BBC Shortbread cannot get the basics correct, they might as well not bother.

CHANGE IS seemingly afoot at Castle Greyskull – necessarily so, since apparently the Belgian has been telt – he has to get rid of at least half a team before he can bring in any more newbies.

Robbie McCrorie has already gone to Kilmarnock, where, with a following wind, he will, I am certain, be Scotland's Number One by next season. Conor Goldson is semingly on his way to Birmingham City, and skipper James Tavernier is apparently heading for Turkey.

Also leaving for “ new adventure” is Todd Cantwell. I never thought Goldson and Tavernier were “Rangers Class”. Reasonable players, yes, but, never likely to come close to some of the past wearers of their numbers. Cantwell, to me, wasn't so much – in my auld Faither's immortal phrase: “Not Rangers Class”. There is a further, sharper rebuke for Cantwell – he was NEVER Rangers Class.

 

How Rich Is The Price Of Failure

THE TWO CONTENDERS to become: “The Most-Powerful Man on the Planet” are respectively, 81 and 78 years of age. In that case, Gareth Southgate, who has, aged 53, just resigned as England Team Manager is a babe-in-arms.

He must now, however, make perhaps the hardest decision he will ever have to – what to do next. Being England Manager is often portrayed as: “The Impossible Job” - England Expects nothing less than world domination from whoever is in charge of the national football team and regardless of how well Southgate has done, not least in getting the team to successive European Championship finals, at the end of the day – he didn't bring Football home.

Might he return of club management? Perhaps, but, he doesn't have a good track record in a branch of team management where, if the weight of expectation is not as great as on whoever has the England job, the pressures to succeed are just as great, while the work-load is greater.

Southgate is seen as so essentially English, he is unlikely to be recruited to a non-English team, while, in his domestic game, the current fashion is for clubs to recruit managers of Head Coaches from beyond these shores. So, a return to club management might be a long shot.

He could well find his future in the television studio, where his experience, knowledge and his calm demeanour ought to make him a sought-after figure. But, such is the world of sport as television entertainment these days, the fact that he is seen as an uncontroversial figure would appear to go against him.

Television pundits have to be controversial, angry even and Gary Lineker rules unchallenged as football's benign older uncle.

I could actually see Southgate forging a career as the conscience of the game, a role which has been vacant since Jimmy Hill vanished from the television screens, but, the sort of calm analysis which Hill brought, particularly during his Sunday morning days on Sky is out of fashion these days.

He will, of course, write his memoirs and should do well from this, while, if the Football Association was more about stewardship of the whole game and less about Premiership politics, he could well become an influential elder statesman in the game's corridors of power.

Whatever happens, he has done a good job, in a role which is well-nigh impossible and I wish him well in the future.

I HAVE LONG been calling for root and branch reform of the Laws of the Game. Watching events in Germany in recent weeks, I am more than ever convinced, IFAB (The International Football Associations Board) really has to give itself a shake and get this done as a matter of urgency.

It seems to be a failing of the guardians of every sport that, in these days of television coverage and sport as a branch of the entertainment business, that players are allowed to bend to the point of breakage, rules which were put in place years ago to ensure fair play.

Rugby Union, for instance, has the abomination of the modern-day scrum, where no scrum-half feeds the ball in straight, as the Laws require, but, referees have been instructed to ignore this blatant form of cheating.

Football's equivalent of this is perhaps the approach to jersey-pulling and jostling at corner kicks and free kicks into the penalty area. Referees wag fingers and issue warnings, they will quite happily award the defending side a clearing free kick, but, they rarely award a penalty when an attacker is taken out.

I must admit, I admire the way American Football handles its cases of all-in wrestling at the line of scrimmage – where they look at the TV pictures, then decide which of the two teams has commited the greater number of fouls, before awarding the penalty to the opposition. There's something to be said for bringing that degree of common sense into football.

To be fair to IFAB and the other governing bodies, they got it right when they brought in this new rule that only the Captain can speak to the Referee. It will perhaps take most of the new season (assuming this move makes it into the domestic game) for the players to learn to shut-up and leave it to their Captain, but, hopefully we have seen the last of the poor match official being hounded by entire teams after he has given a decision against them.

This, only the Captain speaks rule, has come from Rugby Union. Another couple of rules Football might well borrow from the Hooligan's game might be:

1. Bring in the rule whereby the issuing of a yellow card sees the recipient go off the park for ten minutes.

2. Bring-in the team warning: whereby, if one team gives away a stream of consecutive fouls, particularly in defence, a general warning is issued: next foul, the perpetrator goes off for ten minutes.

I should say here, I have my concerns about the ten minute yellow card in football, perhaps there is a case for, as happens in ice hockey, having minor or major fouls, with a sliding scale of time off the pitch sanctions.

Another thing I would like to see coming in is a law whereby, once a team has taken the ball into the opposition's half, they cannot retreat back into their own half. In Germany there were too-many boring games in which one or at times both teams spent more time passing the ball backwards than forwards.

Keepball seems to be the current fashion, but, passing for passing's sake and not having a go at goal is the surest way of turning-off the fans – they want to see goalmouth action, not boring passing movements in the ten metres either side of half-way.

Watching England play in the knock-out stages of the Euros, I was struck at how often they would send the ball wide, only to then come back in on themselves and, very-often go right back into their own half to start again.

For the first decade and more after World War II, England probably had at their disposal the two best wide men in world football: future knights of the realm Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney (pictured). They wasted a lot of years giving the number seven jersey to one or the other, before realising, Finney's versatility meant he could play on the left and they could get both into the team.

Scotland had a similar situation with Rangers' Willie Waddell and Hibernian's Gordon Smith, but, putting both into the same Scotland team was a step too far for the SFA.

The spiritual successors to Matthews and Finney and Waddell and Smith were oor ain Willie Henderson and Jimmy Johnstone, but, only once did we play both of these wonderful wingers in the same Scotland team.

That sextet, arguablyly six of the ten best wingers ever in British football all shared the same first instinct – to get past their marker, hit the bye-line and either fire in a telling cross, or cut the ball back to a supporting midfield runner.

In the Euros, Bukayo Saka, in match after match, would get the ball in a good position, but, instead of beating his marker on the outside and either crossing or cutting the ball back, he would come back inside onto his favoured left foot and, although he did score one excellent goal, time and again he was crowded out.

That's another thing, Saka has been in the Arsenal set-up, the Academy and the main squad for 15 years; he is fast-approaching 50 England caps, but, as was clear in the Euros, he is, like so-many of today's supposed top stars, ridiculously “one-footed” - his right foot seems to be for standing on. What the Hell do they teach them at these big club academies?

I watched the Scotland v Serbia Women's international from Firhill on Tuesday night. Scotland had two wingers who were prepared to take on their markers and hit the bye-line, a tactic which produced the only goal of the game, plus several other near things. If the women can do it, why cannot the men.

By the way, although I was delighted to see Scotland win, I thought the Serbian girls were technically the better players, more comfortable on the ball. I also thought our girls, like British male teams, were over-reliant on passing backwards and sideways. I must have missed the memo: “thou shalt not make upfield progress.”

 

Quality Street Is No Longer Found In Glasgow

THE PROBLEM with Scottish Football is perhaps never better illustrated than by the news that Celtic are seeking to recruit Kasper Schmeichel to replace Joe Hart as first-choice goalkeeper.

The Scottish Champions are replacing a now-retired, 75-caps, 37-year-old with a 105-caps, 37-year-old, who is actually six months older than the man he is replacing. When I see this spot of recruitment, notwithstanding received wisdom – that goalkeepers mature later and have longer careers than outfield players – I wonder what is going on at Celtic Park.

Celtic bringing-in Schmeichel for Hart reminds me of one of Somerset Park stalwart Enclosure George Reid's better verbal thrusts at his club's High Heid Yins. Watching Arthur Albiston, George Burley and Gordon Mair organising a free-kick one Saturday, the bold George turned to the Directors' Box and observed: Aye Mr Chairman, your youth policy is really working.” It brought the house down.

I doubt the Green Brigade could be as subtle and to the point as George, but, then again, I suppose, so long as the other lot can be kept in second place, they will go easy on a board which, as far as I can see, is nothing other than the Four Families with fewer hingers-oan and maybe less commitment to the cause.

Across the city they are also busy recruiting in the football equivalent of Aldi, Lidl and now, the souks of Mideterranena ports. But if that's where the Big Two are now buying, The Diddy Teams are now increasingly recruiting from the continental equivalent of Poundstretcher.

I have been saying for years, Scottish Football will never get back to the eminence we once enjoyed, for as long as the High Heid Yins in our game refuse to pro-actively promote home-grown talent. We really MUST bring in to our domestic game something like the old Three Foreigners Rule, to give our young talent a chance to shine.

Even then, I fear, until the influence of Agents is tackled, we will see the best young Scottish talent syphoned-off by the better-funded English League clubs. When you see third tier clubs in England able to offer a better deal than our top flight clubs, to promising young Scots, you see how badly the football food chain is off kilter.

WELL, WE KEN NOO, fitba isn't coming home. I will give the great minds of Fleet Street a couple of days to get back from Berlin, unpack their suitcases and get into the office, where normal service post English failure will resume.

It will all be Gareth Southgate's fault. He:

• Picked the wrong players

• Played the wrong formation

• Didn't get his substitutions right

• Was too trusting of the experienced players

• Not trusting enough of the youngsters

• Left players who should have been there at home

• Got the preparations wrong

• Gave the players too-much time off between games

• Didn't give them enough time off between games

• Any other excuse you might care to dream up

The truth is, no manager, from Sir Alex Ferguson, via Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola to Carlo Ancelotti could possibly meet the expectations of the English when it comes to major football tournaments. The same problem, by the way, bedevils English Cricket and Rugby Union Head Coaches – England Expects and those expectations can never be met, for as long as the cult of English Exceptionalism exists.

As I have said before, England's solitary victory in either of the two major football tournaments was achieved in 1966, with the help of at least three main advantages:

1. The squad they picked included a central core of players who were almost certainly the best in the world in their positions at the time – goalkeeper Gordon Banks, left-back Ray Wilson, central defender Bobby Moore, false 9 Bobby Charlton and striker Jimmy Greaves. That's half a team's worth of exceptional talent.

2. They played every game on their home pitch at Wembley, a ground which, back then, had an almost mythical effect on non-British players, few believed they could beat England theree.

3. They had a Manager who didn't give a toss what the English press thought of him and who treated their opinions with disdain and was single-minded in his pursuit of the Jules Rimet Trophy.

It is a peculiar facet of the English, that they are a highly-clubable nation. (Yes, we Scots would love to club them repeatedly, but, here I am referencing their love of being members of clubs or associations).

In sport, their national team comes after their particular clubs, these are more-important to the English than the national team. Yes, come the big tournaments, their press goes overboard in whipping-up national fervour, but your average England fan's first loyalty is always to his club rather than the national team.

They come to the tournaments as a conquering army, unlike we Scots, who are there to support our nation in a celebration of the game.

Up here at the moment, there is a movement towards the fans reclaiming the game from the small and large business-men who have ruled the game for so long. Winning this battle will take the common fans a long time, but, unlike down south, there are very few multi-national conglomerates buying into our clubs.

The English fans all claim to love their club, but, they are quite happy to see ownership and control of that club go overseas. These non-English club managers (in the sense of the guys in the boardroom making the big decisions) are happy to recruit from Europe, South America and Africa, to the exclusion of English talent, to the extent, while the 1966 team had those five World-Class talents named above, and several other players who were arguably the best in their position in the English League of the time – in the squad Gareth Southgate took to Germany, not one could be correctly said to be the best in his position in his particular league.

English football has the same problem as the game in Scotland. Until clubs are forced by the national association, to pro-actively favour home-grown talent, and have at least seven or eight home-grown players, qualified to play for England or Scotland in each team, each game, we will never build the depth of quality player needed to win the big events.

Making this happen will call for, more and better home-grown coaches, better facilities, and finding a national pattern of play. Back at the dawn of the game, the players of Queen's Park, Renton, Vale of Leven, Dumbarton, Rangers etc revolutionised football when they invented the passing game. This made Scotland the Number One Nation in football.

Do we still have the talent, and the managerial nous, to make that happen again, 150 years on? I'd like to think we could.

 

These Are Troubling Times

LIKE MOST members of the ABE Club, I am beginning to worry. Their momentum is gathering power and there is a nagging small voice in the back of my head telling me: “the jammy bastards are going to win the bloody thing”. Begone nagging voice of doubt.

We Scots have to stick with our beliefs, keep playing Y Viva Espana and trust, the Gods of Football, having already booted us in the goolies with that late Hungarian goal have feasted enough on the corpse of Scottish expectations.

Coonsil Telly is a no-go area for the next week, as Fleet Street's Broadcasting Arm goes into overkill in support of The Lads. The nauseating deluge of Ingurland, Ingurland Ingurland ought to be a wondrous gift to the cause of Scottish Independence, if only we still had a functioning Independence Movement to take advantage.

We might have hoped that Ally McCoist might be The Voice of Reason in Germany, but, in last night's semi-final, he was morphing into Lord Haw Haw with a Scottish accent. Swept up in the fervour around him. Still, no matter how much Ally becomes a closet England fan, he cannot, ever, be as bad as Ian Wright, be thankful for small mercies.

But, let's be fair, even if that penalty, from which they equalised was right up there alongside one or two which The Brothers with whistles have awarded at Ibrox and Parkhead over the years, over the 90-odd minutes, even the most myopic member of ABE would have to admit, England did more to win the game than the Netherlands.

Had the penalty not been given and it had ended 1-1, I still think England would probably have prevailed, either in Extra Time or a Penalty Shoot-Out.

They have several quality players, but, I feel, Spain have, if not more quality players, fewer journeymen, and should prevail. That, however, is not to say they will, finals are always difficult games and it will, I feel come down to which squad is mentally stronger.

One thing I do have to say is, both teams in the final have some exciting youngsters involved – I just wish Scotland might trust more in youth.

We now have to, somehow, get through the tsunami of generally mindless media waffle over the next few days; get used to having the views of Sid and Vera from Stockport, Fred and Sandra from Lemington Spa and even Nigel and Hermione from Tunbridge Wells rammed down our throats as the broadcasters' foot soldiers in Germany go out and about in a desperate effort to justify their expenses claims.

Their colleagues, left back at home to mind the store will also be looking for the equivalent of football-themed Dead Donkey Stories, aware that, for once these will not be dropped, as they pump up the volume of their support for their Thre Lions.

But, for every winner there has to be a loser. I honestly feel for Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KCB, KC at this time. There he is, he's finally got the top job, after a stonking landslide. He wants to revel for as long as possible in the glory of the ride – only to be knocked off top spot in the news schedule by a bunch of over-paid prima donnas in shorts.

OK, he's got that nice shiney big personal 'plane to swan around in, but, after the drama of winning the General Election, he's been rushed off his feet – having to traipse around the UK meeting political lightweights like John Swinney, then being swept off to Washington to meet dear old Joe, who probably didin't know who he was, other than he was Prime Minister of England, then glad hand the other NATO hingers-oan.

On the plus side, I gather he managed to avoid The Criminal, while in DC; but, if he really does want to be Prime Minister for the whole UK, he maybe should have paid a courtesy call on Gregor Townsend and the Team, at their hotel.

After that, he was probably looking forward to a relazing week end re-arranging the cushions in his new tied cottage, but no, he has to fly off to Berlin, to sit beside Big Baldy Billy and watch a football match, one which, unlike the General Election, his side is not guaranteed to win.

Aye, the top job comes at a price.

I feel I need to get as far away from all this as it's possible to go – does anyone know of cheap long weekend breaks, somewhere remote and far away, like Dalmellington?

 

Does The English Media Know What A Big Reddy Is?

 

WHEN IT COMES to giving yourself what we Scots call: “A big reddy” - otherwise extreme embarrassment, nobody does it better than the Scots. We have had a lot of practice, having been putting our metaphoric foot in it for some 75 years – since that unbelievable decision: “We will only go to Brazil for the 1950 World cup finals as British Champions.” To be given a free pass to the biggest show in football wasn't good enough for the blazers who ran the game back then.

To be fair to the SFA, perhaps our greatest big reddy, Argentina 1978 has had the knock-on effect of “Here's tae us, wha's like us” being said a bit less frequently. Mind you, that seismic shock to our self-esteem hasn't stopped us from having a few lesser disasters since.

But at least, we tend to make ourselves look silly only when we fail – our southern neighbours, or at least Fleet Street, our all-purpose name for their media cheer-leaders, have developed a funny habit of embarrassing themselves, even when England is winning.

Their triumph of 1966 still fascinates them, they simply cannot work out why they, the inventors (or so they claim) of the world's most-popular sport have failed to replicate that victory, over the 29 European Championship or World Cup tournaments since. With each fresh dawn, each advancement from the initial group to the knock-out phases, only to be followed by defeat, the expectations of the media cheer-leaders grow.

Their desperation, growing with each comparative failure, if nothing else, gives us Scots a good laugh. We long ago realised, our own team was shite. We also worked out, and as yet the English media has yet to do this, that this England team is nothing like as good as they think, or expect that team is or should be.

To be honest, the football at Euro '24 has been less than inspiring. With the possible exception of Spain, none of the surviving teams has played consistently well, or produced a lot of entertaining football.

But, and our English friends will not like this, of the four teams left in the competition, the least-inspiring has been England.

To be fair to them, the English were never quite as negative as the Portuguese, who in losing to France somehow contrived to make more sideways and back passes than forward ones. That sort of negativity got what it deserved when they went out in the penalty shoot-out.

But, the way, with the emphasis at the top level now more on playing “keepball” than “football” the game is becoming a bore-fest. Also, there is an extreme fear of failure at the top end of the game. Players are no longer being encouraged to try things or to entertain.

For instance, my introduction to senior football was to follow the great Kilmarnock team of the early 1960s. They had wingers such as Billy Muir and Brian McIlroy, whose first instinct was to go past the full-back, get to the bye-line and either deliver an orthodox cross, to be headed home by Andy Kerr or Jackie McInally, or to be cut back to be drilled home by McInally or a late-arriving Bertie Black.

Rangers at the same time had Alex Scott, then Willie Henderson and Davie Wilson making the same runs, on the end of defence-splitting passes from Jim Baxter or Ian McMillan, with Ralph Brand and Jimmy Millar to finish-off the build-up.

That was exciting, entertaining football. In that England game, Bukayo Saka had the beating, at will, of the left-hand side of the Swiss defence. But, he seldom went down the outside and crossed. OK, he is apparently left-footed, but was playing on the right, so his first instinct was to cut inside.

Yes, this produced the winning goal, but, only at the umpteenth attempt. I feel England might have been further ahead, earlier in the game, had he been prepared to go past the full-bac and cut the ball back, or cross for Harry Kane or the late-arriving Jude Belliungham.

Mind you, the quality of the crossing in this tournament has been woeful, have the players stopped practicing this skill? I remember, many years ago, Ally MacLeod, himself a former winger who could cross a mean ball, bemoaning the failure of his Ayr United side's wingers to get the ball into the goalmouth from wide out. Just as well Ally isn't around to see the efforts of some so-called wingers in Euro '24.

Portugal got a lot of joy down the flanks against France, but the final ball into the box, on the few occasions they got that far, since too often they would double back inside and down a cul de sac, was woeful And this is a team that had Ronaldo, one of the best headeers of a ball in the modern game, as a target of their crosses.

However, it has to be said, this tournament has shown, his glory days are but a memory, but, still some memory.

 

Football Looks Unlikely To Come Home And England's Fans With Lap Tops Don't Like It.

THE BROADCASTING arm of the British Media – regardless of the BBC's efforts to disperse much of the serious, reality side of their business to Salford – is London-based. If you want to be considered a serious player, you have to gravitate to the capital. Basically, we don't have a British Media, we have an English one – whether what used to be called “Fleet Street” or broadcasting-based.

So, when it comes to the biggest stages in football – World Cups, European Championships etc, our broadcasters are always happiest and more at ease once the Celtic Fringe nations, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales go out, and they can get down to what is their core purpose – being England's cheer leaders.

This facet of their learned behaviour, however, always offers we Scots in particular, great scope for entertainment, when, as so-often happens, England stumble rather than cruise past inferior foreign Johnnies in the manner which their media cheer-leaders demand of their “Lions”.

These ongoing Euros have been a Godsend to those many Scots among us who relish games in which English performances on the park fail to come close to meeting the expectations of their media. At various times, watchig England games on television, I have feared for the mental health of the likes of Alan Shearer, Ian Wright and Lee Dixon, as England huffed and puffed to little avail and their frustrations surfaced.

I have also marvelled at the self-control of the likes of Ally McCoist, fighting manfully to not laugh at the hurt being endured by fellow commentators and pundits, as they were being subjected to reverse Shakespearianism – forced to bury rather than praise the men in white.

I like and admire Gareth Southgate, he had to endure the torment of, as an England player, missing the crucial penalty in a shoot-out. His credentials as a manager and coach have frequently been questioned by the English media, suffering the usual negative headlines in the process.

His is the impossible job, he has to work within the reality of English football, yet meet the unreal expectations of their lumpen fans and equally lumpen media.

This he does with dignity and good sense. He may have his limitations as a manager/coach, but I doubt if anyone could have worked harder and more-diligently for English success than has Southgate.

Sir Alf Ramsey is the England Manager against whom all others are measured – as the only manager ever to bring the World Cup to the country.

Consider this, the England squad which Ramsey led contained five players who were in the conversation for a place in any selection of a world's best XI players: goalkeeper Gordon Banks, full-back Ray Wilson, central defender Bobby Moore, midfielder Bobby Charlton and striker Jimmy Greaves.

That cannot be said about any members of the squad Southgate has at his disposal in Germany. Indeed, it could be argued that not a single membere of the current England squad would get into a neutrally-selected XI representing the best players in the top-flight English Premiership.

With so-many top English sides being owned by non-English people, there is little or no influence on club owners to promote home-grown talent. Yes, the big English clubs all have Academies, but, very few players come through these Academies to emerge into the First Team. The club owners's first instinct around team building is to buy-in a new player, and not necessarily an English one.

The theme to the film: The Great Escape has become a familiar one to England fans, and it was playing again on Sunday, as Jude Bellingham, the Great Hope of English Football, with less than 90 seconds on the clock, rescued a draw against Slovakia, before, in extra time, skipper Harry Kane clinched their place in the quarter-finals.

The heat will be back on England in this last eight match. They will probably start as favourites against Switzerland, but, the Swiss have already eliminated defending champions Italy and will give England another tough test.

After their Steve McQueen antics in Cologne, in the last 16, English expectations will be reaffirmed for the match, in Dusseldorf, on Saturday night. The media will, true to form, give this game the usual massive build-up, while we Scots say: “Gie's peace” and turn off in droves. At least, this tournament, we've got another contest - the General Election, to take our minds off the mental turmoil being endured by our southern neighbours.

MEANWHILE, Scotland's traditionally early exit from the tournament proper has probably come as a relief for our media players. They can now relax and concentrate on what they do best, writing fictional pieces, speculating on who are going to be the big-money (by Scottish standards) recruits to the Bigot Brothers.

You don't require a Masters degree in covering Scottish Fitba to know, last season's Rangers squad was one of the least-talented and most over-hyped in the long/short history of the club (depending on where you stand on the issue of dead club v continuation entity).

Manager Philippe Clement as shown one or two over-paid, under-performing players the door and has started the rebuild by bringing-in Liam Kelly from Motherwell, as back-up to Jack Butland, and midfielder Connor Barron from Aberdeen. He has also spent some £9 million, turning Mohamed Diomande's loan deal into a ermanent one, bringing in Moroccan Hamza Igamane and Jefte, a 20-year-old Brazilian left back.

OK, Kelly is Scottish, returning to the club where he was a young Academy prospect, but, with him coming-in, it looks as if Robbie McCrorie will be, like his twin brother Ross, depareting the club for pastures new.

The rumour mill also has skipper James Tavernier on the way out, so the boys with lap tops will surely find enough inspiration over the next few weeks, to get themselves into the mood for the new season – which is actually only a fortnight away.

Across the city, I sense the power brokers at Parkhead have decided they can allow their manager to bring-in just about any shit player and they can still hoover-up the major Scottish prizes.

I still reckon Brendan Rodgers is a lucky more than talented manager. Clement did well, given the players at his disposal, to run Celtic so-close last season, this season, with more of what he would term, his players, he could provide a tougher challenge and that will test Roldgers.

Celtic's biggest problem will be adequately replacing Joe Hart between the sticks. Mind you, given the paucity of the domestic opposition, I don't see that they need to buy-in. The goalkeepers they already have, in particular Scottish internationalist Scott Bain, strike me as being adquate for their needs, even in Europe.

For me, the best thing both clubs' managers could do this close season is, take themselves along to Scotstoun for a word with Glasgow Warriors's Head Coach Franco Smith, who could give them pointers on how to bring through young Scottish players, integrate them into a first team squad and, at the same time build a tight-knit squad culture, operate a good rotation policy to keep players fresh and, at the end of the season, win big.