IT IS DIFFICULT to assess the relative general personalities of the Scottish version of Capulet and Montagu, Hatfield and McCoy, Earp and Clanton – the warring tribes which Andy Cameron wonderfully named: “The Dibs and The Dobs”.
On reflection, maybe because they have over their club's history, had a marginally harder paper round to work, I would say “The Celtic Family” - although often a family at war when those septs knows as The Kellys, McGinns and Whites held sway – is perhaps the better-balanced; which may have something to do with having a chip on both shoulders.
Certainly, over the past 60 years PSR – that's Post Stein's Return – they have accepted the occasional set-back with more grace than their friends across the city.
Right now, as we limp into a new season – the piecemeal manner in which we re-introduce the new campaign merely under-scores how few working brain cells there are along Hampden's sixth floor management corridor – Rangers, on the back of scraping past Panathinaikos on Wednesday night, seem to be in control of the narrative, but, the way we now get each new season going, it concerns me.
Of course, and like John The Baptist, I have been a voice, crying in the wilderness, for years – but, I fear, Scottish Fitba is broken, unless radical changes happen soon in its governance, irrepairably broken.
We haven't been to a World Cup Final Tournament since 1998 (7 tournaments and counting)
We have never got past the group stages in a World Cup Finals (8 tournaments and counting)
We have never been past the group stages in a European Championship (4 tournaments and counting)
Our qualification percentage in the World Cups is 8/17 – 47.06% qualified
Our qualification percentage in the European Championship is 4/16 – 25% qualified
Our overall qualification percentage in the two main tournaments is therefore – 12/33 – 36.36%
We haven't won one of the three major European club trophies since 1983 – 40 seasons and counting
Excluding the European Super Cup – we have won just 3 European club trophies – from 182 campaigns since 1955-56 – that's a success rate of 1.65%. It's actually worse than that, since in some of these campaigns we have had multiple entries
In total, Scottish clubs have won only those three above-mentioned trophies, from 238 entries in the various European club competitions. That equates to a wins rate of 1.26%.
Overall, to the end of last season, Scottish clubs had played 1476 competitive European games, of which we have won only 613 – 41.53%
In all, 21 Scottish clubs have qualified to play in European competitions and of these, only two, Dunfermline Athletic and Falkirk, have achieved a 50% wins ratio.
Take those three European trophy wins:
Celtic – European Cup 1967
Rangers – European Cup-Winners Cup 1972
Aberdeen – European Cup-Winners Cup 1983
Thirty-four players got on the park to contribute to those three victories – EVERY SINGLE ONE WAS A SCOTSMAN. Indeed, of all the players listed on the official team sheets for the three games, only one – unused German substitute goalkeeper Gerry Neef in the Rangers squad was not Scottish.
If we could win European tournaments with all-Scottish squads, why are we persisting in failing to feature with squads which hardly include a single Scot?
There were just two Scots in Rangers's starting line-up in Athens this week; while new boss Russell Martin seems intent on following the same signing policy as hasn't worked in over a decade – loading the squad with non-Scots.
Now, I am not advocating they go back to signing boys whose idea of off-field fun is to drive down Larkhall Main Street, the car windows open blaring out Orange Anthems from the stereo; or having FTP written on their shin-guards. These days are past – but, the club will continue to trail behind the other lot, for as long as they don't have a solid spine of “Real Rangers Men” who know how to dig-in and win the 50-50 games – the luck which got them past the Greeks will not last. The team in Athens started with a mere two Scots – not nearly enough.
Take the Hibernian team which fell at the first European hurdle on Thursday night. Their starting XI contained just three Scottish players, plus two Republic of Ireland and two Australian players, and one each from England, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Wales. Hibs' current first-team squad lists 25 players, of whom a mere 7 – 28% are Scottish. It's a good thing for the Easter Road board that Nigel Farage isn't a Hibbee – or they'd be getting extreme pelters for their recruitment policy.
Now, I am not saying Scottish Fitba fur the Scots only – it would be churlish to have denied us the sight of the likes of Henrik Larssen, Claudio Canagia, the de Boers, Brian Laudrup, Mixu Paatelainen, Guðmundur Torfason, Marko Rajamäki or Jose Quitongo to name just a few of the exotic imports who have brightened-up Scottish Fitba. But, that said, I feel the introduction of Chick Young's “eight diddies rule” whereby a Scottish team could only field three non-Scots at any one time, would go a long way in getting Scottish Fitba back to where we all want it to be.
There does not appear to be a coherent player development strategy in our game; our clubs do not appear to trust home-grown Scottish talent and until they do, or are forced to pro-actively promote and encourage Scottish kids – we are only going backwards.
Let's look again at those three winning sides in Europe, and how they were put together:
Celtic 1967: Ronnie Simpson (bought from Hibs); Jim Craig, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Murdoch, Billy McNeill, John Clark, Jimmy Johnstone (developed by Celtic), Willie Wallace (bought from Hearts), Stevie Chalmers (developed by Celtic), Bertie Auld (developed by Celtic, sold to Birmingham City and bought back), Bobby Lennox (develped by Celtic). 9/11 home-grown.
Rangers 1972: Peter McCloy (bought from Motherwell), Sandy Jardine, Willie Mathieson, John Greig, Derek Johnstone (developed by Rangers), Dave Smith (bought from Aberdeen), Tommy McLean (bought from Kilmarnock), Alfie Conn (developed by Rangers), Colin Stein (bought from Hibernian), Alex MacDonald (bought from St Johnstone), Willie Johnston (developed by Rangers. 6/11 home-grown.
Aberdeen 1983: Jim Leighton, John McMaster, Doug Rougvie, Neale Cooper, Alex McLeish, Willie Miller (developed by Aberdeen), Gordon Strachan (bought from Dundee), Neil Simpson (developed by Aberdeen), Mark McGhee (bought from Newcastle United), Eric Black (developed by Aberdeen), Peter Weir (bought from St Mirren), John Hewitt (developed by Aberdeen). 9/12 home-grown.
So, 24/34 – 70.59% of the players who have won European club competitions playing for a Scottish club were home-grown. Every single player was Scottish. When did we stop believing in home-grown Scottish talent, more importantly: WHY?
I look at how the High Heid Yins in our clubs do things now and as Rabbie wrote all those years ago: “and forward tho' I cannot see, I guess and fear”. That sentiment now applies, more than ever, to the future of Scottish Fitba.
