A Short History Lesson

REGULAR READERS of this blog need no additional reminder that I have a wee thing about goalkeepers and goalkeeping. The current situation around who will wear the number one Scotland jersey in Vaduz tonight strikes me as being our worst goalkeeping crisis for 64 or 65 years.

History Lesson: After sitting through 24 straight internationals, Bill Brown had won the first of what would be, at the time, a record 28 caps, against France, in our final game of a disastrous campaign in the 1958 World Cup Finals. But, by April, 1960, he had only played in five of Scotland's next eight games, because his club, Tottenham Hotspur had refused to release him for the other three.

They again told the SFA that Brown and team-mats Dave Mackay and John White would not be released to play against England on 9 April, 1960. The Scottish Selectors convened and named their team, with Rangers' George Niven named as Brown's replacement and set to win his first cap.

Niven, however, was suffering from a persistent back injury, which again flared-up and, a couple of days before the game, he was withdrawn and replaced by another debutant, Celtic's Frank Haffey, who played in a match which finished 1-1.

Fast forward 12 months. His fantastic club form for Airdrie, plus probably some SFA reaction to Tottenham's repeated refusal to release their three Scottish stars, had seen Lawrie Leslie become Scotland Number One. He was named in the team to travel to Wembley in April, 1961, however, he sustained a facial injury in a club game and with one eye totally shut, he was withdrawn from the team.

Tottenham again refused to release Brown, Niven was again injured, so, for the second successive year – Haffey got a late call-up; the rest is a sorry episode in Scottish football history.

In 1963, Scotland arranged what was then a near-annual treat, a short, three game end of season tour of Europe, in which they would face Norway, Republic of Ireland and Spain. Brown opted to miss the tour, to go to South Africa with Tottenham; Dave Mackay stuck with Scotland, while John White, after initially opting for the Scotland tour, changed his mind and joined Brown and Spurs in South Africa.

With Brown out, Scotland had a goalkeeping problem and two uncapped goalkeepers went on the tour – Burnley's Adam Blacklaw and Liverpool's Tommy Lawrence. Both, however, had come through the Under-23 team and were first-team regulars with their clubs in the top-flight in England. This is a state of affairs which is totally alien to Stevie Clarke.

The principal difference between then and now is that back then, the SFA had a line of succession. The Selectors didn't name a 22 or 23 man squad for each game back then, they would name a team and a reserve team. When Niven was named for the 1960 match, Haffey was named as reserve – he was the Under-23 goalkeeper at the time. There was an established line of successon.

Today, the Head Coach names his squad, generally naming three goalies – but when, as now, the first and second-choices are injured and the third suffers PTSD or Shell Shock, then suddenly the Head Coach has to earn his big salary.

Let's look at today's line of succession for the Scotland team:

1. Craig Gordon - (currently injured)

2. Angus Gunn – (currently injured)

3. Liam Kelly – (currently injured)

4. Zander Clark – (currently injured)

5. Robbie McCrorie – (currently injured)

6. Cieran Slicker – (PTSD – shell shock)

7. Ross Doohan – (without a club and second-choice at his last club)

8. Callan McKenna – (18 years old, untried)

This goalkeeping crisis is unprecedented in the 150-years-plus history of Scottish International Football. I believe only once before, certainly in my lifetime, when Scotland has had to make such a left-field goalkeeping selection as the Doohan/McKenna call-ups. That was in 1948, when Southampton's Ian Black, then a 24-year-old with fewer than 20 first team appearances was called-up to face England, at Hampden. Legend has it he had the game of his life in front of one of the SFA Selectors in a league game. The Selector had gone to watch another potential Scotland player, but had been so-impressed by Black, he persuaded the rest of the Selection Committee to pick him for what would be his only cap.

One further sign of how badly we are off for potential international goalkeepers comes from a list of the Scottish Premier Division goalkeepers in the final fixtures of this season:

• Celtic – Kasper Schmeichel (Danish)

• Rangers – Jack Butland (English)

• Hibernian – Jordan Smith (English)

• Dundee United – Dave Richards (Welsh)

• Aberdeen – Dimitar Mitov (Bulgarian)

• St Mirren – Zach Hemming (English)

• Hearts – Zander Clark (Scottish) – injured after 22 minuts, replaced by fellow Scot Ryan Fulton

• Motherwell – Ellery Balcombe (English)

• Kilmarnock – Robbie McCrorie (Scottish)

• Dundee – Trevor Carson (Northern Irish)

• Ross County – Jordan Amissah (German)

• St Johnstone – Ross Sinclair (Scottish)

So, 13 goalkeepers: 4 Scots, 4 English, 1 each from Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Northern Ireland and Wales in our top domestic league, while, as far as I can see, Slicker is the only Scot anywhere close to getting a game for an English Premiership club.

Slicker is listed on the SFA website in the Under-21 squad, along with fellow goalkeepers Jack Newman (Livingston) and Vincent Angelini (Al-Riyadh). Thus, we should perhaps regard the current situation as a complete one-of, a tsunami of injuries and bad luck conspiring to land us in really deep doo-dah.

Maybe, if our football writers did their homework, they would admit, Stevie Clarke is in uncharted waters here and maybe he deserves a bit of understanding and sympathy rather than calls for his sacking – because, as thing stand – who else could do better?

 

Disaster For Scotland - And Kilmarnock

A QUESTION for his critics: If not Stevie Clarke – who? I fear we are now in one of these periods when the wilder elements of the Tartan Army, the Lap-Top Loyal and the Celtic Family Apologists have united and decided, the current temporary custodian of the poisoned chalice – being Scotland Head Coach – has to go. Except, as used to happen when the Conservative Party was reasonably competent, succession planning would consist of an acceptable replacement for the incumbent emerging, rather like a new Doctor Who regenerating. Which has me thinking, Billy Piper – why not?

It matters not a jot whether Clarke limps on, “A Dead Man Walking”, or says: “Bugger this for a gemme o' sojers” and walks away - what's the use of changing drivers when the steering is jammed, the suspension is knackered, the big end has gone and the body-work is rotten? Scottish Fitba is a basket case, money cannot fix it, and in any case, the guys supposedly running the show couldnae run a bath.

We find, in th cold light of dawn, we already have a convenient scapegoat for Friday night's latest “Disaster for Scotland” - if I may rehash one of dear old David Francey's stock lines. Step forward Cieran Slicker, a young man who seemed to freeze in the headlights when thrown on following Angus Gunn's early injury, to suffer what might have been the worst game for a Scottish goalkeeper to endure since 1961.

I am grateful to the BBC Sport Scotland website, for pointing out, Slicker was actually Scotland's sixth-choice goalkeeper, behind:

1. Craig Gordon – injured

2. Angus Gunn – injured to be replaced by Slicker

3. Liam Kelly – injured

4. Zander Clark – injured

5. Robbie McCrorie – injured in Friday's warm-up

It has long been customary for a really-young goalkeeper to accompany the Scotland squad, for experience and to act as a ball boy during the specialist goalkeeping training. The current incumbent in this role is 18 year-old Bournemouth kid Callum McKenna. I once, for fun and out of near-boredom, wrote a short story in which this youngster had to be thrown-in at the deep end and became a hero – might life imitate art for McKenna in Vadus, Liechtenstein, on Monday night?

Me – I'd call-up Alan Rough; “Scruffy” might be 73 now, but, I reckon he could do a job against Monday night's opponents, nae bother and, let's face it, we don't have many active alternatives.

One of the rites of passage of being Scottish is, when we sign-up for the Tartan Army, we are initiated into that very-select group: ABE – Anyone But England, when it comes to who we want to win the World Cup and European Championship final tournaments we are outside, looking-in on. Well, I reckon the men running our game, the Scottish Club Managers and Directors running our top clubs, have started a rival group – ABS – we will sign Anyone But A Scotsman, when it comes to signing new players, particularly goalkeepers. Until this changes – we are only going to get worse internationally.

I have written this before, I will surely write it again: until our clubs are forced to adopt Chic Young's “eight diddies” rule and force our clubs to only field a maximum of three NSQ that's Non-Scottish-Qualified players in domestic games, we are going nowhere internationally. We have to trust our young players, and give them game time with their clubs, so they might be half-way ready for the international game. Having an international player pathway which works as well might not be a bad thing either.

But, as long as we continue to stagger along as we have been – there will be a lot more Disasters for Scotland.

By the way, Friday night's game was a Friendly. Here is a ranked breakdown of how Scotland has performed in the various types of games since we began playing internationally, back in 1872:

• Nations League game (2010-2025) 24 games – won 58.4%

• Home Internationals (1872-1984) – 287 games – won 56.4%

• World Cup qualifiers (1949-2022) – 137 games – won 50.4%

• European Championship qualifiers (1966-2025) – 123 games – won 47.2%

• Friendlies (1929-2025) – 238 games – won 39.5%

• European Championship finals (1992-2025) – 12 games – won 16.7%

• World Cup finals (1954-1998) – 23 games – won 13%

That league table demonstrates all too-clearly, our ability to mess-up in friendlies is only exceeded by our inability to perform on the biggest stages, it's all part of being Scottish.

SCOTTISH FOOTBALL lost one of its unsung heroes last week, with the passing of Richard Cairns. Richard was “KTID – Killie Till I Die” in bad times and in the occasional good, he was around Rugby Park – just a short walk from his home in Dundonald Road. If the club asked for fans' assistance, Richard was in the front line of the volunteers, he was a true fanatic.

His regular pre-match spot was behind the Frank Beattie Stand, selling programmes and passing the time of day with the many fans of Killie, and the visiting sides, who knew him. He was a font of all knowledge in the matter of Kilmarnock FC and, back when I was writing obituaries on footballers who passed on, if there was a Killie connection, Richard was my first port of call for information.

I would call him up, usually to be greeted with: “Who's deid noo”, then I would be furnished with helpful information and insights. He was Editor of the short-lived but highly influential fanzine “Killie Ken” a publication which did much to encourage the guerrilla movement which got rid of the old guard and brought-in the Fleeting Revolution which turned around the club's fortunes in the 1990s.

During that time, Richard came up with one of the best bits of fanzine writing I have ever seen. He noticed a trend around Rugby Park, whereby th club had, over the years signed a lot of players who as a general rule were a good player's useless brother.

He listed many of these “haddies” - along with their better brothers, before coming up with a zinger of a final sentence, something like: “We've been doing it all wrong for years, what we should be doing is signing a really bad player's brother – is Rangers' Iain Ferguson an only child?”

Richard spent part of his working life in what was thankless missionary work. He was employed by South Ayrshire Council, working in an office in the centre of Ayr, surrounded by Ayr United fams. But, it never broke him. Rest In Peace old friend, you will be badly missed.

 

Signs Of Insanity

THE TRADITIONAL sign of insanity is doing the same failing thing in the hope of a different outcome. Methinks there is an even-clearer present-day sign of insanity – taking on a managerial role at Rangers FC.

A history lesson, back almost 50 years ago, a young man named David Murray, lost both his legs in a car crash. Part of his recovery got him into Basketball, where he started his own side – Murray International Metals, MIM, named after his company. MIM became Scotland's most-successful club, based on a management model of recruiting the best Scottish players, hiring top American coaching talent and funding this via OPM – Other People's Money.

Murray's Basketball dream was for MIM to win that game's equivalent of the European Cup; sadly, it never happened. Then, he had the chance to purchase Rangers – after he had failed to buy Ayr United. He tried to replicate the Basketball management model – except there was a distinct lack of available Scottish Talent – plentiful in the 1980s and 1990s – in the 21^st century.

It didn't help that Murray appeared to lose the confidence of the influential money men around him in Edinburgh's financial quarter, just as the cost of running a trophy-chasing Football Club went through the roof. Murray had had enough, so he got out, selling the club to Craig Whyte, the rest is now a sorry episode in history. BTW, just when is my old miucker Graham Spiers going to sit down and write the definitive story of all this malarky?

When things went tits-up under Whyte, the club ought to have put their faith in the good, young Scots they had on the books back then – but they didn't. They stuck with the recent Rangers way of buying-in third or fourth-rate non-Scots and where they were once pulling clear of Celtic, they are now languishing in the other club's slipstream.

In the club's first 100 years, they employed just six managers: William Wilton, Bill Struth, Scot Symon, David White, Willie Waddell and Jock Wallace – who led them to 61 domestic trophies, an average of 10 trophies per manager.

From the club's centenary to liquidation, in 2012, they employed eight managers: Wallace, John Greig, Graeme Souness, Walter Smith (twice), Dick Advocaat, Alex McLeish, Paul Le Guen and Ally McCoist – winning 53 trophies, an average of nearly seven trophies per boss.

The re-born Rangers has, in 13 years, had eight managers: McCoist, Mark Warburton, Pedro Caixinha, Steven Gerrard, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Michael Beale, Philippe Clement and Barry Ferguson, who have between them won just three domestic trophies (I don't count the minor trophies won during the climb back to the top flight). Clearly, frequent changes of Manager doesn't mean continued trophy successes.

To look at it another way:

• From 1873 until 1986 (113 years) the traditional Rangers way of doing things garnered 73 trophies – an average of 1.55 trophies per season

• In the “Spend, spend, spend” Murray Years – from 1986 until 2012 (26 years), Rangers won 40 trophies – an average of 1.54 trophies per season

• “New Rangers” “Sevco”, whatever, since 2012 the club has won just 3 trophies in 13 years – an average of 0.23 trophies per season.

I am MOST DEFINITELY NOT suggesting Rangers go back to the old days of “nae Papes etc” but, for all the non-Scottish “Stars” they have recruited both on and off the park since “The Souness Revolution” of 1986, results have gone downhill, slowly at first, but faster than Santa Claus on a toboggan since the money tap was turned off.

Received wisdom in the 21^st century tells us, players get bored being told the same thing by the same voice every day – I never heard that one when long-serving managers such as Struth, Symon, or elsewhere Busby, Shankly, Paisley or Ferguson were proving to be serial winners – certainly successful top commercial companies don't feel the need to change bosses as often as supposed top football clubs.

Now Russell Martin is the club's new Manager. Martin does have the advantage of having, albeit for a very-short spell, worn the jersey, well, at least he has a notion of what he will be getting into. He also has the advantagre of being seen as a “journeyman” rather than a great player – since ordinary players apparently make the best managers!!

But, have those few weeks as a player, and his time within the Scotland squad equipped him to deal with the cess-pit that is domestic Scottish Fitba? Will he be any better than Barry Ferguson, and who and how good will his back-room team be? Well, if nothing else, it will keep the Lap-Top Loyal and the fan base on their toes for a few weeks/months.

Before Martin can think of success in Europe, he firstly has to win the domestic battle: put the other lot in what the Rangers' fan base thinks is their place – at best second behind Ra Peepul.

However, while wishing Martin well, I have no great confidence in the High Heid Yins down Edmiston Drive way making good decisions, far less the correct ones – experience teaches you that. Believe in the power of madness.

A final thought in the eternal game of one-upmanship and whitabootery which is the Glasgow football scene. Back in the day, when Rangers were about to claim the back pages with a big announcement, Jock Stein always seemed to find a way to pull the rug from under them, grab back the initiative with a counter announcement – has the ruling junta in the East End become complacent in not having something up their sleeve to stymie the Martin announcement?

After all, Scotland will be the main story for the next week, they need to come up with something.

 

Real Fitba

THE TRUE HEARTBEAT of Scottish Fitba is found not in the rampant whitabootery of the keyboard warriors who support what Andy Cameron called “The Dibs and The Dobs”; it's further down the food chain, below even the two baldie guys fighting over a comb which mark the Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Edinburgh, Fife, Tayside and elsewhere senior Derbies among what Charles Young Esquire dubbed: “The Diddy Teams.”

No, that heartbeat, definitely somewhat muted these days is to be found in what remains of “Junior Fitba” - the 21st century recepticle for the tradition of Clan Wars, where neighbours meet and neighbours greet, with swear words, insults and more than occasionally sticks and stones and other weaponry.

Now dinosaurs like me, we still long for the old days of the last century, when Auchinleck Talbot and Cumnock would meet, among the cancellation of Police leave in that idyllic vale of East Ayrshire; where a meeting of the two near-neighbours would be considered “Quiet” if there had not been three or four red cards and double figures-worth of yellows, plus a wee “brek-in” (pitch invasion) in the second half.

If the campaigns at Beechwood and Townhead were the major battle grounds, things could get tasty elsewhere. I still laugh at the memory of one brek-in at Lugar Boswell Thistle's Rosebank Park, where I reckon the players used their numerical advantage to overwhelm the invading fans.

But, since they finally managed to extract the malign influence of wannabee Bond Villain Joe Black from the premises and re-located to a padded cell along Hampden's Sixth Floor Corridor of No Ideas, the Scottish Junior Football Association has lost its way.

The Juniors are now part of Tier Six of the SFA Pyramid. Talbot still talks trash unto Cumnock, and vice versa, but, now it's The West of Scotland League rather than the Ayrshire League, and they have to work alongside the Lanarkshire Mafia which used to mismanage the old Central League – it's not the same.

Sunday afternoon saw the Scottish Junior Cup Final taking place at Broadwood Stadium. There was a surprise this season, in that there was no Ayrshire club involved. Talbot are in a rebuilding phase and none of the rest could put together a run to the final. Instead, the game pitted Johnstone Burgh against Tranent – still a genuine West v East battle, which was, I am telt, a poor game, won by Burgh via the lottery of penalties, with serial villain/stout Orange blade (delete according to bias) Kyle Lafferty, netting the crucial clinching penalty.

I used to cover Burgh, when I worked in Paisley and I am delighted for their hard-core of ultra-enthusiastic committee-men and supporters, who never lost faith during long years of ups and downs for Burgh. Enjoy your spell back in the sunshine.

The whole Junior Cup Final weekend passed pretty-much un-noticed. OK, BBC Teuchter broadcast it, but did very little to sell it. I reckon the whole competition badly needs a revamp.

Here's my twopenceworth:

Why not make the Junior Cup the big competition for ALL the non-Senior clubs in Scotland, well, at least those clubs who have an enclosed ground? Bring in the Highland and Lowland League sides, along with the East of Scotland, West of Scotland and South of Scotland League clubs – get the final back to Hampden, and really make it an occasion. You never know, it might work, if the guys who run our game could only put the interests of the game before their own self-interest and lift their snouts out of the swill trough.

MEANWHILE, at the haut cuture end of The Beautiful Game, Paris St Germain rally turned on the style, in turning over Inter Milan, to win the big trophy, the European Cup for the first time.

You have to wonder what the football world has come to, when an Italian side concedes five goals in a major final. But, PSG were that good and thoroughly deserved to triumph.

FOOTBALL IS, believe it or not, a branch of the Entertainment Industry. How entertaining Scottish Football is, well, that's another debate entirely. What we did discover last week is how good our top-flight clubs are at pulling-in the punters, when each team in the top 12 revealed their average attendance over the campaign just ended.

The figures made for interesting reading, with the following results:

1. Celtic 58,795

2. Rangers 48,255

3. Heart of Midlothian 18,536

4. Aberdeen 17,735

5. Hibernian 17,172

6. Dundee United 11,066

7. Dundee 7,027

8. St Mirren 6,939

9. Kilmarnock 6,358

10. Motherwell 5,694

11. St Johnstone 5,680

12. Ross County 4,372

OK, few surprises there, but, if we look at these figures as “drawing power” - measured by the percentage of seats occupied each game, the results are a wee bit different:

1. Celtic 97% of capacity

2. Heart of Midlothian 94% of capacity

3. Rangers 93% of capacity

4. St Mirren 87% of capacity

5. Hibernian 84% of capacity

6. Aberdeen 80% of capacity

7. Dundee United 78% of capacity

8. Ross County 67% of capacity

9. Dundee 59% of capacity

10. St Johnstone 53% of capacity

11. Kilmarnock 42% of capacity

12. Motherwell 41% of capacity

Mindful, as ever of Churchill's line about: “Lies, damned lies and statistics” I would put forward the notion that given how their season ended, the Ross County regulars just might be the most-loyal fans in the country, after all, that long drag up the A9 isn't always relished by the punters from the central belt, so, to have their wee park two-thirds-full every home game speaks volumes for the faith of the locals.

Am I surprised that Kilmarnock are second-bottom? Not in the slightest. I can remember, back during that glorious half decade leading up to the title win in 1965, when Killie were Rangers' biggest rivals for the big prizes, an old friend of my Dad;s, a season ticket holder, indeed a shareholder in the club, was waiting to pick-up someone at the top end of Kilmarnock one Saturday, (this was before the A77 by-passed the town); he counted over 30 buses leaving Kilmarnock headed for Ibrox.

OK, they hadn't all originated in the town, but, it showed how big the Rangers' following was in God's County – Killie, and Motherwell, suffered more than most from the pull of the Bigot Brothers back then, and still do.

 

It's Been A Good Week For The Diddies

THIS IS one of those very occasional weeks when we poor saps who identify with one of Scotland's 40 “Diddy Teams” are allowed to have a quiet chortle, as the Celtic Family goes into melt-down at their heroes' inability to beat the “Sheep Shaggers” at Hampden. Schadenfreude is a very Scottish feeling, and how we laughed as we watched that temporary stage at Celtic Park being dismantled, while Sean South from Croy sobbed uncontrolaby in the corner.

Elsewhere it's a Managerial Merry-go-round, with Derek McInnes moving from Rugby Park to Tynecastle, Del Boy now has more Scottish clubs than Donald J Trump, but, if he can bring silverware back to Gorgie will be a lot more popular.

Stuart Kettlewell steps into the vacancy at Kilmarnock, while his old gig at Motherwell is again vacant, as are the jobs at Dens Park and Ibrox, where nothing is liable to happen until the proposed take-over is finalised. Then will come the tense wait for white smoke and the big reveral.

Livingston is back in the top-flight, while in what to fitba romantics like me is the big story of the spring, Clydebank, if not yet back in the Senior ranks, took a giant step-up from the West of Scotland to the Lowland League and can n ow look upwards towards a possible return to Division Two.

The phoenix-like rise of the Bankies is a terrific tale, it would make a great Netflix Sports series and I wish them well this season. Mind you, I always felt, Auchinleck Talbot might be the team to make the leap, so, congratulations again to Clydebank for beating them to it.

NONE OF THE above matters to the mainstream media (such as there is left) in Scotland. The intelligence platoon of Football's Scotia Nostra are getting their teeth into their favourite part of the year – when they can speculate freely, and mostly wrongly, about arrivals and exits at Ibrox and Celtic Park.

This is an annual summer treat, but, the difference this year, is that the major unanswered question is: “Who's going to be the new Rangers' manager?” It's not, for once, about new strikers, or the midfield play-maker who can make a difference, it's about who gets one of the three biggest jobs in Scottish Football.

At the dafter end of the Scottish Football Writers Association membership, some guys who should, in reality be some years away from studying Tena Man products are showing interest – they are positively wetting themselves at the prospect of Ancelotti Minor getting the keys to that expensive training ground up in Milngavie, more-so if, as is being suggested, he brings along the legend that is Luka Modric in an on-field coaching role.

The return of the Prodigal, Steven Gerrard, remains a possible, however, there are suggrestions that he is being lined-up to return to Liverpool, as Arne Slot's Number Two.

SPEAKING OF Liverpool, the sad death of Willie Stevenson this week, at the grand age of 85, marked another significant loss to football fans of my generation.

I have long felt Stevenson was one of the unluckiest players in Scottish football history. Had he been performing in another era, he would have accrued a shed-load of Scotland caps, but, no sooner had he made the Rangers' number six shirt his own than along came an all-time great – one James Curran Baxter – to steal the shirt off his back and, good, great player even, that Stevenson was, nobody could go head-to-head with “Stanley”.

But, Willie Shankly knew a good player when he saw one, and on going to Anfield, Stevenson became one of the more under-rated and more-influential cogs in the first great Red Machine which the Wizard of Glenbuck assembled.

He then moved on to another club where un der-stated greatness is valued, to run down his 550-game playing career with spells at Stoke City, Tranmere Rovers, Limerick, Hellenic in South Africa, Vancouver Whitecaps and finally Macclesfield Town, where he was Player-Manager.

He remained in Macclesfield, running a pub, then a contract cleaning company, before retirement. A Leither, he learned the game with the well-respected Edina Hearts nursery, before going to Ibrox as a 17-year-old.

His only representative honours were a single run-out with the Scottish League XI, in a 7-1 Ibrox win over The Irish League, in October, 1959. That League team was an interesting one: George Niven (Rangers), John Grant (Hibs), George Thomson, John Cumming (both Hearts), Bobby Evans (Celtic), Stevenson, Alex Scott (Rangers), John White (Falkirk), Ian St John, Pat Quinn (both Motherwell), George Mulhall (Aberdeen). Eight full internationalists in that eleven.

There had been one further outing in navy blue, at the end of the previous season, when he had gone on Scotland's then normal end-of-season tour of Europe, on which he played in the non-cap game against Jutland. That “Scotland XI” was an interesting selection: Bert Slater (Falkirk); Dunky Mackay (Celtic), Dougie Baird (Partick Thistle), Eric Smith (Celtic), Jackie McGuigan (St Mirren), Stevenson, Alex Scott (both Rangers), John White (Falkirk), Andy Kerr (Kilmarnock – Capt), Denis Law (Huddersfield Town), Bertie Auld (Celtic). Seven full Scotland caps in that team, whose goals in a 303 draw were scored by Law, Kerr and Auld.

In 1965, he was on the brink of finally playing for Scotland, after injury kept Baxter out of the Scotland team to travel to Naples for what was a “winner-takes-all” World Cup qualifier against Italy. Jock Stein, then in his first stint as Scotland boss, named Stevenson as Baxyer's replacement, but Willie Shankly refused to release him for the game, just as Matt Busby refused to release Law and a weakened Scotland lost badly.

With Rangers, he won a League Championship medal in 1959 and a Scottish Cup one the following season. At Anfield, he won thee League in 1964 and again in 1966, the FA Cup in 1965, the Charity Shield in 1964, 1965 and 1966 and was in the team which lost in the final of the Cup Winners Cup in 1966.

Rest in Peace Willie.

 

Scottsih Goalkeepers - A Much-Maligned Bunch

JOCK STEIN famously had little time, or even regard for goalkeepers. Perhaps it's just, we net-minders are totally misunderstood by the numerically superior outfield players, whose errors we are on a weekly basis, called-upon to mitigate against.

This disregard for goalies has long been particularly evident in Scotland; and, speaking as a Scottish goalkeeper, I feel it proof that Johann Lamont was at least correct in one of her points against the Scottish electorate – the too stupid one fits in well when it comes to our regard for our keepers.

I fear, the disease is catching, when I look at Stevie Clarke's latest squad, for the June matches against Iceland and Liechtenstein. OK, we have to go on without Craig Gordon at some point, so these two games – while he is on the injured list in any case - are as good as any to leave out arguably our best-ever keeper, but, succession selection has hardly ever been something our managers or before them selectors were good at, so why should Stevie be any different.

For these two games he has selected Angus Gunn – by far the most-experienced of the trio, but without a club after leaving Norwich City at the end of his contract; Robbie McCrorie – second choice at his club, Kilmarnock, and Cieran Slicker, at best, second-choice for relegated Ipswich Town, for whom he has played just one game – in the FA Cup.

OK, right now, there are not that many Scottish goalkeepers playing regularly in the SPFL, far-less in England or abroad, indeed the fourtysomething Gordon has been the stand-out Scottish goalkeeper this season.

Liam Kelly did ok, without being exceptional, during his run in the Rangers' first team, but he has been over-looked, while there really are few obvious alternatives elsewhere.

The onus would appear to be on Gunn and his agent, to find him a new, high-profile club and for him to display the sort of form which cements his international place, or, for some young Scottish 'keeper to make such a case for selection, Clarke cannot over-look him. But, until either thing happens, we definitely have a problem at the back.

I see Clarke quoted as looking for non-Scottish goalkeepers, who maybe have a Scottish grannie. Many in Scottish rugby are not happy that, of late Scottish National Coaches have been too-keen to go down that route; Football doing likewise might not go down too-well with the Tartan Army.

Which brings me back to a point I have repeatedly made, but to no effect on the erseholes along the Sixth Floor Corridor at Hampden: We could start by, as I have repeatedly said, initiating Chick Young's “Eight Diddies” rule and encourage Scottish talent.

As things stand, assuming he recovers from his current injury, I can see Craig Gordon still being picked for Scotland as a 50-year-old.

Clarke has named a 25-man squad, but, only 7 of them, 28% play their football in Scotland, and of those, only 2 – John Souttar and Lee Miller could be said to be first picks for their club sides.

Now I appreciate we have been selecting players who earn their weekly wages outside Scotland for some 130 years, and as in so-many walks of life, “The High Road to England” and of late beyond that, has long been an enticing prospect for our brightest and best, but, maybe if the High Heid Yins at Hampden spent less time jockeying for their places on the SFA gravy train and spent a bit more time promoting young Scottish players at their clubs, we could see a few more home-based players.

I am not one of these romantics who calls for an all-tartan XI; that idea was, I think, firmly kicked into touch around 1966, but, while the bigger money available in England and abroad will always be an attraction in a job with a limited shelf life, we really have to make real efforts to raise the standard in our domestic game, so we can maybe get more home-based Scots into the international squad.

Speaking of which, the SFA came up with the notion of “Performance Schools” in 2012, to “hot house” our best young talent. There are currently seven such schools: Hazelhead Academy, Aberdeen, St John's RC High School, Dundee, Broughton High School, Edinburgh, Graeme High School, Falkirk, Holyrood Secondary, Glasgow, Grange Academy, Kilmarnock and Braidhurst High School, Motherwell.

The scheme has been operating for 13 years now, but only four of the current squad, 20% are identified as Performance School graduates. They are: Max Johnson, Billy Gilmour, Connor Barron and Nathan Patterson; I might be wrong, but, I would have hoped for a higher figure by now.

KILMARNOCK is my Senior team, although, for family reasons, I keep an eye on Liverpool (the Shankly connection) and Carlisle United. The Cumbrians dropped out of the English League this season, but, another of my teams is celebrating.

Lugar Boswell Thistle is my Junior team of choice, but, because I live in their home village, I have a wee interest in Glenafton Athletic. But, I was born in Muirkirk, my Maternal Grand-Father was President of their predecessor club, Muirkirk Athletic, so, I have a soft spot for Muirkirk Juniors.

Well, they are currently celebrating promotion to Division One of the West of Scotland League, perhaps the first thing they have had to cheer about since those far-off days when they had the teenaged Eric Caldow at full-back.

I am delighted for Secretary Billy Tait and the other die-hards on the committee, who have kept the club going through the lean years, they deserve their season in the comparative sun. Well done too to the management team and the players, they have given a village which has known too-many hard times of late, a reason to smile.