Broaden your horizons - or else

THIS season, so far, I have been spending my Saturday afternoons mainly covering Premier 1 Scottish club rugby and enjoying the experience. In the wake of rugby going professional, the SRU has spent probably too-much time looking after the two fully-professional teams, Edinburgh and Glasgow and the small number of Scottish full-time professional players, to the detriment of the club game, but the club game is flourishing.

Saturday was a lovely autumnal afternoon, the sun shone over Ayr RFC's Millbrae home and if it was slightly chilly out of direct sunlight, it was still a nice day.

Ayr duly saw-off the challenge of a brave Selkirk side, I got my post-match interviews done and my copy filed within half an hour of the final whistle, then headed for the club bar.

On the grass outside Ayr's club-house a throng of supporters were chatting, drinking, socialising, while inside the bar, it was busy but not over-crowded.

I was ushered into the committee room, to chat with the respective committee members, the match officials, some Murrayfield officials and a couple of former internationalists. It was a pleasant end to the working day.

Compare this with what happens up the road at Ayr United's Somerset Park, where I must say the club officials are as welcoming as at the rugby club.

Within ten minutes of the final whistle blowing, the ground is deserted, as the fans disperse; you leave the press box, go down stairs and are corralled in a tiny room, to await the managers' pleasure in attending you (when they are ready) to offer their pearls of wisdom.

Those directors who know you, will nod as they stroll in and out of that special sanctum, the board room, but by and large, as pressmen, you are treated with suspicion. If you have re-writes to do and are maybe still filing copy as six o' clock nears (which can happen), there is the distinct impression you have out-stayed your welcome, because the ground has to be closed up until Monday.

At the rugby club, at 6pm, Saturday night is just cranking up, the club house will be busy for another four hours at least.

On Sunday, I took my grandson to the local rugby club for his Under-16 game. The place was mobbed, with the primary school-age Minis already playing and the secondary school-aged Midis turning up for their games.

When I went back for him four hours later, it was still all hustle and bustle, parents and coaches mingling, the boys from all teams getting along well.

Rugby has got it nearer to right than football. Rugby clubs are trying to recruit club members rather than fans; they want people to hang about, spend money in their bars, buy the replicas, wear them and feel they belong - the clubs control the outlets for replicas, they want to create an identity - to grow their game's base. They are community clubs in a way which I don't think football could ever replicate.

Rugby clubs are what football clubs are not, they are inclusive. They genuinely want supporters, too often football clubs seem to want customers - whom they too-often treat like dirt.

Even the two Murrayfield-controlled professional clubs, if you like Scottish Rugby's equivalent of the Old Firm, are trying to create genuine families of supporters, while the big two only play at Happy Families.

Each game could learn something from the other, but I believe in present day Scotland football has more to learn from rugby than vice versa.

Gonnae No Dae That

SOME years ago, during the intense debate which followed the SFA's decision to ditch God Save the Queen in favour of Flower of Scotland as Scotland' pre-match anthem, someone asked Alan Rough what he thought.

Big Scruffy's retort has passed into legend: "For all I care, they can play She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain, I just want to get on with the game", rather effectively summed-up your average player's attitude to these pre-game nationalistic posturings.

At least, football doesn't have rugby's particular pre-match problem to deal with. I refer of course to the All Blacks' Haka, which is back in the news this week with newspaper debate, not about whether or not to allow our sheep-worrying cousins from the Antipodes to excite all the gays in the crowd with their macho posuring, but with how the opposition should "respect" this poncified war dance.

I have nothing against the Haka per se; but I do object to the way it has become a choreographed production number.

My late wife wasn't into sport - apart from ice hockey, since her Canadian Dad was a former professional player. But, many years ago she said she wanted to accompany me to Murrayfield for a Scotland v All Blacks game: "Just to see that New Zealand war dance".

Came the moment, she nearly missed it, so quickly did the All Blacks of Whineray, Meads, Lochore, Tremain and Co - real hard me - go through their routine.

The first All Blacks tour on which I worked as a journalist was the notorious 1972-73 affair, in which the Blacks gained an unfair reputation as boorish and self-centred. In actual fact, they were a great bunch, if my experiences of an evening in their company in Glasgow is any indication. That squad, led by the great Ian Kilpatrick and with such warriors as Sid Going in their ranks, only did the Haka in one pre-match: before that legendary final game against the Barbarians, during which Gareth Edwards scored "the greatest try".

I once worked with a guy from Edinburgh, who felt his part in British military history has been scandalously over-looked. It was his carry-out which a well-pissed and well-pissed-off Bill Speakman threw at the Chinese machine gun nest to win his Korean War VC. Speakman, of course, had drunk the contents of the screw tops before hurling them at the Chinese.

Well this guy once held an Edinburgh pub in thrall as he recounted the story of the HLI's first night out in Soeul, following their arrival in Korea. The Americans ruled the South Korean capital at the time and there were several hundred of them lined-up outside a sort of glorified NAFFI, awaiting entry, when round the corner came a platoon of HLI - pure gallus man - freshly swept off the streets of Possil, the Gorbals and sundry other twee Glasgow suburbs and trained to go to war (as if a bunch of Weegies need warfare training).

They strolled straight up to the Americans and the wee 'leader aff' picked out the biggest US Marine at the front of the queue, jumped up and nutted him, sparking off a major battle, which ended British and Commonwealth Troops 1 US Forces 0.

The moral of this story is, when the Blacks start posturing pre-match at Murrayfield, Scotland should send on some wee ned frae Possil, with instructions to "pit the heid oan" All Blacks' skipper Richie McCaw.

That should sort-out this Haka nonsense once and for all.

Failing that, we teach the England team to Morris Dance a reply.

BACK to football. I see a stair-heid row has broken out after four clubs including serial pantomime villains Rangers, failed to send a player or coach to the CIS Insurance Cup quarter-final draw at Hampden.

Now past experience teaches us that when either or both halves of the Old Firm bother to turn-up at these stage-managed draws, the actual reason for their presence is kicked into the long grass as the boys from the Hun and the Daily Rantic stoke the Old Firm fires by extracting some (hopefully) juicy quotes from the media cannon fodder.

This time round, the SFL had a chance to sell the merits (should there be any) of this now Cinderella event. But, they blew it.

I have always maintained, since the SPL/SFL split, the SFL, who run the event, should be making every effort to handicap the SPL clubs and level the playing-field, so SFL clubs have a chance of winning it.

They should start by bringing in a new rule that only Scots-qualified players can participate. If such a rule does nothing else, it will force the SPL clubs to give their young Scots a chance of first team football.

Third Force and Third Rate

OLD Abe Lincoln was a canny sort, who never said a truer word than when he went on about fooling some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. His thoughts have much resonance for Scottish football today.

It might not be possible to save the SPL as it is currently set-up, so long as the Bigot Brothers stand together; and why shouldn't they, it hasn't harmed them this far, they control things: since the other ten are so scared of their financial muscle and their fan base they will never stand up to them properly.

Ditto the SFA, where the senior clubs hold all the aces and most of the council places, leaving the others to exist on what crumbs are tossed to them.

The SFL is also currently beyond help. Here the name of the game is survival, see my thoughts on the SFA above.

This week the SFL's somewhat tarnished jewel, the League Cup, or the Co-operative Insurance Cup, as I think it is currently called, will be the midweek focal point.

When the SPL was formed, the League Cup lost one of its reasons for existing, the fact it offered a European place to the winner. It's always been the runto of Scottish football's trophy litter and that action didn't help its credibility any.

However, I believe, if the SFL was to show some Mitres, it could become a great competition again, and one which worked well for the clubs who run it - the 30 "Senior" clubs outwith the SPL.

As things stand an SPL team will win it, probably either Billy or Tim Bigot and his mates, because they've got the best, usually non-Scots players.

However, since the League Cup doesn't carry European qualifying kudos, it could be designated a "development" tournament, which would I believe exempt it from any European competition laws. Therefore, if the SFL, who run it after all, were to say that in future years this would be a competition in which the clubs HAD to field only players who were Scottish-qualified, it would be a better competition.

Immediately the playing field would level out. The big two would have to give more of their young Scots a run in the team; those foreign mercenaries who make such a difference to the other SPL teams would have to sit in the stand and immediately, the SFL First Division clubs, whose squads are more-Scottish than those in the league above, would surely fancy their chances of winning.

You make a fading force a force for good, in that our home-grown talent has a stage on which to shine and in the long run this has to be good for Scottish football.

I feel it's worth a try. After all, it's a trophy worth winning.

If We Don't Try We Will Never Know

I awakened this morning to find the (Glasgow) Herald giving over a full page to the vexed question of whether or not the Old Firm should be allowed to enter a second team in the lower divisions of the Scottish League.

This one is as old as Walter Smith, in fact, it is maybe older than Craig Brown. I can certainly remember discussing this very subject on a train journey back to Glasgow after watching Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen win at Pittodrie. It wasn't really a goer then, movement between the three Scottish divisions was more fluid then, today, it aint gonna happen, such is the gap between the SPL and even the lower reaches of the Irn-Bru First Division.

But, now there is a clear division between big and wee teams, yes, it makes sense. Of course, what would really help make it happen would be proper overhaul of Scottish football. In this we are all in thrall to Henry McLeish's Review Body. Now given my low opinion of politicians, fine man though the former East Fife wing half is - I'm not holding my breath for change. But, should the turkeys finally vote for Christmans and change come along, yes, SPL Under-23 teams playing in new regional leagues, with perhaps even the Celtic and Rangers Under-23s getting as far as the First Division, would be no bad thing in my opinion.

The Herald, whose sports desk have had a good week, also ran an interview with Michael Johnston the Kilmarnock chairman this week. Wee Michael had some interesting and all-too-true points to make, not least on the manner in which the Big Two dominate how Scottish football is run.

All I can say is, well, there are two of them and ten of you in the SPL, you guys can sort them out, if you can just find your Mitres and face-up to them. You hold all the aces, even if they were to take their bigotry to the Irish League, they'd have to start at the bottom and work up, and as for the Football League, far less the (English) Premiership - you're having a larf!!!

Scotland the not so Brave

RODDY Forsyth of the Daily Telegraph and BBC Radio Five is a mate, we've known each other for years and I have always respected his views on football.

Roddy never has been a member of the notorious 'Lap Top Loyal', that trusty band of hacks who quote freely from the gospel according to St Walter - but are ecumenical enough to also beatify the 'Blessed Martin' and his disciple 'Lenny the Good'.

But in this morning's Telegraph, I am afraid Roddy penned a piece which just might get him invited into the LTL, praising Rangers for getting a draw out of last night's turgid affair against a Manchester United XI, some way short of full-strength.

OK, football is a results-driven industry, so this was maybe the equivalent of East Fife or Annan Athletic going to Ibrox and getting a 0-0 draw in the SCottish Cup. I further accept that the title "Champions League" is a joke. Rangers may be the Scottish Champions, but MU are not the current English Champions and should not, therefore, in my book, be allowed to compete for the title Chamipion Club of Europe - that honour ought only be competed for by the champion clubs of the various European League.

However, money talks, and the supposed big money (it ought really be the clubs with huge debt) clubs have to be accommodated; or they will pick up their ball and go elsewhere, ergo, MU are in.

Just last week Lithuania and Liechtenstein were being lambasted by our media for their spoiling tactics in an effort to deny the much-superior (allegedly) Scots victory in the Euro 2012 qualifiers. Now, when Rangers adopt the same tactics, it's all hail Walter's heroes.

But, you write what you think your audience wants to read and I fancy the Telegraph, or "Torygraph" if you like, is put into more Rangers than Celtic households in Scotland.

The fact Rangers were not even prepared to have a go at a United team shorn of most of their big names is, to me, far more worrying than Scotland's failure to beat Lithuania or stick some goals on Liechtenstein.

Where is the gallusness which prompted Jim Baxter, lounging on a dressing room bench at Wembley, on 15 April, 1967, to briefly put down his Daily Record and in his broad Fife accent, inform his Scotland team mates: "See them (the World Championship-winning England squad they were about to face), they can play nane, ken"?

What happened to the confidence which caused George Young, after 20 minutes of continuous English pressure in the 1949 Wembley game (Jimmy Cowan's match), to tell his forwards: "Just you put the ball in their net, we're doing ok keeping them out at this end".

Have we lost the Chutzpah which had Alex Hamilton of Dundee asking immediate opponent Bobby Charlton, during a Hampden encounter: "What's it like to play against a good player Bobby?"

Sure we've had our embarrassments: analysts, rather than blaming Frank Haffey - who was probably at-fault for no more than two of the nine goals he shipped at Wembley in 1961 - have instead put the heaviness of the defeat down to the over-aggressive, too-attack-minded team which Scotland put out.

Wing halves Dave Mackay and Bert McCann were so far up the pitch, Johnny Haynes and Bobby Robson had acres of space behind them to prompt Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Smith into killing us with goals.

But, at least, back then Scotland had a go. Today, we seem feart to try.

Don't Think - Do

JIM Greenwood died on Sunday, aged 81.

"Jim who?" you might say, unless you were something of a rugby anorak, because Greenwood was a classic case of a prophet without honour in his own land. A Fifer and an English graduate of Edinburgh University, perhaps like that other, later lad to come out of Fife - Gordon Brown - he was too-cerebral, too-intellectual for the tribal part of Scottish life in which he operated: rugby rather than politics.

Maybe it was the fact that he spent the greater portion of his working life in England, which saw him side-lined by Murrayfield. It was our loss, for here was one of the great original thinkers in his game.

His passing set me thinking. Greenwood wrote what many people in rugby today, across the world and particularly in the heartland of winning rugby, New Zealand rever as THE rugby coaching manual - his book: Total Rugby.

The theories he outlined therein have been successfully followed all over the planet, not least by Sir Clive Woodward, who is, if I can be mildly blasphemous here, Jesus Christ to Greenwood's God.

Greenwood wrote the book in 1978, some Scottish clubs today are still not following the guidelines he laid down then.

Turn to Scottish football. In the 1870s and 1880s, Queen's Park "cheated", according to their English contemporaries, by inventing the passing game. It worked for them and for Scotland, who were well-nigh unbeatable until, typically Scottish this, they stopped picking their best players, because so many of them had decamped south in search of that most-prized of all commodities by a Scot, English gold.

Of course, the English weren't daft, their clubs made it extremely difficult for their 'Scotch professors' to play for Scotland.

So, we forfeited pole position, also, as time passed, we forsook the passing game in favour of the power-plays of England's long ball game.

Today, while the likes of Spain pass opponents off the park, we cap players who canny pass wind.

But, we have also lost the knack of being inventive. Greenwood, in rugby, thought about the game and what it required of players. Nobody in Scottish football is that far advanced.

Jock Stein might have been an innovator, he tried-out a Caledonian form of the Dutch 'Total Football' before Rinus Michaels had even got as far as trying it in matches, but, for some reason, big Jock abandoned his plan. Of course he didn't need to innovate, simply by sticking to first principles of organisation and marrying together the skills of Murdoch, Auld and Johnstone, with the energy and running power of the likes of Wallace, Gemmell and Lennox, his team could win things with monotonous regularity.

His successors: Ferguson, McLean, Smith, Brown and Moyes for instance, have pretty-well followed the Big Man's blueprint.

Where in Scotland are the maverick coaches? The guys who will think outside the envelope; men who will try things: challenging their players and their opponents.

I cannot see anyone likely to warrant the "maverick" tag, because even the suspicion of being "different" is the mark of Cain in Scottish football.

Look at the John Collins experience: much-decorated player, vast experience abroad and in England, hotly-tipped to be the next big thing in Scottish coaching, gets the chance to do something at Hibs.

He wins a trophy in style, but wants more. He challenges his players to make changes to their lifestyle and demeanour; he challenges his club to change and modify. The players don't like it - they run, crying to the board and shortly thereafter, Collins is toast.

But, that's Scotland for you: small country, small minds, tribal, each tribe happy to strut about their ain wee middens. We cannot see the bigger picture for ignoring the small one.

And we let original and creative thinkers such as Jim Greenwood wile away his declining years tending his garden in Dumfries and Galloway.

Here's tae us.....wha's like us, right enough.

Feed Him - He's Bewitched

The heading of this blog is stolen unashamedly from George MacDonald Fraser's hilarious novel: 'The General Danced At Dawn'; a fictionalised, affectionate recollection of his period as a National Service officer with (I think) the Gordon Highlanders.

The "Feed him - he's bewitched" line was delivered by the skipper of the batallion team of Jocks which Fraser's alter ego was supposed to manage. It concerned the team's outside left, who was often best left outside, but when he did stir himself, could win a match in a couple of minutes - a sort of disciplined Derek Riordan if you like.

Deeks is just the latest in a long line of Scottish footballers who have entranced and exasperated in equal measure. Another plying his trade today is Willie McLaren at Queen of the South, while for much of his Rangers career Davie Cooper was perhaps the prime example.

His legendary Dryburgh Cup goal against Celtic is arguably the greatest goal ever scored by a Scot, I reckon Eddie Gray's mazy dribble and shot for Leeds against Burnley and 'The Gemmill Goal' are the Cooper strike's only competition.

But, as the late Jim 'Sundance' Blair once wrote in a hilarious Saturday morning Daily Record column, all too often it was a case of: "Will the real Davie Cooper hide today?"

I prattle-on about this, because this week's great debate in Scottish football swirls around James McFadden and his contribution to the national side. Wee Faddy first endeared himself to the Tartan Army by missing his flight home from Hong Kong, when out there with Berti Vogts's kindergarten squad.

The reason for his no show was, allegedly, that he had the opportunity to find out if the old sailor's myth about oriental women was true, and took it; so enjoying the experience that he missed his flight.

Instant cult status for the wee man, status which has subsequently grown with each outrageous goal, not least his celebrated Stade France effort.

Sadly, the truth is, Scotland doesn't have enough good players to carry mavericks such as Faddy or the equally maverick Kris Boyd. It is perspiration rather than inspiration which Craig Levein seeks, so Faddy's Scotland track top is apparently: "oan a shooglie nail".

In the old days, with solid performers such as John Greig and inspiring work horses such as wee Billy Bremner or Dave Mackay, we could indulge Jim Baxter. The slim one could have his wee rests, he more often than not made amends with a couple of magical passes, put away with aplomb by Denis Law.

Today, we lack that quality, so we need all hands to the pumps for all 90 minutes to make amends. In truth too, football has changed, the great individual moments and goals are becoming rarer and rarer.

I spent 'An Evening With Tam Cowan' at Kilmarnock's Palace Theatre on Saturday night and during his performance Tam revealed that one of his favourite calls into Off the Ball came after they ran a spot: "Where were you when Archie Gemmill scored that goal against the Dutch?"

Tam revealed the best caller said: "I was standing unmarked, ten yards away, yelling - 'pass ya greedy wee bastard'" - that caller was Asa Hartford.

Archie's goal is right up there in the pantheon of Great Scottish Goals, today he would probably be criticised for not passing to give Asa the tap-in.

But that's modern football for you: organisation rather than originality. It's a shame though, and special talents such as McFadden are paying the price.

Gerrintaerum

OVER the last five seasons or so, I have mainly covered the Scottish Football League's Irn-Bru First Division, SPL games have been few and far between and frankly, those I have seen have been poor.

Indeed, a couple of seasons ago, in one week I did an SPL game, a First Division game and a Second Division game. In terms of excitement and enjoyment, I rated them: 1, the Second Division game; 2, the First Division one; 3, the SPL encounter.

I put this down to the fear factor - the SPL guys and clubs have most to fear from failure, so they are scared to try things out of the ordinary, which means boring bland football.

On Saturday, I was back on the SPL beat, for the first time in a year - covering Kilmarnock v St Mirren at Rugby Park.

It was a good game, plenty to write about, some controversial incidents. But, one thing I did notice, was the intolerance of the home fans.

Killie were one goal and one man up in the final quarter and under the influence of Mixu Paatelainen, they were trying to play passes. Received wisdom in football has it that, if you're a goal and a man to the good, you make your extra man pay; you play passes, force the nine outfield opponents to run around until tiredness sets in and the spaces open up, allowing you to score cheap late goals.

That's what Killie were trying to do, but it was like that fifties hit record about: "trying to dance to a rock and roll song". The home team would play two or three passes across the park, forcing Saints to chase and harry, but not really making any significant forward motion. Then, a groundswell of disapproval would arise from the three home stands: "Gerrituprapark Killie" was the cry, bringing about a Pavlovian response from the men in blue and white stripes - the ball would be lumped up the park and promptly returned by the battling Buddies.

It is something you see all the time in Scottish stadia. Our fans have no patience and in Scotland, the nation which invented pass and move, no longer passes and moves.

Certainly, in new Finnish internationalist Alexei Eremenko they have a player who can play the killer 50 or 60 yeard pass, as he demonstrated on several occasions. But, on Saturday, all too often it was guys who can barely pass the salt who were trying what they call in American Football, 'Hail Mary' passes - made on a wing and a prayer.

If the players could just ignore the fans, play passes, then I'm sure they will do better. More brains, less biff and bosh and we will soon be back where we think we should be.

Saints had on their special AC Milan strips; to be honest they may have looked like AC Milan, but some of their play was more AC Milanda.

Grasp The Nettle It Will Only Sting For A Wee While

CHANGES happen to the Laws of Football, but at a pace akin to the movement of tectonic plates, and without the subsequent earthquakes being too violent. Aside from the changes in kit, were Charles Campbell, Tom Vallance or any of the other great Scots of the late-Victorian era to be teleported on to the touchlines of the Glasgow Green football pitches today, they would see a game with which they were familiar.

What they would make of the violence of the tongue from players, coaching staff and spectators, the feigning injury and the lack of respect for the referees is another matter.

Basically, it's the same game today as back then, but, I would venture the laws have not evolved to reflect changes in attitudes of the people involved in the game.

Now we read that FIFA and in particular Herr Blatter are set to tinker with how the game is managed. Not the Laws of the Game per se, more what is and isn't acceptable about playing it.

Herr Blatter wants to do away with extra time. Wrong target I think; he ought to be doing away with draws. He may feel too many coaches and managers are sending teams out not to lose games rather than to win them. Well, if you allow draws, you encourage some lesser teams to play for draws - do away with the draw, they have to be more positive.

Mismatches will happen, particularly in cup ties. Coaches will always need, when in their heart of hearts they know the opposition is simply too good, to have a Plan B whereby they lose by as little as possible, that's fact.

But, conversely, there is the theory that by "parking the team bus across the 18-yard line" you are playing into the hands of the supposedly superior team. You are encouraging them to attack and the more attacks they have, the likelier they are to score goals and win.

It takes a ruthlessly single-minded coach, with a highly-disciplined team, to "play for penalties". It has been done, of course, particularly by some of the Italian sides of the 1960s and 1970s, but such tactics are anti-football.

That said, for the good of the game FIFA maybe has to abolish the draw.

But how? you might ask.

The obvious answer it would seem is to bring back the discredited "Silver" and "Golden" goals. But, I feel, to do this properly, we have to doother things as well. We need to encourage attacking play, well reward goals; rugby has brought in bonus points for scoring four or more tries - why not for four or more goals. Remember too, in rugby, even if you lose, but score four tries, you get the bonus. Better then to have a 4-4 draw than a 0-0 one, the fans will certainly be happier.

Rugby also gives bonus points for only losing by one score, encouragement there to keep going forward looking for goals.

But, inevitably, there will be matches which remain all-square at 90 minutes. How do you settle these?

Extra time will still be needed, but, I would change from two periods of 15 minutes, to two of ten minutes - the first with the silver goal in play, the second with the golden goal in play. If the sides are still level, we go to penalties, game over.

I commend this motion to the house.

A Big Riddy

A BIG riddy - the ultimate fear of the average West of Scotland male. It might be something to do with Calvinistic condemnation, but opur worst fear is apparently that we sorely embarrass ourselves.

Our national football team has been our surrogate embarrassments for years, but just occasionally, the Tartan Army has to show their hapless heroes how to be embarrassing - as they managed in spades on Tuesday night.

OK, when I was young and stupid, I did occasionally sit down during the playing of God Save the Queen, thinking it an "English" tune - then I read the history and realised the error of my ways.

I suppose I'm a Royalist, preferring HM the Queen to an alternative such as President Blair, President Benn or President Archer or Ashdown, seeing as we've got a Con-Lib British government. Hell, I even like the Duke of Rothesay.

I will stand for GSTQ when a British team is playing, but I sure as hell won't when it is being used as England's anthem. The continued use of GSTQ when it is "England's anthem" gies me the dry boak.

For a start, it's not that great a tune, look at what they might have as an alternative, particularly the tune which is often held up as the "true" English anthem - Jerusalem, marvellous tune with good lyrics.

Also, I think the English still use it because they know it gets up our noses, it's a continued form of English arrogance, keeping the "sweaties" in their place.

For these reasons, I could understand, but not condone, booing GSTQ - if England were playing.

But to boo the tune, when it is clearly being used by another nation, and after the fact the Liechtenstein anthem used that particular tune had been fairly-well flagged-up in the papers pre-match....

How thick can some Tartan Army footsoldiers be?

Big Riddies all round chaps -must do better.

Same message goes to players and management by the way.

The Glory Is In Winning

INTERNATIONAL football is an Olympic sport, but yet again it isn't, because at international level the glory is all about winning rather than taking part.

Football is arguably the world's oldest team sport - they probably had a cave league in Neanderthal times, kicking around an animal skin stuffed with moss or something.

It is also just about the simplest, no handling, kick the ball between two posts, or jackets, or bricks and you score a goal; score more than your opponents and you win. There are no marks for technical difficulty, or content of performance: dribbling round eight opponents then nutmegging the goalkeeper to score doesn't carry a higher scoring tariff than a mis-hit trundler hitting the centre half's ankle and, with the keeper wrong-footed, going into the net.

So, why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth because we struggled to beat Liechtenstein last night. FFS, this is Scotland we're talking about - when your Dad first takes you to Hampden as a Tartan Army Cadet, he really ought to explain to you: "Son, we're in this for the long haul - you are about to learn the true meaning of suffering, mental torture, squashed expectations, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but, noli illegetimi carborundum and all that; it's character-forming and part of your Scottish heritage.

I also don't hold with this being "Scotland's worst-ever result", because we won and as I said at the start, international football is all about winning.

What about 0-0 with Luxembourg in Esch in December 1987? The Scotland team that night was: Jim Leighton; Maurice Malpas, Derek Whyte/Gary Mackay (62), Roy Aitken, Alex McLeish, Willie Miller, Pat Nevin/Eric Black (62), Paul McStay, Graeme Sharp, Ian Wilson, Mo Johnston.

If you were asked to pick a team from that squad, plus last night's against Liechtenstein - I'd bet the 1987 side would have more in it, but they couldn't beat another of Europe's minnows.

Then there was the Iran game; aye, the Iran game in 1978 - try as I might to essuage it, the pain of that one will never go away. OK our guys were still in shock from the Willie Johnston drugs case, but - we went into that World Cup ranked number three in Europe and one of the favourites for the quarter-finals. We had: Alan Rough; Sandy Jardine, Martin Buchan/Tam Forsyth, Kenny Burns, Willie Donachie; Archie Gemmill, Lou Macari, Asa Hartford, John Robertson, Joe Jordan and Kenny Dalglish/Joe Harper, yet we needed an own goal to get a draw.

This team: Adam Blacklaw; Alex Hamilton, Davie Holt, Dave Mackay/Frank McLintock, Ian Ure, Jim Baxter, Willie Henderson, Davie Gibson, Ian St John, Denis Law and Davie Wilson managed to lose 3-4 in Norway in 1963. Norway were then rated about where Liechtenstein are today, eight of our team had played and won at Wembley in April - yet we lost.

Embarrassing the big boys, then embarrassing ourselves against the wee boys has long been the way for Scotland. So why was it so bad on Tuesday night?

It's not as if we had Law, Baxter, Mackay, Gemmill, Robertson, Jardine, Dalglish, Miller and McLeish and Co in our side the other night - we had Stephen McManus, Lee McCulloch, Scott Brown, Kris Boyd. Aye, we've fallen a long way, but we haven't bottomed-out.

Of course, our game is a lunatic asylum and the inmates are in charge; the system is slewed against talent and skill - it will not change quickly.

So why don't we keep the heid, accept our limitations, but, instead of moaning - do something about it.

It's Too Quiet I Tell You

THE late, great and much-lamented Ian "Dan" Archer was more than simply the finest Scottish football writer of his generation. A product of Rugby School, Dan was unique among the bevvy of Scottish football writers of his era in naming as his favourite sportsman, not Denis Law, nor Jim Baxter nor any of the usual suspects of the time, but Denis Amiss, the Warwickshire and England opening batsman.

Aye, Dan was different. He also knew that what we did for a living, filling what he termed "the comic pages" of a newspaper mattered little, and since this was the case, he might as well enjoy himself along the way - one of life's boulevardiers was Dan.

He used to worry when things were going swimmingly for Scotland. No concerns about star players with niggling groin strains or tight hamstrings and Dan was a worried man; but, what really got him on edge was a lack of tittle-tattle about the off-field recreational habits of the national team.

Dan, after all, had had to pen pieces abhoring events such as Jimmy Johnstone's abortive trans-Atlantic row, he was an active participant in Jinky's and Billy Bremner's "cocktail evening" in Norway and he would readily admit his small part in Jim Baxter's slide into self-destruction.

In short, Dan liked a dram and a laugh and he always felt that if a Scottish squad wasn't engaged in pursuing these essential outlets for Scottishness, then we were doomed.

He'd have loved "Boozegate" for instance. Unfortunately, the knock-on effects of that little bit of schoolboy misbehaviour now mean, it will be well-nigh impossible for any future Scotland cap to have a wee swally while on national duty.

Once upon a time: "what happens on tour stays on tour" was a culture we all signed up to. The players and the press on foreign assignments with Scotland worked hard, but played harder - safe in the knowledge that their misdeeds would go unreported.

Today, the tabloid managers insist that any misbehaviour is reported, a turn of events which has destroyed forever the trust between players and press - to the latter trade's loss.

So, the fact that we have not heard a bad word about Craig Levein's squad, currently preparing to take on Leichtenstein at Hampden, doing anything other than training, eating and sleeping football concerns me.

The Highland Division of the Salvation Army are hardly winning the battle against Godlessness in Caledonia - some of the finest VCs in British Army history were won by Scots while under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol.

If I was Levein, I'd give each of the boys a couple of cans of Tennent's Lager for the bus trip from the team hotel to Hampden on Tuesday; couple of choruses of 500 miles to finish with and then watch us make these Leichtensteiners wish they'd stuck to giant slaloms and downhill racing.

A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away

PERHAPS he did not resort to the catch-all errant schoolboy's excuse of last resort, but, in blaming the referee for Scotland's failure to beat Lithuania on Friday night, big Craig Levein found himself unwittingly adopting almost the default position of unsuccessful British managers in Europe.

Of course continental teams pull jerseys, certainly they body-check at every opportunity, of course they will attempt to disrupt the flow of the game - these have been part of their stock-in-trade since pan-European competitive football started 55 years ago.

We have three choices:
Shut up and get on with it.
Don't play them.
Kick the shit out of them and get banned.

There is, however, a fourth - and it is a choice which the SFA can take up.

Jack Warner and his developing (football) world allies may not like it, but, back in 1946 when the four British FAs bailed-out a bankrupt FIFA and rejoined that organisation, as part of their agreement to become involved, each association got a permanent place on IFAB (International Football Associations Board), the supreme law-making and changing body of the game.

On IFBA, the English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh have just as much say as the other 204 member associations combined. The trouble is, all too often the four British associations are so busy fighting each other (or more likely the three 'Celtic' associations are at war with England, the common enemy), so they do not make their bloc vote count as much as it ought to.

Over the years IFAB has tinkered with the laws, amended a few and produced a lot of hot air, as they will again when they meet in Cardiff in October - one of two meetings per year which that body has.

Perhaps the British associations ought to have a wee imperomptu meeting before then, ready to enter the Cardiff summit with proposals for a genuine root and branch overhaul of the Laws of the Game - intended to root-out the nefarious practices which the Scots did not have the wit to overcome in Kaunus.

Let them look at other sports - if, like basketball players, footballers found them selves held responsible for individual fouls and repeat or persistent offenders could be "fouled-out" of a game, countries such as Lithuania might clean up their acts.

If there was a "zero tolerance" towards foul play, including a definite ruling on tackling from behind and so on, we could clean-up the game. IFAB could and should be leading the way towards this.

But, sadly in one other potential answer to the problems which beset him and his team in Kaunus, Levein will have to wait a bit longer - for Scottish football to again produce players with the skills levels and application to make the efforts of lesser teams to hinder, thwart and otherwise frustrate them impossible.

Sadly, Friday again showed how barren is our cupboard when it comes to the heirs to the kingdom of Baxter, Mackay, Bremner, Souness, White, Reilly, Steel, Law and Dalglish - to name but a few.

Times Are Indeed Hard

TIMES must indeed be hard in Scottish football - Cumnock Juniors, in a cost-cutting measure, have dispensed with the services of one of the backroom staff.

Twenty years ago, when I was working for a local newspaper group in Ayrshire I forecast doom and gloom for Ayrshrie junior football in the 21st century. A contemporary from school, then High-Heid Yin at one of the oldest Ayrshire clubs told me he had a terrible vision of his beloved club playing amateur football come the millennium - thankfully, that grand old club is still functioning as a junior club today.

I forecast closure for one or two of the eternal strugglers in the Ayrshire League, they are still struggling these days, but still going. Of course, I also though that by 2010 the long-awaited Scottish pyramid would be up and running, but, I'm still waiting.

One thing I said then, was that, with the overthrow of King Coal in East Ayrshire, there was a chance that Cumnock would be left to carry the banner of that area at the top level of the junior game.

This (of course) did not go down well in Auchinleck or New Cumnock. Well today, Talbot are perhaps the most-stable of the three East Ayrshire giants; Glens only just escaped possible closure - their cause not helped by indifference which has seen New Cumnock become so-derelict, locals joke: "Welcome to New Cumnock, twinned with Basra".

But I always thought Cumnock would sail on. That town appeared to have an infrastructure of manufacturing and service industries which the surrounding villages lacked and therefore the potential for sponsorship and off-field funding perhaps beynd the others.

But, for all the hard work of their committee, post-recession, they too are now feeling the pinch.

Mind you, I've also said, the way junior football has, since the formation of the West of Scotland Superleague in particular, gone down the route of depending on failed seniors, would lead to financial trouble.

Better I argued to put in place a development programme along the lines of an associated Boys Club with age group teams up to an Under-21 juvenile side, to encourage local lads to identify with the local club.

Better too, to have an amateur arm, for the over-21s who are not good enough for your first team on a regular basis, but, could do a job at the end of the season, when you get into two and three games per week and definitely better to have a team full of locals, playing for the jersey.

I've yet to see a junior team follow this blue print, but reckon, the first that does and does it properly, will cash-in big time.

These never weres from Glasgow and its surrounding areas playing for Ayrshire junior clubs are merely, in my view, allowing hicks from the sticks to pay for their (the Glasgow Boys') hobby.

Of course there is another side to the story. I put this theory to the man who single-handedly ran his local club, to the extent he was known as Lord *********.

"Aye, it would be great to have 11 locals on the park, but, (there has to be a but), not many of the locals that we've given a chance to in recent years has been able to live with the abuse - because he's a local boy, the player who lives locally is judged by a higher standard, expected to give more to the team and take greater abuse when things don't work out - and not many local boys want that kind of pressure - so we go with the Glasgow boys, who only ever see the village on home game days".

That I can understand - "I kent his faither" has hindered more Scots than, lack of money, lack of ambition and lack of talent.

We truly are our own worst enemies.

At The Home of Real Fitba

TO Bellsdale Park, home of Beith Juniors, for the first round draw for the Scottish Cup and to find the Beith committee-members present unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Their club last played in the "big" Scottish Cup in 1937, when they were walloped 4-0 at Love Street by St Mirren. Winning the Stagecoach West of Scotland Superleague last season got them another crack at the big prize.

"Firstly, I want a home draw", said Beith boss Johnny Miller. Well the wee man got his wish when former St Mirren boss Gus MacPherson pulled their name out of the glass bowl.

But ex-Celt Tommy Coyne, who was drawing the away teams, didn't do so well for Beith, when he paired the North Ayrshire side with Emirates Scottish Junior Cup holders Linlithgow Rose.

"At least, it guarantees one junior team in the second round and we have home advantage, but, it will be a hard match", said Miller.

With so many glorified pub teams from the lesser "senior" leagues in the first round, draw it's a shame that two of the bigger names were paired together, but junior fans will be confident that Bo'ness United, the East Superleague champions, can see off Selkirk when they venture into the heart of rugby country on 25 September.

Now, I have never had any prior dealings with SFA George Peat and it is to my shame that I have perhaps been influenced by the thinking of fellow scribes, who have dealings with him. I thought him a stumbling block to progress, the last of the discredited old guard - then I spent five minutes or so with him and discovered: he is NOT against change in Scottish football; he would WELCOME the introduction of the pyramid some of us have been seeking for years and he wants to see the more progressive clubs from outwith the top 42 getting a chance to progress.

Great.

However, he did point out that there is a lot of indifference about change among the junior ranks, where clubs are happier guddling about in the midden they've inhabited for years and fearful of what change and attempting to better themselves might bring.

That's typically Scots. It has always been thus.

As the lairds and clan chiefs cleared the Highlands, the more-ambitious sailed off to colonise Canada, advance Australia fair, put fresh zeal into New Zealand and subjugate large tracts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The moderately-ambitious went south to make Glasgow the Second City of the Empire or headed into England where one Scot arriving in even the most mundane medium-sized town would immediately double the average IQ.

The rest, they stayed at home and became subsidy junkies.

Same in football - the great early English teams were choc-a-bloc with Scots, a trend which has only passed in recent years, as the sons of the rest became what's available.

Maybe there's something to be said for taking Scots out of Scotland; something in the water here apparently holds us back.