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.