JIMMY, one of my readers who comes on here regularly to assure me I'm talking shite, yesterday cast doubts on the concept of "entertainment" in Scottish football. I can see where he's coming from; one of the reasons behind the SFA's hands off approach to Olympic Games football is this - the Olympian ethos of "the glory is not in winning but in having taken part" is outwith the reasoning of any Scot.
We don't play to take part, we play to win. And this Caledonian attitude might well mitigate against making Scottish football entertaining.
Maybe it's a throwback to the age of the clans, but Scottish football gets its energy from winning local derbies. Be it Scotland v England, Rangers v Celtic, Hearts v Hibs, Auchinleck Talbot v Cumnock, The Red Lion v The Black Horse in the local pub league. Football in Scotland is not Kiplingesque - it matters one hell of a lot whether you won or lost - how you played the game isn't so important.
By common consent, Celtic played what little football there was on show at Celtic Park last Wednesday. But, just supposing Rangers had made their solitary chance count, then held on through half an hour of extra time to win on penalties - would many Rangers fans have turned round and said: "Fucking hell, we got out of jail there; jammy or what"?
No way, they'd have been giving it: "Get it right up youse": LARGE.
We all accept that it's nice to win with flair, style and panache, but, a win by any means is still a win.
Back in 1967 Denis Law wanted to thump the World Champions England at Wembley by as many goals as possible - Jim Baxter wouldn't have it: "Naw, we'll humiliate them 1-0 ken," was his approach, which, given he was a Fifer and had spent longer in his native country, was a much-more Scottish assessment of what to do than that being offered by the more-Anglicised Aberdonian.
Baxter then went out and earned immortality - but, if you were a neutral and had seen, as I have, the English highlights edit, you would think that Scotland had been one jammy lot that never to be forgotten day.
So, how do we encourage entertaining, winning football?
Well we could start by encouraging attacking football. How about doing away with draws? Play every game to a finish, and have declining bonus points according to how well you win. E.g. offer say seven points for a win inside 90 minutes; if the game is all-square play one 15 minute period of extra time under the "silver goal" rule, so if a 2-2 at 90 minutes has become a 3-2 one after 105, the winning team gets say five points, the losers one point.
Still all-square, play a second 15 minute extra time period, but under the "golden goal", rule, or as we called it in the school playground: next goal's the winner. Perhaps a 4-1 points division this time.
Still level, penalty kicks, winning team gets three points, losers two.
We might take a notion from rugby and award bonus points for scoring three or more goals, and losing bonus points for a one goal defeat. It might take a wee while to break through the years of conservative coaches thinking, but, if we made goals count for more, maybe teams would be prepared to go out and go for them.
You never know, it might work.
Jaysus christmas....what have you been smoking?
ReplyDeleteThe ideas are a wee but radical I think the players would end up on strike if every game had the possibility of going 2 hours.
How about every Scottish club investing cash money into a better youth system, the bigger the club the more dosh they invest. From what I see from this side of the pond is the same problem we have always had.. lack of money and all our talent heading south. I don't blame Scottish players for heading south because it is their job to feed the bairns and we all ken that's where the money is.
Sponsorship would be the key, here in the states Nike have taken over the U.S. Soccer academy(I hate saying that) with millions fae Nike coming in the yanks have a proper and well organised youth system, lets copy them...and takers?
There's no a scheme anywhere in Scotland where a wee boy has not lay awake in his bed of a night dreaming about scoring the winning goal at Hampden. Growing up, weans never wanted to drive trains, put out fires, fly rocket ships to the moon. No, it was all about playing fitba for their heroes, be them green, orange, striped or blue. From the very first time Rob Roy fell down fae the hills of Glen Gyle in the Trossachs, waving his rusty claymore at the auld enemy themselves, a sense of battle lit the Scottish fuse and battle first commenced!
ReplyDeleteHis ancestors before him, they didn't slay large toothed prehistoric lizards to fill a Morton’s roll on a Sunday morn. No... They slayed lions (3 lions at times, remember the broken goalposts at Wembley that year? Oh what sweet joy) because they enjoyed the battle, the cut and thrust of wit and skill against a foe.
At Bannockburn we cut a weary path through the churning of the turf, the clatty pitch really was just that, clatty! We twisted, we turned, and we used our heads to win! Winning is everything. Winning against your rivals is better than beer flavoured tablet, free Talisker whisky for life, sleeping with your sister-in-law, even finding a crisp new tenner in the snow. Winning is about being Scottish, it is about bragging rights, winning is power and glory in a country now sadly lacking in both. Kicking a ball into your opponent’s goal is euphoric; kicking your opponent up the arse is orgasmic, as long as the huns with whistles are swatching the other way.
I'll stop here because the last time a Scotsman procrastinated about Scotland the brave; the bloody yanks deposited a dire statue of Mel Gibson at the foot of one of our nation’s beloved monuments. The last thing I want to do is wake up tomorrow and read in the Daily Record about an 18ft concrete monolith of Charlie Sheen being dumped outside of Semi-Chem at Parkhead Forge!
So, how do we encourage entertaining, winning football? That’s easy. We begin at the youth academies. We make fitba training mandatory in schools, colleges, universities. We tear down the scrap metal cranes and the pure lead tombstones outside of the Clydebank shipyards. The docks are dead, long live fitba. We pour money into providing kit, coaches, and floodlit pitches of real grass. We recapture the spirit of Scotland; we fan the flames of self-worth. We instil the pride back into our children, our grandchildren, our grandchildren’s grandchildren. We entertain!!!
In a nutshell, 90 minutes, in the event of a draw, another 30 minutes and then if required, sudden death. The golden goal, the deciding moment, the all important decider. No replays on a rainy Tuesday night in Aberdeen amongst the woolly ones. No soggy meat pies and luke warm pish down at the ‘Well’. No... Let’s play ball. Let’s entertain. Let us be Scottish, and attack until we win. Conquer and win, no play for a poxy draw for the love of no particular god. Of course this will mean larger squads, more training, higher casualties, and fewer matches per week. It will change the face of the beautiful game. It will be plastic surgery for those ugly wans amongst the SFA, (don’t get me started)
ESPN/SKY/BBC/ITV they have all turned their backs on Scottish fitba, that much is clear. Andy Gray now rests in pish somewhere in Englishville, Strachan, Hansen, all happy to take the Queens shilling. We are left with Chick and Hugh for our sins, but at least they are loyal to Scotland (Shuggie leans evermore slightly towards a knighthood of course) and loyalty is what we need. Loyalty, determination, and a power to defeat at all costs. Entertainment? Bring on the English clowns.
Jimmy - you had me at "Free Talisker for life"
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