A Gordon For Me

IF I have a criticism of the Old Firm's management - other than the permanent one of these two organisations not doing enough to stamp out sectarianism and bigotry in Scottish football, it is that they simply do not do enough to promote and encourage young Scottish talent.

Given the breadth of their support throughout Scotland and into Ireland, they have the pick of our best young talent - yet, over the past 20 years the numbers of young players who have come through the ranks at the two major clubs is distressingly small.

Today, thanks in no small part to the financial restrictions imposed on them by their bankers over the past three years - a prudence which I can see continuing on Craig Whyte's watch, Rangers have been forced, reluctantly, to promote from within and this has seen the likes of Fleck, Hutton, Ness and Wylde and to a lesser extent Cole and McMillan, given places in the first team squad.

In the same period Celtic have continued to largely shop in Aldi and Lidl, with only the excellent James Forrest demonstrating to the younger players around Lennoxtown that yes, you can wear a first team jersey.

I have never registered with the: "The Lisbon Lions will never happen again" school of thought, so prevalent in Scotland.

For the first century of football, Scotland was where the embitious English League sides shopped - we have now largely lost that market, hopefully our new Dutch Performance Director's initiatives will help restore that market to us, as well as leading our domestic game to a new dawn of European respect.

But, to today's tale. I see that Craig Gordon, one young, home-grown, world-class Scottish product is available for transfer at his current club, Sunderland. Of course, if the reported interest from Arsenal and Manchester City is more than "paper talk", then Master Gordon and his advisers would be fools to ignore these overtures. He's as good, if not a better goalkeeper than Joe Hart and he is certainly better than anybody at the Emirates, so, given these two clubs could certainly meet and indeed exceed his current level of remuneration - he has to be interested.

However, should the reported interest from the upper reaches of the EPL be silly season rumour, then Celtic's advances ought to be listened to. A move back home would be a good fit for both: he's a quality keeper, well capable of being worth the 12-15 points season which his international rival reportedly keeps at Rangers. Gordon is definitely "Celtic Class", unlikely to be dragged down by the mental demands of being the last line for a team for whose fans victory is expected every week.

He's international class, unlikely to be attacked by nerves in the big domestic games or in Europe - he's a good fit, apart from those English-level wages. However, should Celtic bite the bullet and go after him, he could be as fine a servant for them as another Scottish goalkeeper who played for a club in Edinburgh and one in the North East of England, before arriving at Celtic Park - and Ronnie Simpson didn't do too-badly, did he?

ACCORDING to the Daily Torygraph, shock, horror!!! the European Union is going to push through a bill whereby every international team of every member state of the EU will have to wear the EU flag on their shirts and fly it during games.

Great idea, why doesn't Wee Eck, who rarely misses a travelling bandwagon, climb aboard and insist that that cute blue number with the 12 stars be the only flag flown at Old Firm games - ok, the Celtic fans will not be best pleased with the background colour, but, I reckon, since that flag has meant the farmers of Belgium and Eastern France have been able to enjoy more than 60 years of uninterrupted harvests, while true self-determination and international harmony has come to large swathes of Central Europe, maybe in about 2000 years, peace will descend on the football fields of west-central Scotland. It's surely worth a try.