"It matters not who won nor lost - so-long as you beat the English". Max Boyce, Welsh "entertainer".
"Never mind, they'll forget this result once we beat England". Unnamed SFA council member following Uruguay's 7-0 defeat of Scotland in the 1954 World Cup Finals.
"The Scottish football public will not pay to watch that sort of stuff on a weekly basis". Unnamed Scottish football writer, walking away from Hampden after seeing Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in 1960.
"Youse is shite and ye'r oot o' Europe, ha-ha, ha-ha". Various "cyber-warriors" from both sides of the Old Firm divide, on various web sites last night after the final whistle in the Europa League games.
Yes, that's the level to which we have fallen - that's the way we clutch at failiar old straws, the comfort blankets to which we have always clung. So long as Scotland beats England, Celtic beats Rangers, Hearts beats Hibs, Auchinleck Talbot beats Cumnock - all is well with the world.
Rewind 500 years: so long as Campbell beats Macdonald, McLeod beats McNab, McGlumpher beats McRassler - it matters not that we live in grass-roofed hovels, which we share with our cattle, without running water, adequate sanitation, windows and that we are scraping a living from poor, rocky ground - so long as we perceive ourselves as better than the clan next door - we're fine.
Scotland - here's tae us, wha's like us.....and we all know the answer to that.
"Maribor - they're the equivalent of Hibs". Celtic fan posting on a Scottish newspaper website this morning.
Maribor 6 Hibernian 2 - result from the third qualifying round of the Europa League competition, season 2010-2011.
See, our capacity for self-delusion, for refusing to face the obvious si quite wonderful; we forgot all about that result from exactly a year ago and dubbed the Slovenians "a pub team". Can I drink in that pub, it's clearly better than the one I frequent here.
"FC Sion - they're Swiss, easy for Celtic". Received wisdom in Scotland when the draw was made.
2011-2012 Europa League, play-off round: FC Sion 3 Celtic 1
2002-2003 Champions League, third qualifying round: FC Basel 3 Celtic 3 (Basel win on away goals)
1993-1994 UEFA Cup, first round: Celtic 1 Young Boys Berne 0 (Celtic through via an own goal)
1991-1992 UEFA Cup, second round: Celtic 2 Neuchatel Xamax 6
1973-1974 European Cup, quarter-final: Celtic 6 FC Basel 5
1969-1970 European Cup, first round: Celtic 2 FC Basel 0
1966-1967 European Cup, first round: Celtic 5 FC Zurich 0
1963-1964 European Cup-Winners Cup, first round: Celtic 10 FC Basel 1.
So, you have to go back to the days of Jock Stein, the Lisbon Lions and the Quality Street Kids to find days when Swiss teams really were easy for Celtic. In the last 20 years, Celtic have met Swiss opposition four times, winning just once - via an own goal. Easy, aye right.
And the lessons of history are equally harsh across the city. Rangers beat Maribor 6-1, over two legs in the Champions League, second qualifying round, in 2001-2002. Tor Andre Flo got three of the goals, Caludio Cannagia bagged a brace and Klaus Nerlinger got the other goal. Rangers promptly lost to Fenebrache in the next round, dropped into the UEFA Cup and had a good run all the way to the last 16.
But that was the Rangers of the big-money buys the de Boers, Lovenkrands, Amoruso, Konterman, Ricksen. Would any Rangers fan like to tell me they'd have today's bought-in "stars" before even "bomb scare Bert" or Flo?
Some Celtic fans on fans' forums since last night have been (rightly) laughing at the "wearrapeepel" attitude which still afflicts the cheap, and expensive seats at Ibrox.
OK, Rangers are no longer "rapeepel", haven't been for ages - but, they are still the reigning Scottish Champions, have been for the last three successive seasons; they are still rated above Celtic in Europe - they might be bad, but, reality says: you're worse.
So, we're at our lowest ebb. What do we do?
Short of ripping the whole thing (Scottish football) up and starting again, there's nothing we can do which will bring long-term improvement. We've got to face facts, come late June, early July of 2012, our best teams will be setting-off to try to qualify for Europe alongside the representatives of the wee countries we have long laughed-at.
Maybe they should start preparing now - after all, one of the great sporting aphorisms is: "Fail to prepare - prepare to fail"; we haven't been paying much attention to that recently, have we?
At least Rangers thanks to Sir David Murray's management incompetence, have some young players coming through - Celtic simply jettison most of their young talent as soon as they become too-old for the Under-19 League.
If I was Ally, I'd be looking NOW to have a settled European squad of mainly young players, following a strict preparation schedule - geared to having them hit the ground running for the 2012-2013 European qualifiers.
Yes, he's bought-in some experienced players for this season, now, thanks to the European elimination - these are what he's left with. There will be no new cavalry riding to the rescue in the next week.
Split his squad, keep his best for the bigger games, get the kids into the match-day XI for the games against the SPL's diddier teams; field all the kids, plus the experienced pros such as Neil Alexander, Dave Weir, Lee McCulloch, David Healy and James Beattie in the League Cup. Rangers' optimum XI should still be good enough to win the SPL, but get the rest ready for the qualifiers.
Same with Celtic - they've just jettisoned their future. Neil Lennon has, I feel, th ruthlessly prune his squad and rebuild. Some of his buys have shown, time and again, they lack the bottle for the battle. He too has to start preparing for next season. If he doesn't, we'll be here in 12 months time writing the same old, same old, about further embarrassing defeats at the hands of European "pub teams".
Isn't it time we stopped repeating past mistakes and moved on?
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