WHEN you consider the number of managers who are relieved of or voluntarily relinquish their duties in any given season, it said much about Sir Alex Ferguson's status in the game that the official SFA Website should pay him generous tribute this week. Of course, as a former Scotland manager, albeit in a caretaker capacity, the governing body had some sort of obligation to mark his professional passing.
However, it costs nothing to invite the apparently soon to depart Boyneband Broadfoot to pen a wee tribute; what the SFA should have done is make a meaningful gesture and finally cap Fergie.
But, Fergie never played for Scotland; I hear you exclaim. Au contraire; he was a member of the oft-overlooked 1967 World Tour squad, an unheralded bunch who brought the curtain down on that wonderful year for Scottish Football by trotting UNBEATEN around the globe between early-May and mid-June.
I accept that playing Israel, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand Under-23s and Canada was not the most-onerous of schedules, but a record reading: p 9 - w 9 - d 0 - l - for 30 - against 9 is still, by Scottish standards, impressive.
The tour squad was a development one, the Old Firm were otherwise engaged in Europe,although six of the nine games would be "internationals", no caps would be awarded. However, the Israeli, Hong Kong, Australian and Canadian FAs ALL recognise their games against the Scottish tourists as "real", official internationals - those Scots who played, have never been "capped" for their troubles.
Fergie finished the tour as top scorer, bagging ten goals in his seven games. Six of these goals came in internationals - the winner in a 2-1 win over Israel in Tel Aviv; two of the four in a 4-1 romp in Hong Kong; the only goal of the game in beating Australia in Sydney and both goals in the 2-1 win which gave the Scots a three out of three winning record in games against the Socceroos.
Surely, even 46-years on, the SFA could plug just about the only gap in Fergie's record by retrospectively making these games official full internationals and capping him, Hearts' pair Alan Anderson and Jim Townsend, ex-Thistle full back Hugh Tinney, then with Bury, Celtic's Harry Hood, then with Clyde and Burnley goalkeeper Harry Thomson - the six "uncapped" players from these games.
After all, if, in 2002, Warren Cummings - or Warren Who? as he is known to the Tartan Army, can win a Scotland cap by playing against Hong Kong - why cannot Ferguson, 35-years earlier?
TODAY is FA Cup Final Day. So-what? you ask. Well, when I was a boy, Cup Final Day was the only day in the year when we Scots took an interest in English football.
Of course, it helped, back then, that so-many of the players strutting their stuff at Wembley were Scottish.
I can go back as far as the legendary 1953 "Matthews Final", when veteran Sir Stanley, then 38, inspired Blackpool to victory over Bolton.
The winning Blackpool team included Scots George Farm and Jackie Mudie, with another two, Hugh Kelly and Alan Brown missing out through injury. A year later Tommy Docherty and Alan Morrison were in the Preston team which lost to West Brom, whose centre half was Scot Jimmy Dudley.
In 1955 the Scottish interest came from Ronnie Simpson, skipper Jimmy Scoular and Bobby Mitchell for the victorious Newcastle United, with centre-half Davie Ewing and one-fifth of the Famous Five, Bobby Johnstone, for Manchester City.
The two Scots were back at Wembley a year later to beat Birmingham, who had Bridgeton boy Alex Govan on the left wing.
And so it continued for the next 40-years or so. All the top Scots of the time, from Denis Law and Dave Mackay to Stevie Nicol and Stuart McColl got to take that long sun-dappled walk from the Wembley changing rooms to the spot in front of the Royal Box for the pre-match presentation and to climb, either delighted or deflated, take that climb up the 39 steps to get their medals.
But, over the years, we learned of the unheralded Scots who were the backbone of the English game.
The above-mentioned Dudley and Morrison each got one Scotland B cap, Govan was uncapped, as were later Wembley final participants such as Alex Dawson (Manchester United, 1958), John Sjoberg and Ian King (Leicester City, 1963),Dick Malone, Bobby Kerr and Ian Porterfield (Sunderland 1973), Jim Steele (Southampton, 1976), Willie Young (Arsenal, 1978) and Lee Glover (Nottingham Forest, 1991).
How things change, the last uncapped, unheralded Scot to strut his stuff on the big stage was Millwall's Peter Sweeney back in 2004. Indeed, the Wigan Scots who will hopefully strut their stuff this afternoon, the likes of Gary Caldwell, James McArthur and Shaun Maloney will be the first to play in the big game since Darren Fletcher back in 2009.
So, we don't pay as much attention to the game these days; this lack of interest also owing something to the switch from wall-to-wall coverage on terrestial television, to SKY. Of course, the way Scottish footballers went out of fashion down south has also contributed.
It's sad, but hopefully (and I'm not holding my breath) the Hampden blazers will get their act together and the Scots can reclaim this game as once they did.
FINALLY, when I was a boy, the big comic was the Eagle, with Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, on the front cover. Colonel Dare's batman (how quaint) was Spaceman First Class Albert Fitzwilliam Digby, who came from Wigan and supported Wigan Athletic - who back then were a non-league club.
I do hope the loyal Digby is at Wembley today, and not somewhere in deep space tangling with he and Dare's arch-enemy The Mekon.
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