This Is A Big Game - Don't Miss It

TODAY'S sermon concerns not football, but Fitba' - the real thing, red in tooth and claw, or, as it is better known: Scottish Junior Football.

Tomorrow afternoon at the ground currently named The Braidwood Motors Stadium, Livingston - Almondvale to the rest of us, Auchinleck Talbot and Linlithgow Rose will do battle for one of the most-magnificent trophies in the game: the Emirates Scottish Junior Cup; a wonderful physical embodiment of the Victorian silversmith's art, alongside which even the mighty European Cup itself is a big long drip of plainness.

After this pish we have endured in Scotland this season, tomorrow's match ought to be back page news, because, this one matters - a great deal.

The two best teams in the Scottish senior game haven't met in the national final since 2002, when Rangers edged-out Celtic by the odd goal in five; indeed, with Rangers paying the price for their sins in SFL3, in this season now in its death throes, the big question has been: could Celtic lose their focus often enough to make things interesting? In the end, Neil Lennon got his men focussed enough, often enough, that interest levels rarely rose above minimal.

In truth it was a wee bit that way in the Juniors; Talbot cruised unbeaten through the West Superleague, amassing 62 of a possible 66 points to win the title by 23 clear points.

In the East, although their league campaign remains as yet unfinished, Rose have been almost as dominant, unbeaten with one fixture to fulfill, 20-points clear at the top, simply the best.

Rose have been equally-ruthless in the cups. The West Lothian side has put together a 50-game unbeaten run, stretching back to March 2012. Talbot, like Celtic, have had the occasional hic-cup. Their loss to Wishaw in the West of Scotland Cup was akin to Berwick Rangers beating The Rangers; a couple of local cups were lost in the lottery of penalty kicks, while the neighbouring club we in Ayrshire love to refer to as 'Scumnock' put a smile on their own injury-interrupted and uneven season by edging out the Talbot in a local cup-tie last month.

Thus, for the first time since that old fox Willie Knox plotted the undoing of Pollok, at Hampden in 1986 to kick-off that unique run of three Scottish Cup wins in successive years, Talbot will go into the Scottish Junior Cup Final as underdogs.

Talbot and Linlithgow have dominated the old trophy this millennium. Rose won the Cup in 2002 - inflicting Talbot's first Scottish Junior Cup final loss in seven finals to do so; they won it again in 2007 and in 2010. Talbot re-modelled themselves after that 2002 reverse to lift the trophy in 2006 and again in 2011.

Last year, at the same Livingston venue, they were perhaps a tad over-confident in facing Shotts Bon Accord, the Lanarkshire side rose better to the big day and scored a surprise but deserved win - the need to make amends for that is a huge contributory factor in Talbot being back for their third straight final.

Who will win? You have to accept that, after winning in 2002, and having been the club which ended Talbot's 1986/87/88 run of wins by knocking them out in the fourth round in 1989, Rose will start as favourites.

I honestly wouldn't like to try to separate two very evenly-matched sides. As ever in cup finals, it will come down to which team wants it more. However, since both teams know only one way to play - going forward, this one just might live up to the hype and be a classic.

If you cannot get to Livingston, the game will be live on BBC Alba, kick-off 4.05pm.

IN PREVIEWING the big game, I spoke to one of the Good Guys in the hierarchy of Scottish football - SJFA president George Morton.

Morton is that rarity - a decent 'Scumnockian'. As a "daft" young man he signed for Talbot, who back then did a lap of honour if they won a corner, and on his debut, against 'Scumnock', he scored a hat-trick; 'Scumnock' still won, 8-4 or something.

That night, he got back to the family home to find his clothes and personal belongings neatly stacked-up on the front step, and his father standing there with a stark choice: leave Talbot or leave the house. George left Talbot and has been secretary of 'Scumnock' for 37-years; this has been a thankless task, given that for most of that time the 'Scumnock' committee - apart from George, was made-up of the finalists in the Scumnock Village Idiot of The Year competition - which is an extremely difficult title to win.

The winner gets to be 'Scumnock' Juniors' president and one guy held that title for over 20-years.

So, Mr Morton has suffered for his football, but, in spite of the many blows he has suffered, he remains a true gentleman. This week, I asked him about the current banishment to the fringes of the Junior clubs and his thoughts on the on-going pyramid proposals.

As I felt he might, George reckoned only a few Junior clubs will be interested in the possibility of climbing the pyramid to the senior ranks.

"The costs involved will be prohibitive", he explained.

"They will need to upgrade their grounds and while some of the top clubs would not find that too-onerous, others will struggle to install floodlights or disabled toilets. Also, a lot of clubs are quite happy to play away locally, local rivalries are hugely-important in the juniors; the costs involved in travelling all over Scotland will put a lot of clubs off."

He sees regionalisation as being key to a pyramid's success, and reckons such a move would also benefit some of the perennial strugglers in SFL2 and SFL3.

"The top junior clubs are better than most of the East of Scotland and South of Scotland "senior" clubs," Morton believes.

"There is no benefit to be had from the likes of Talbot or Linlithgow playing these clubs regularly, they will not get any better doing so. Yes, we need re-organisation down as far as the Juniors and the non-SFL "senior" clubs, but, it has to be the right re-organisation and it has to be managed properly.

"At the end of the day, given a choice between beating each other regularly and beating the likes of Spartans, or Whitehill Welfare, good clubs though they are, most of our fans, or Talbot's fans will, I am sure, settle for keeping the local rivalry going."

This is the drawback to promoting change in Scottish football. At the end of the day, we perhaps like our 21st century version of the old Clan Wars - local football.