SEE women - nae idea aboot fitba. Did nobody think to explain to "The Lionesses" aka the England Women's team at the Women's World Cup - when it comes to England v Germany at that level, when penalties come into play - the Germans win.
OK Fara Williams's winning effort wasn't in a shoot-out, but, was in extra time. Still, you'd have thought she would have known to miss it, take the tie to penalty kicks and then let the Germans win!!!
But seriously, well done to the England girls. Respect.
STILL on the distaff side of football. I have long been an admirer of Alan Campbell's near-individual efforts to promote Women's Football in the pages of The Herald and The Scotsmen, the two "newspapers of record" in Scotland.
Since the tabloids don't really promote fitba, with their overkill on the Bigot Brothers, sensible comment and news on the women's game has to come from the two "heavy" papers, and Alan has tied-up a nice wee niche for himself there.
He has a piece on the Women's World Cup on The Scotsman's website today, in which he more-or-less skims over his most-significant phrase, in his sixth paragraph. There he reflects, briefly, on the comparative attitude to women's football in England and Scotland.
Arsenal Ladies led the way, but, today, Manchester City, Everton, Liverpool, Birmingham City, even Notts County, have girls in the England team. I understand, if the broadcast/published figures are correct, that some of the top English women players are earning as much, if not more, that male players in the SPFL Premiership.
OK, we all accept, there is more, much-more money in the game in England. This is good news for our top women players - many in the Scottish Women's A Squad are now earning good money in England, and, suddenly, the High Road South is becoming as welcome a pathway to riches for our women players as it has always been for our men.
This will, in turn, open-up greater opportunities for our younger, home-grown players. However, as Campbell all-too-briefly alluded to in his Scotsman piece, the Scottish clubs are not as supportive of women's football as the top English clubs.
"Fitba's nae a gemme fur lassies", is a notion which is, sadly, all-too-common in Scottish football. There may have been other issues in-play, but, the fact that the great Sheila Begbie, for so long THE top woman in Scottish football switched from Hampden to Murrayfield, indicates to me, she maybe became fed-up banging her head against the brick wall of "aye beenism" which is so evident at Hampden.
It might be, we still have too far to go in getting our male game into the 21st century, to be ready to spend time on the women's version. However, when we consider how well the likes of Glasgow City has done, and the way our Women's team has come-on in recent years, we should maybe be even more encouraging of the distaff side of the game.
Let's face it, in the last 20-years, only two Scottish footballers have truly been "World-Class" - and neither Julie Fleeting-Stewart or Kim Little is available to WGS.
I AM not too-concerned about Celtic losing 5-3 at "home", albeit that home was St Mirren Park, in a pre-season friendly against Dukla Prague. These games are designed with a single aim, to get the team tuned-up for the start of real competitive football, which is still some distance ahead.
OK, shipping five goals at home is hardly the best initial preparation, but, the sensible Celtic fans, will accept this reverse, if the team qualifies for the Champions League.
My mate Big Billy King reckons Peter Lawwell boobed - he thought they would be playing Dukla Pumpherston and in line for a goals fest, only, they booked the wrong Dukla P.
Mind you, playing "The Cry Was No Defenders" at the height of the "Marching Season", will, quite clearly, not play well with the wider Celtic Family.
STILL on matters Celtic. John Hartson, one of the more-intelligent of the "Former Old Firm Talking Heads Society" has been quoted on Adam Matthews leaving Celtic for Sunderland - in search of regular first team football.
I feel squad rotation is one area where football has much to learn from other games.
For instance, when I first became interested in watching rather than playing football, in the mid-1950s, I followed Lugar Boswell Thistle and, the names still trip off my tongue: Jock Fraser, Davie Love, Charlie Cathie, Alex McEwan, Jim Baird, Jim Donnelly, Alex Bingham, Jimmy Collins, "Sanny" Sharpe, Hughie Neil and Eric Wilkie. That seemed to be the team every week.
In reality, that team, the one which found Petershill, in the 1956 Junior Cup Final, a game too-far, barely played together that season. Charlie Cathie broke his leg early-on, Jock Stirling wore the number three shirt in most of the cup games, Eric Wilkie was doing his National Service in England, Jim Balfour more often than not wore number 11. Sharpe too, was on National Service and only regularly-available in the second half of the season. But still, memory has me reeling-off the team as in the previous paragraph.
Then, when I graduated to Senior Football at Rugby Park, the Kilmarnock team always seemed to read; Jimmy Brown, Jim Richmond, Matt Watson, Frank Beattie, Willie Toner, Bobby Kennedy, Rab Stewart, Jim McInally, Andy Kerr, Bertie Black and Billy Muir.
It would only have been possible for Willie Waddell to select that exact XI in 77 games - between Andy Kerr arriving and Bobby Kennedy departing to Manchester City. In actual fact they only appeared in that order in 20 games. But still, that's the Killie XI against which every Killie team since has been measured by me.
So, apparently, football, once upon a time was played by the same teams every week - you were either a first-team player of a reserve. Each club had two squads, the first-team one and the reserve one, and rarely the twain did meet.
Basically, football doesn't do squad rotation. Well, it is time the game did.
I accept, the physical demands made on the players in professional rugby are higher than those made on their footballing counterparts, but, IF the round-ball game can learn from the oval one and get it right, I can see better-quality football, in a better game, being the prize.
Last season, Glasgow Warriors used 52 players in winning the Pro12. Yes, such are the physical demands placed, in particular, on the five tight forwards, correct timing of substitutions is one of the coach's major decisions, but, Gregor Townsend had to tinker with his squad on other occasions.
In football, the domestic programme shuts-down for internationals, in rugby, the domestic programme carries on, and clubs like Glasgow have to allow for the absence of up to a full team, yet keep going.
Make squad rotation work, do away with the feeling that, some players are shoo-ins for a first team place, make inter-squad competition more common, get them out of their comfort zone and, I am sure, we would see a better domestic game in Scotland.
The players should also, in my opinion, train harder, improve their technical skills - do as much in a week as the rugby men do, and, I would expect Scottish football to thrive and prosper.
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