ANOTHER weekend of Scottish football and, what is the big issue this Monday morning? Why it's the fact that a number of Celtic fans failed to properly observe the one-minute's silence prior to the kick-off in their club's match at Dingwall.
Two things: that a small number of Celtic fans should interrupt a one-minute's silence is nothing new; it has become a hardy annual. And, poppy "fascism" (wear one or else) is a growing trend in 21st century UK.
The comments section in the Herald website this morning is fairly representative of what passes for comment in this once excellent newspaper. The thread regarding the loonies' wee pre-match outburst is yet another example of the rampant Whitabootery which surrounds the Bigot Brothers.
The names of the posters are familiar too, all the hardy regulars, ever ready to offend and be offended in the name of their clubs. Great clickbait for the Herald however. The Herald management can ignore the way their print edition circulation is going down the stank and point-out how many "hits" their website receives.
The fact that most of these hitters who choose to comment are green-whitea-nd gold or orange nutters is neither here nor there. I long for the day when the Herald, and other sites, instigate proper moderation of their website comment threads and the nutters and trolls are diverted straight to the trash bin.
Or, how about a spam filter to automatically zap into oblivion the pish and shite - now, inventing that is a guaranteed way to become a millionaire. I encourage this thought to all IT students in Scotland.
The politics and religious differences of the island of Ireland have no place in Scottish football. I just wish the blazers on the sixth floor at Hampden could all, overnight, be supplied with a pair of cojones, so they would tell the two offensive and offending supports - "Enough, no more. Stop it NOW, or we start deducting points".
If they then did as threatened and did deduct points - it would not be long before the Bigot Brothers realised, bigotry does not sell, and started cleaning out their byres. Scottish football would be better for this.
SPEAKING of what would be better for Scottish football. This week is a designated "International Week". It is the week when, at worst, Scotland should have been playing a Euro'16 play-off match. Only, it didn't happen.
It is too late now, but, even though we did not reach the play-offs, it might have been a good idea for us to have a wee international friendly or something, to help Gordon Strachan prepare for the start of the World Cup 1018 qualifying campaign. But, our internationalists will be idle this week.
There are no Premiership matches scheduled for Saturday, because of internationals. I was unaware that this league was awash with international-class players, by the way.
Scottish domestic football has now sunk to such depths, unless a Scottish-qualified player is with Celtic, he is unlikely to ever get more than 180 minutes per season exposure to, admittedly pretty low-quality continental opposition.
Even if a Scottish-qualified player is playing in the FA Premier League, he will, most-probably, be playing for one of the perennial strugglers, and unlikely to see continental opposition anywhere other than full-scale practice matches in training.
So, how does the SFA bridge this skills gap between our honest triers and the more-technically-gifted Europeans?
How about bringing back inter-League games: a Scottish League XI against Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Dutch League selects. Such competitive games might also help these fellow smaller European countries bring younger players through to international standard.
I know, it might be difficult to organise, but, we have to give Scottish players greater exposure outwith domestic football.
Another idea which came to me was, why doesn't Scotland get involved with the Scandinavian countries in a revamping of the Royal Cup tournament? This would give more clubs exposure to European games, and, in the long run help us back up through the pots in championship qualifying draws.
FINALLY, I thoroughly enjoyed 'Class of '92 Out of Their League', the excellent two-part documentary on the efforts of the Neville brothers, Paul Scholes Ryan Giggs and Nicky Butt to get Salford City into the Football League.
I caught up with part two on Sunday night, two nights after City beat Notts County in the first round of the FA Cup. It was very good.
The Nevilles are definitely the stars of the show, but, Scholes does come away with some good one-liners. The five principals are clearly learning more about football than they did in their illustrious careers and it will be interesting to see how the Salford City story unfolds.
I wonder, what will happen, if City get through Round Two of the FA Cup and draw Manchester United in the third round. Conflict of interest for Giggs and Butt for one thing.
I also hope the young full-back whom Phil Neville referred to United makes the grade - what a great story.
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