SCOTLAND has suffered terribly this past month - rain, high winds, even heavier rain, higher winds, mair rain, hurricane-strength winds. What we need is a wee bit of good news, something to take our minds off the misery of winter here in God's country.
OK, to many of the population, Celtic's on-field and the Rangers Tribute Act's off-field travails have offered some light relief, it is always good to see those with delusions of an entitlement to rule over us suffering. However, given how the corporate media is ever-so-deeply embedded in the pockets of the Bigot Brothers, they have concentrated on these little local difficulties, and missed a gleam of sunlight through the midwinter gloom.
The latest FIFA rankings were announced on Thursday, and, would you believe it - Scotland are on the up. We have risen from 52nd to 46th, a rise of six places and are back among the top 50 football nations on this planet.
Now, why wasn't Wee Gordon Strachan (above), led by the massed pipe bands of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, paraded from Hampden Park to Pacific Quay, to announce this momentous feat, live to David Currie on Reporting Scotland? Why wasn't he then paraded through the streets of Glasgow, to George Square, there to take the acclaim of the massed ranks of the Tartan Army, as we celebrated? Come on SFA, you missed a trick there.
Of course, this rise in the rankings was all down to one cunning plan, a ruse so amazing, it was worthy of the great Baldrick himself. We rose six places, because, we didn't play any games. We sat back and let some of the teams above us lose games, and slip beneath us.
That's the plan - we stop paying internationals and, in jig time we will be a top ten nation and back in the World Cup. Might it not work?
However, we must dump a daud of cauld kail on the feel-good factor. For all our ascent to the stratospheric heights of the Top 50, Scotland remains the 29th-ranked nation in UEFA and, and this really hurts, the fifth of the five FIFA member nations within the British Isles.
Jings, reality hurts.
MY big mate Shuggie MacDonald, in his must-read Saturday column in the Herald, has written a funny, but serious piece on the absurdities of football's transfer market. I commend it to my reader.
I have long held, when I get a Weir-sized cheque from Camelot for a Euromillions win, after I have secured the futures of my amazingly-annoying daughters, and my nere-do-well grand-children, and sent "Management" off on her once-in-a-lifetime shopping spree, I would set-up and run an Ayrshire sports team to rule Scotland, and, given time, the world.
One of the things my Head Coach, because I would be El Presidente, Director of Football, Honcho, High Heid Yin and, basically, he who must be obeyed, would have to understand, would be - there will be no transfer fees paid, and definitely no agent's fees.
Our colours will not be sullied by badge-kissing foreign mercenaries, recruited via grossly-inflated transfer fees. My recruitment style will be, the bulk of the squad will be local kids, brought through a grass roots development programme, from which only the very best will advance to my first team squad. And, IF we do have to recruit outside assistance, these players will be brought to the club on "Bosmans".
The first Scottish club chairman who goes down this route, will have my fullest support. We simply cannot in Scotland afford to squander squillions on transfer fees - when will this fact of life hit home?
IN looking at today's William Hill Scottish Cup ties, I find myself torn when it comes to one particular game. As one brought-up in the Juniors, I would love it if Linlithgow Rose could go to Victoria Park, Dingwall and put out Ross County. However, I love the town of Dingwall; "Management" and I have an old friend who lives on the Black Isle and we spend a few weekends each year up there, and visit Dingwall a lot when we do. Also, having kent Wee Billy Dodds (below) since he was a very annoying wee ynaff of a teenager, I want him and his brilliantly-run club to do well.
Then, if a Junior club is really to go far in the big Scottish Cup, surely history demands that club be the mighty Talbot - I hope to be around when, as they surely one day will, they put out one of the Bigot Brothers at Beechwood.
Also, I feel for Ronnie Deila, anything less than a ten-goals-plus hammering of East Kilbride in tomorrow's match and the screams for his head will intensify. Definitely a no-win occasion for the Norwegian. And, should the unthinkable happen, surely Peter Lawwell will hand him a bottle of whiskey, a gun and usher him into his office - to do the decent thing.
Should the unthhinkable happen, and Deila not do the decent thing, I fear he may, on exiting Broadwood tomorrow, be torn limb from limb by the outraged GFITW.
Finally, I commend to any other football bloggers reading this: get yourselves onto the Lallands Peat Worrier blog and read what is written there. Having already done so, I shall be making no comments concerning an on-going legal case, with a connection to the affairs of a certain Glasgow-based football club.
A wee spell as a guest of Her Majesty does not appeal at my age and, the Contempt of Court Laws are one minefield I have no interest in entering.
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