MARCH 31, 1928 is one of the iconic dates in Scottish Football history - the day on which the Wembley Wizards beat England 5-1. Now, modern-day readers might be surprised to discover, that same day, there was a full programme of Scottish League, Division 1 games back in Scotland.
At Ibrox, Rangers, without Alan Morton, who was on-duty at Wembley, beat Clyde 3-1. Queen's Park, who had Jack Harkness back-stopping "the Wizards", were beating Dunfermline Athletic 4-0 at Hampden, while Celtic were beating Bo'ness 4-1 at Parkhead - to pick but three of the fixtures at random.
Indeed, up until the 1970s or thereabouts, international calls were seldom allowed to interfere with the bread and butter of league matches. Then, clubs with three players on international duty were allowed to postpone games (I wonder which two Scottish clubs in particular this helped?)
Now, we had the absurdity of yesterday when, with Scotland NOT playing an international - the entire SPFL Premiership programme was called-off. Why?
The only SPFL players who were involved in Thursday night's game against the Czech Republic in Prague were goalkeeper Scott Bain of Dundee, Aberdeen midfielder Kenny McLean and Celtic's Charlie Mulgrew. THREE players - yet an entire Saturday league programme is called-off.
Kenny McLean
Scott Bain
Charlie Mulgrew
On paper, eight home-Scots might be involved in Tuesday night's Hampden friendly against the Danes. Most of these eight players are with Celtic, but, is that any reason to have called-off last Saturday's fixtures?
The SFA and the SPFL have a duty to actively promote football in Scotland, which means putting games on at the time the majority of the fans have repeatedly shown they prefer - kicking-off at 3pm on a Saturday. I know the Hampden "blazers" lang syne sold-out to TV, but, calling-off an entire programme of games for no reason hardly comes into the category of promoting Scottish football.
Having no Premiership games on Saturday was just plain WRONG.
It stands to reason, clubs and coaches will have a favoured starting XI, but, they do not constrain themselves to the minimum 14-man squads (a starting XI plus the three substitutes allowed). They all have additional players; these days, squad rotation is a big thing, picking an XI to do a job on a given day.
Therefore, surely, if a player is good enough to be in a club's squad - he is good enough to be considered for first team duty. It follows then, if the preferred starting goalkeeper, for instance, or the first-choice striker, is called-up for international duty - then his understudy should get his place.
We keep hearing: "Football is now a branch of the entertainment business". Well, in the theatre for instance, if you have a play with a cast - an ensemble just like a football team - and the "star" cannot appear in his or her designated role on a given night, the understudy steps up.
It may be, that star has to go off and accept an award, theatre tradition has it: "the show must go on", in football, apparently, the show must stop if some of the "stars" (who let's face it, in Scottish domestic fitba don't twinkle that hard) are needed elsewhere.
OK, in the theatre, if the star is missing, it might be possible to get a refund - so lower the prices for football (which some say are too-high anyway) if a team has two or three players missing on international duty.
Scottish football might also like to have a look at how Scottish rugby does it. Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors didn't stop playing Pro12 League games - just because they had players - in Glasgow's case more than a full team of them - off on international duty. They put in the back-up boys and got on with things.
A week past on Friday, I was at Scotstoun to watch Glasgow take-on Leinster in the Pro12, less than 24-hours before Ireland entertained Scotland in Dublin. Both teams had 11 players in their respective national squads in Dublin, but, they played.
Glasgow had only one "first-choice" player among their seven starting backs. They finished with a back division of: a centre playing full-back, their usual third-choice scrum-half (a specialist position) playing on one wing, with their fourth-choice scrum-half in his usual role. Their third-choice stand-off (the main play-maker) filled that role, and they had to give a debut to a centre three-quarter who, when he came on as an injury replacement, was the 56th player Glasgow had used this season.
Up front, international hooker Fraser Brown, after a very hard hour in his specialist position, had to switch to open-side flanker, another specialist position, with very different skill-set from that needed at hooker.
This sort of facing up to reality and getting on with things, compares very favourably with the football approach, whereby Dundee being without their goalkeeper is, apparently, sufficient grounds to have their Saturday fixture called off.
AT LEAST, the absence of an entire Premiership programme allowed the Glasgow-based newspapers to indulge themselves, by giving pride of place in their Saturday match coverage to the Rangers Tribute Act, who moved closer to promotion to the top flight, with a 4-3 win over Queen of the South.
The reports I have read were the usual stuff, but, allow me to offer some praise to Christopher Jack of the Herald, whose report from Ibrox was an old-fashioned, facts-based, "run-of-play" report, of the kind we so-seldom see these days.
FINALLY, well done England, who came from behind to beat Germany 3-2 in Berlin. This excellent result offers the opportunity for the belief to grow - that England might actually make a real impact in the forthcoming European Championships finals.
England boss Roy Hodgson
The Germans are never easy to beat, and they do not normally surrender the lead once they've got in front, so, by any measure, this was a superb win for England.
I congratulate them, but, I caution the players and back-room staff:
Stop reading the papers and watching TV NOW. On the back of this one result, your mediocre media will have you winning the whole damned thing.
You may have beaten Germany, BUT, you have won NOTHING.
This result was, however, a great boost for Roy Hodgson, one of the nicest guys in football.
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