Will We Be Pretty Or Pretty Awful In Pink?

SO, the Gnomes of Zurich hath decreed – Scotland MUST wear the pink away kit when we face the Auld Enemy at Wembley next week. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear – disaster for Scotland, as old David Francey might have commented.

FIFA was formed, in Paris, on 21 May, 1904.Scotland had been playing international football since 30 November, 1872; they had met England 33 times, and on 30 of these occasions – Scotland wore navy blue shirts, England white.

Since 1904, every time Scotland and England have met, the Scots have worn navy blue shirts – the English white. Now, after the strip designer of a sportswear company based in Portland, Oregon decided that England's strip should have pale blue sleeves, at roughly the same time as the strip designer of a sportswear company based in Herzogenaurach in Germany decided Scotland's new strip should have white sleeves – and some Swiss functionary in Zurich has decided this constitutes a “clash of colours”, Scotland has to wear pink.

Now, in my youth I played for Ayr Rugby Club, whose colours are pink and black, so, I have no problem with looking pretty in pink. I actually like the Scottish pink change kit, but, this is Scotland v England (or, more correctly, England v Scotland) – we should wear a primarily blue strip, theirs should be primarily white.

This forced change makes no sense – it is an attack on Britishness – where are Boris Johnston, Nigel Farage and Mother Theresa when we need them to stand-up for Britain?

I HAVE heard it said: if James Kelly MSP was twice as bright as he actually is, he just might, in a bad year, have scraped home and been appointed as The Labour Party's candidate for one of those Fife mining seats in which, if they put up a turnip with a red rosette pinned to it, Labour would have won. He would then have vanished into the many Members' Bars within the Palace of Westminster, to become: “A low-flying Jimmie” - a back-bench Scottish Labour MP, who could be huckled out of the bar late at night and steered through the appropriate voting lobby as desired by the Party Whips.

Fast forward 40 years and said “Low-flying Jimmie” would be enobled as Lord Hauf-cut of Halbeath and sent to The Place Of The Living Dead – the House of Lords.

But, oor Jimmy wisnae clever enough for that, instead, he must earn a crust by making a c*nt of himself as a Labour List MSP at Holyrood – a task he performs entirely to his own satisfaction and to the daily thanks of the Holyrood sketch writers, for whom he is a constant and generally unwitting source of good copy.

Mr Kelly, who was handed his erse on a plate by the good burghers of Rutherglen at the last Holyrood Election, is also a prominent member of The Celtic Family. We hear his knowledge of “Irish Rebel” anthems is almost, but not quite on-par with that of the Right Honourable The Lord Reith of Cardowan, aka former Celtic Chairman John Reid.

Mr Kelly, like more than a few members of TCF was in favour of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, when it was introduced – apparently since he thought its introduction would mean the staunch, dignified gentlemen, given to wearing brown brogues, bowler hats, sashes and, on Saturdays supporting a certain football club which plays its home games at Ibrox Stadium – would be prevented from singing their traditional Ulster folk songs, celebrating the Apprentice Boys of Derry closing the city gates to King James II and his army; or their traditional Glasgow folk song with its line about being: “Up tae wur knees in Fenian blood”, or their modern folk tale: 'The Famine Song'.

It never crossed Mr Kelly and his supporters' minds that, fine folk songs though they are – in the context of what the mainstream media calls: “an Old Firm game”, singing the likes of 'Sean South', 'The Fields of Athenry' or even: 'The Soldier's Song' might be construed as offensive behaviour at football.

So, he (Mr Kelly), has mounted a campaign to have OBFA repealed. However, being James Kelly, he has gone about in the most cack-handed, inept way possible, making himself look even stupider. They say a country gets the politicians it deserves – ok, England probably deserves Nigel Farage, Bo-Jo and Michael Gove, to name but three. I cannot figure out what terrible crime Scotland committed to get Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale, Jacqui Baillie and most-certainly James Kelly, all at the same time.

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As I have said many times in these columns, OBFA is bad law. It was badly-drafted, it was hurriedly drafted, barely debated and rushed onto the statue book. It needs tweaking.

But, until the SFA enforces “strict liability” and makes the clubs responsible for the behaviour of their fans, it's perhaps the best deterrent we have got against offensive behaviour at football.

Maybe, if Mr Kelly had had an active brain cell, he would get onside in improving this act, rather than trying to have it done away with.

Make no mistake, tomorrow's Holyrood debate is NOT about repealing, or changing OBFA – it is yet another case of the Tories, in one of wilder moments, seeking to divert attention away from the way their overlords in London are shafting Scotland, putting down a motion which has but one intent – to try to show: “SNP Bad”. In seeking to assist them, Mr Kelly is (again) demonstrating - he is an embarrassment – to himself, his party and his football team.

AS I have said before, my late father was one of only two openly-Tory voters in our wee Ayrshire mining village. He was also secretary of the local branch of the old Scottish Unionist Party. Mind you, he was never “Orange”, indeed he had a healthy scepticism – which I inherited – concerning both the Orange Order and the Freemasons.

But, parential influences stick. I have, hitherto, always bought and worn a poppy. I have nothing but respect for and pride in the achievements of, the many Scottish soldiers, sailors and airmen who went off to fight in both World Wars and who did not return.

I have seen, at first hand, the young men of this village, thankfully denied the opportunity to be killed in a roof fall, or maimed by an equipment failure down the now closed local deep mines, who have nevertheless, through economic necessity, found it impossible to refuse the Queen's Shilling – only to be traumatised and lessened by the many colonial wars which Westminster's existing colonial mind-set still gets us into.

I respect anyone who will voluntarily put himself in harm's way, at the behest of some chinless Old Etonian with a “Desmond” from some Oxbridge college.

But, I draw the line at the current fashion for “poppy fascism”. I will not subscribe to the belief that, for me not to wear a poppy is to be somehow, un-British, to disrespect our Armed Forces.

But, while I believe the ban is wrong, because I do not see the poppy as a political symbol, I am not going to get too-aerated about the ban on the two teams at Wembley next week from having poppies sewn into their shirts.

I don't think the Europeans who are enforcing the ban know what the poppy stands for – just as I think the modern-day politicians and media commentators who enforce poppy fascism have forgotten – if they ever knew.

CELTIC are in Monchengladbach tonight, on what seems to some - “Mission Impossible” - to rescue their Champions League campaign and keep open the increasingly-forlorn prospect of grabbing the Europa League place.

You can never say never, but, I suspect not even this post's best pal, James Kelly MSP, believes Celtic's European season will end with the conclusion of the group games.

Brendan Rodgers is playing a blinder in trying to cheer-up the troops; he is saying all the right things, but, in truth, he is farting against thunder and football reality.

Celtic are, by a distance, the best team in Scotland, but, they are way off the pace in Europe. Getting them back to where they once were, a generation or two ago, will take a lot of work from Celtic, but, it will require too even more work from their competitors in Scotland.

If the other clubs can up their game, forcing Celtic to, in turn, up their domestic game, then they will surely, I would hope, do better in Europe.