It's Shite Being Scottish

THE HEADLINE above this post is, as every red-blooded Scot should know, taken from “Renton's Rant” in 'Trainspotting'. I reckon it pretty-much sums up how we are all feeling this morning.

“It’s SHITE being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a SHITE state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!”

If only Stuart Armstrong had passed left, or whacked that ball into Row Z; if only Saturday had not been the day for Craig Gordon to show, he has crossed the brow of the hill and his considerable goalkeeping talents are in decline – we would all have gone to work this morning, smiling, cock-a-hoop, in full: “Here's tae us, wha's like us” mode.

Aye, Renton, or more-properly, Hibs supporter Irvine Welsh hit it on the head – it is shite being Scottish.

I might be old enough to know better, but, I still find myself thinking this present crop of Scottish players are poor. Aye, Leigh Griffiths is no Denis Law, Scott Brown isn't Billy Bremner, Tierney and Robertson will never be as good as Jardine and McGrain - we will never see another Baxter, or a second Jimmy Johnstone, or Davie Cooper.

 Even with these two in the team, we struggled at times

The present lot are honest triers, journeymen, when we, the poor bloody infantry of the Tartan Army are crying-out for a return to the halcyon days of the 1960s and 1970s, when Scotland was a real force in world football.

EXCEPT – our percentages of wins in each decade since the end of World War II are as follows:

1940s – 41.18%

1950s – 47.76%

1960s – 46.03%

1970s – 42.05%

1980s – 39.77%

1990s – 41.57%

2000s – 38.82%

2010s – 41.55%

In these seven and a bit decades since the end of the War, we have averaged 42.45% wins in international football. Over that lifetime, our best season of the 71 we have played was season 1948-49, when we posted a 100% winning record – four wins from four games. Our second-best was season 1975-76, when we posted an 85.71% winning record and our third best was season 1950-51, when we won 75% of our internationals.

Only 17 times in these 71 seasons have we won more than half of the internationals we played. So, even when we had Jim Baxter playing keepie-uppie at Wembley, Jinky turning Terry Cooper inside-out, when Lawrie Reilly was drawing the template for last-minute heroics from Hibs's-supporting Scotland number nines, or Denis Law was inspiring Hmpden Roars, we we not exactly setting the footballing heather aflame.

Lawrie Reilly, the template for last-minute-goal-scoring Hibs supporters in the Scotland team

 

You know, maybe we are shite, and simply have to learn how to live with it.

POOR wee Alan McCrae, the President of the SFA – an honest greasy pole climber, who isn't even household name in his own household, has enraged the massed ranks of the Orcs and Modred over the weekend – by suggesting it would be no bad thing if Celtic, or any club for that matter, never again produced an invincible season.

I actually saw nothing wrong with Mr McCrae's comment – always assuming the “stenographers (copyright Phil Mac Giolla Bhain) took-down his comments correctly. It was a wonderful feat by Celtic to go through the entire domestic campaign unbeaten – I mean, we have been playing organised football in leagues since 1890 and this is the first time any club has gone through the entire season without losing at least one domestic game.

If it has taken 126 years for this to happen, by the law of averages, it should not happen again for a long, long time.

But, the President's words were seized-upon by The Most-Easily-Upset Fans In The World, as an attack on their divine right to win everything. Their club, after all has never been defeated but always cheated since 1888.

The other cheek of the sectarian erse also farted out its disapproval. Mr McCrae appeared to be suggesting the natural order of things, currently being seriously upset by SFA shennanigans designed to punish Ra Peepul, should not be allowed to return in due course.

Aye, don't you just love the sense of entitlement which exudes from either side of the great divide.

Scottish football needs competition; we need to see the destination of the league title going down to the wire, with more than simply the same-old two clubs fighting it out, with the rest nowhere.

You know, there have only ever been, since the Scottish League was formed in 1890-91, three seasons in which both Celtic and Rangers failed to win at least one of the three main trophies (ok, I know, it has only been possible to win three national trophies since 1946-47).

These seasons were:

1894-95: Hearts won the League, St Bernard's the Scottish Cup

1951-52: Hibs won the League, Motherwell the Scottish Cup, Dundee the League Cup

1954-55: Aberdeen won the League; Clyde the Scottish Cup, Hearts the League Cup

I suppose that level of dominance of the trophies would give any fan of the two dominant clubs a sense of entitlement.

Alan McCrae is correct, it would be no bad thing for Scottish football if we never again saw one club so dominant, and, if the trophies were shared around a bit more evenly.

And just think, IF say Celtic was suddenly to unearth a squad of gilded youths – a 21^st century Class of '92 if you like, and that young squad was to go out and win the Challenge Cup – you know, that diddy cup the big teams are not allowed to enter their first teams into, well, what would that say about competition in Scotland?

CONGRATULATIONS to England's Under-20s, for winning the FIFA Under-20 World Cup. Do you think this might shut-up the English media from rehashing 1966 and all that every opportunity? No, me neither.