Time To think About Bonus Points

WITH little in the way of real meat to get my teeth into this close season, I have been allowing my mind to flow freely over ways of improving Scottish football.

The Beautiful Game has been organised for longer than most, but, some of the younger team sports could teach football a thing or two. For instance, in rugby, a team can earn bonus points by scoring more than three tries per game. Imagine that in football, a bonus point when the fourth goal goes in. This, I feel, would encourage more attacking football. Today, a team goes 4-2 down, they park the bus to limit further damage, but, with bonus points, they could go for 4-3 and thus set-up a more-exciting match.

Even if you lost 5-4, or 6-5 say, you would come away with a bonus point. Also, another rugby bonus system might also be tweaked for football. This is the losing bonus point, so that, if the losing side finishes within one score of the winners, they get a losing bonus point. Lose 5-4 or 6-5, you get two points – that's better than playing for a draw.

Now, I accept, the losing bonus would not really work on 1-0 or 2-1 defeats, but, if the winning side was to score three or more goals, and the losing one get within a goal of them, then they would get a losing bonus. A few seven-or-more-goal thrillers would surely boost the game.

PRESSURE – what pressure. Well done to the again Dandy Dons, for that great win last night; to go safely through to the next qualifying round of the Europa League. After Rangers and St Johnstone fell at the first, and they only got a draw in their home leg at Pittodrie, there were real fears that Aberdeen might also go out early. So, huge congratulations to Derek McInnes and his squad – this result will certainly help Scotland's co-efficient, plus the Dons' coffers.

Derek McInnes - win in Bosnia a good result for Scottish football

They now face Apollon Limassol in the next round. Cypriot football has been on the up over the past two or three seasons, so we cannot simply assume: “The opposition's from Cyprus, Aberdeen will win”. To quote the sainted Andy Roxburgh: “There are no longer any easy games in Europe”.But, that said, onwards and upwards please Aberdeen.

EARLIER this week I mentioned Gary Lineker's BBC salary. It is of course, ridiculous that Gary should earn in one year, twice what the BBC pays Scottish football for its wall-to-wall (or so it seems) coverage of the game up here; however, that's not Lineker's fault.

He clearly is a good negotiator, or, has good negotiators working for him – plus, it goes without saying, if the BBC did not pay him what he asks, then Sky probably would, while BT, for whom he also works on European nights, would pay him more too.

Maybe the SFA should be playing hard ball with Pacific Quay. Next time they start talking, maybe they should tell the Beeb to take a hike, it just might focus their minds better.

Of course, different people getting a different rate for doing the same job is nothing new. Jackie Stewart when he broke into Formula One, was being better paid than Jim Clark, who even Stewart acknowledges, was a superior driver. Clark, unlike Stewart, had no idea of his real worth, but, quickly learned from his fellow Scot.

On a personal level, I quit the best job I ever had over this – a less-talented, far-lazier fellow hack getting more money in the same department, and have never regretted it. In football, perhaps the best story about one team mate seeking parity with another concerns one of Tommy Docherty's re-signing stand-offs with Preston North End.

Apparently Tommy was offered £12 per week during the season, and £10 per week in the close season. However, he knew (Sir) Tom Finney was on £14 and £12 per week and Tommy thought this was unfair.

“Now Tommy, are you trying to tell me you're as good a player as Tom Finney an worth the same wage”, the Chairman is alleged to have asked The Doc.

 The Doc and Sir Tom Finney - equals in the close season

“Aye, I certainly am as good as Tom in the close season”, was Doc's reply – he apparently got the summer wage increase.

AS A BOY, growing up in the dreich Ayrshire of the 1950s, a Christmas highlight was unwrapping the latest edition of Hugh Taylor's Scottish Football Album. Old Hughie, later to become a loved and valued mentor to me when I first got into the mad world of sports-writing, was a master of the craft, a Kilmarnock fan who spent his entire career convincing both halves of the Old Firm, he followed the other.

Hughie worshipped Hoagy Carmichael (google him), played a mean piano and could spot a split infinitive (present-day Herald subs please google) at the other end of Hampden, and also encouraged young would-be sports writers brilliantly.

He painted wonderful word pictures, and I still remember one from 1957. The Daily Record didn't do torn crests back then, but – Rangers were in crisis. George Young had retired at the end of the previous season, to be replaced by Queen's Park's John Valentine, by common consent the best young centre-half in Scotland.

Then came “Hampden in the Sun”, 7-1 to Celtic and Billy McPhail absolutely destroyed poor John Valentine. The new boy was immediately dropped and shown the door out of Ibrox at the first opportunity.

Willie Telfer - proved rather a good stop-gap

To plug the gap, Rangers signed life-long fan Willie Telfer, a true Larkhall boy, from St Mirren. Enter Taylor, who, covering Telfer's debut - wrote that: “A Victorian gentleman wearing a lum hat could have headed away the first cross into the Rangers box, but, when Telfer did this, from the roar which surged round Ibrox, you'd have thought he had scored an Old Firm winner”.

Telfer, in a September Song cameo, steadied the ship and from despair in October the Ibrox club recovered. Hearts won the league at a canter that season, and Clyde won the Cup, but losing a semi-final replay and finishing second in the league seemed a long way off when the board made the “panic signing” of Telfer.

What has this ancient history got to do with 2017 football? You ask.

Well, Bruno Alves, a veteran centre-half, OK with 92-more Portuguese caps than Telfer had Scottish ones, has arrived at Ibrox as “the Chosen One” – brought to end the chants of: “The cry was no defenders” which have followed Rangers around for years.

Bruno Alves

The fissures in the heart of the Rangers defence last season were obvious to all. One of my old class-mates, a 71-year-old, grey-hair worn in a bun lady, who makes full use of her Pensioner's season ticket at Rugby Park, summed-up Rangers' defensive difficulties in a sentence: “When Kris Boyd can out-sprint your twin centre-halves, you should accept you've got a problem”.

I am not certain Alves could out-sprint the Tarbolton Tank over 30-metres, but, if he can plug the gaps, he will prove as smart a buy as old Willie Telfer was. I note, however, “the stenographers” as Phil Mac Giolla Bhain calls out football-writing journalists, are apparently being primed for Alves' coronation as Rangers' captain – with quotes about him “wanting to be a leader” at Ibrox.

So, he could be Davie Weir 2, only time will tell. However, this blog has never deviated from its belief, what Celtic and Rangers both need is a fan on the park, and, better still, that that fan on the park is the captain.

We may not like some of the “culture” which surrounds the Bigot Brothers, but, we have to acknowledge, playing for the jersey, rather than merely kissing the badge occasionally, still matters in Scottish football.