A Sad Week, But, Some Uplifting Moments

IN THE last month I have written obituaries on three wonderful footballers, who were also among the finest of men. We will struggle to see the likes of Eric Caldow, Billy McNeill and Stevie Chalmers again.

The late Stevie Chalmers - in a "proper" Celtic strip

I love writing obituaries – of course, I am sad that, as everyone must, the subjects have reached their allotted span in this live – but, I feel it is an honour to tell their stories to a new generation, most of whom never saw them play; to tell today's fitba fan: “forget the hype around today's so-called “stars,” these guys were the real deal.

It is another rule of football coverage, by and large, the better the player, the lower the ego – something true about Messrs Caldow, McNeill and Chalmers.

But, while the 'Celtic Family' prepares to say their goodbyes to 'Caesar' and 'DeSteviano,' there is trouble in Paradise – the 2019-20 Celtic home kit has not been universally welcomed by the Hoops Army.

Apparently the new strip is sacrilege – because the hoops are not hoops, being broken by too much white. Well, the answer is obvious. If, as we are repeatedly told, market forces rule; if Tim or Pat doesn't like the new strip – don't buy the bloody thing.

If the staff in the various Celtic Superstores could not get through the front door for boxes of unsold strips, if New Balance ran out of warehouse space, because they could not shift the new kits, they would soon sell them off at giveaway prices, and produce a different strip which met the aesthetic standards of the fans.

But, Celtic and New Balance know, some of the fans will whinge and moan, but, before they head off to Benidrom and Lanzarote furra Ferr, Tim and Pat, wee Liam and Patricia will be kitted-out in the new strips. Fans and their hard-earned cash are easily separated.

THERE IS only one thing to be said about this week's Champions League semi-finals, and that is, these guys are playing a brand of football with which we are unacquainted here in Scotland.

I chanced upon an interesting wee piece in the website of an Irish paper this week, which commented on how football is changing. Apparently there are a lot more passes these days, and far fewer old-fashioned tackles. This is a good thing, I have long agreed with the belief, tackling should be a last resort, better to intercept a pass and counter than to risk conceding a free-kick or penalty with an ill-judged tackle.

When I was in the Under-15 team at school, the teacher who took us, brought along a “guest coach” one night. This was Tom MacDonald, a young guy from New Cumnock who had played alongside Billy Bremner for Scotland Schoolboys' Under-15 team and gone south to the Everton ground staff – back then in the early 1960s, the prelude to hopefully turning fully-professional at 17.

Tom, like so-many. Didn't make the cut and came back up the road, back to New Cumnock, where he played quite happily for Glenafton Athletic. But, in that one training session, after school on a Tuesday night, he introduced us to “two-touch football.” You controlled the ball with your first touch, passed on your second; if you didn't, your side lost possession. This would be back in 1960.

Two-touch football gradually became one-touch football, and today is the norm. I read in that Irish piece, than Manchester City, for instance, average somewhere over 700 passes per game.

Now, back in the 1870s, when Queen's Park conceived “the passing game” and in the process bamboozled the hitherto dribbling-obsessed English sides, passing was considered not quite the done thing; why, as they Scots heaped embarrassment upon embarrassment during the 1870s and 1880s, putting together a 22-match unbeaten run, between April, 1879 and March, 1888; while still considering the Scots to be cheating, the English clubs were buying-up every amateur “Scotch Professor” they could persuade to take the high road south, to teach them how to do it.

 Wing Commander Charles Reep - the guru of Gerrituprapark football

But, rather than leave well alone, John Bull had to put an English imprint on the beautiful game. Enter Wing Commander Charles Reep and classic English “Route One” football – the quicker and more-often you could get the ball into the opposition's boxes, the more goals you would score, was the theory.

Sadly, over time, we bought into this English thinking and abandoned the passing game, until, even today, if a Scottish team passes the ball around, at about the fifth pass, a mass roar of: “Gerrituprapark” will erupt from the terraces.

As a then SFA council member, memorably told Hughie McIlvanney in the Hampden car Park back in 1960, after the epic Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfort European Cup Final: “Of course the Scottish fan would not pay to watch that every week.”

Ten goals, wonderful flowing football, aye, you bet we wouldn't pay for it; we'd prefer a draw nae fitba, with three red and 12 yellow cards, four disputed penalties and a mass free-for-all in one penalty area for good measure.

Liverpool, with Scotland captain Andy Robertson one of their best performers, pretty-much matched Barcelona from penalty box to penalty box, but, when it came to putting the ball in the net, or perhaps more-markedly, keeping the opposition out, they came a poor second.

Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi, who, given he's only five foot seven, would probably have been dismissed as: “too wee” by any Scottish club scout, and never got a senior professional contract, had one of his quieter matches on Wednesday. But, he still scored twice, his second a quite wondrous free-kick from over 30-yards out. That's how to score your 600th club goal.

Did you see the shots from inside the TV booth, of Rio Ferdinand and Gary Lineker going absolutely ape-shit at the goal? Why, even Jurgen Klopp smiled – what else could he do? There is no answer to a strike like that.

And, what about some of the stuff Ajax produced in beating Tottenham on Tuesday? Quite wonderful football, of a kind you will seldom see in Scotland.

Celtic's 'Lisbon Lions,' including of course, Messrs McNeill and Chalmers, broke the “Latin” monopoly on winning the European Cup back in 1967. They failed to build on that breakthrough, however. Ajax came through in the 1970s, winning the trophy three times, since when, they have remained more-true to their club philosophy and continually been ranked above Celtic in Europe. Yet, they play, like Celtic, in one of Europe's smaller leagues.

Today, for all they are probably on the verge of reaching the European Cup Final again, Ajax are ranked 20^th in Europe, Celtic are ranked joint 46^th. Ironically alongside Inter Milan, their rivals back in 1967.

The Netherlands were Scotland's sixth international opponents. Up until 1929, we only played England, Ireland and Wales. That year, we did a European tour, playing Norway, Germany and the Netherlands, whom we beat 2-0 in Amsterdam. Since then, we have met the Netherlands a further 18 times.

In those 19 games, we have won six, drawn four and lost nine. Our wins came in 1929, 1938 and 1959, before the Netherlands broke their duck, beating an “All-Tartan XI “ drawn entirely from Scottish League clubs, 3-0 at Hampden, in 1966.

Of the 15 subsequent games, we have won just three, drawn four and lost eight. Clearly the Dutch have been doing something better than us these past 50-odd years.

So, why don't we copy them? Well we did invite their great football guru, Rinus Michels to contribute to an SFA “think tank”, whose findings are gathering dust in some lobby press off the sixth-floor corridor at Hampden, while importing Mark Wotte as SFA Performance Director in 2011 was another of those failed moves so beloved of the Hampden hierarchy.

You know, when it comes to fitba, maybe Renton was correct.