Disaster For Scotland - But, That's Nothing New

THERE HAS BEEN an interesting little thread developing on Facebook these past couple of days; the conversation starter posted by someone, who wondered how come the SRU could attract considerably more fans to BT Murrayfield for a meaningless World Cup warm-up game, than the SFA could persuade to traipse along to Hampden for crucial European Championship qualifiers.

Myself and my fellow Scottish sports philosopher – Aristotle Armstrong – Scottish Rugby Philosopher were discussing this very issue over a pleasant Merlot, in the staff common room last night (philosiphising over Scottish sport is a 24/7 commitment), and old Ari had a few salient points to make.

Now if the man he refers to as TCD, Scottish Rugby Union Chief Executive Officer Mark Dodson, had his way, old Armstrong would be exiled on an even-more barren and airless rock, floating in deep space than his fellow member of the Armstrong clan – yon American named Neil Armstrong – ever visited. Ari is no friend of what many folk in Scottish Rugby refer to as: The Ruling Junta inside EH12.

But, he believes, and I agree, the SFA could learn a thing or two about marketing the game from the guys at BT Murrayfield. Not least among these possible lessons would be a look at the SRU's #ASONE marketing, asserting everyone from the lowest fan to national captain Stuart McInally and national coach Gregor Townsend is singing from the same hymn sheet.

This may be true at Scotland level, but in the club game, Ari assures me, you will find rivalries and divisions as deep as those between the Old Firm and the likes of Auchinleck Talbot and Cumnock. After all, it is bred into we Scots, if you are not fighting with the English, you fight with the folk in the next village. However, one stand-out difference between the two codes of football is - in rugby, the main team is: Scotland. 

Sure we have big teams in Scotland - not as big as our football teams, but still, within the game, we have our giants. However, none of these clubs is ever thought of, by even their most-committed fans, as being more-important than the national side. Also, the SRU are not held ransom by the clubs when it comes to getting access to the players for big matches or tournaments.

No less than 24 of the 32 players who left for Japan on Monday morning are directly employed by the SRU. Twelve of them play for Edinburgh, the other 12 for Glasgow Warriors, so, the SRU, which owns both clubs, says where and when they play - they don’t have to negotiate with the clubs to have these players released for internationals.

That certainly helps cultivate the feeling, that the fans have a genuine stake in the national team and how it performs, a feeling expressed by the #ASONE motto.

Then, there is the SRU’s management model - which is based on a successful national team, selling-out BT Murrayfield, with the profits from this fed back into growing the game. Not everyone is happy, Ari tells me, but, when it comes to a tug of war between the governing body and the clubs, the governing body tends to come out on top.

The impression is, in rugby, all clubs are equal. Of course, as in football, this is not true - rugby also has its establishment clubs, just like football. However, the SRU| does not have two giant clubs, who dwarf everyone else. This season, they are introducing a new “performance league” - Super-6, with the idea of, within the next five years, “hot-housing” the best young Scottish talent, to better prepare them for top-flight rugby. Some of the oldest and most-distinguished clubs have not been able to satisfy the SRU” as to their ability to work within this new league, and have been omitted.

Imagine if the SFA decided: we are going to have a development league, for the best young players in Scotland, and one of the Old Firm clubs didn’t get in. Mind you, I doubt if either would deserve to. I recently did a spot on research on the Scotland Under-21 team, and discovered about three teams of Old Firm players who had more Scotland Under-21 caps than first team appearances for their club, and, as one former Scotland great, who strangely-enough had a wee spell as a Hampden blazer memorably remarked: “A Scotland Under-21 cap - you get one of those for knowing the ball is round.”

It also helps that the SRU puts on a better show than the SFA. The match-day experience at Murrayfield is far-superior to that at Hampden. The sight lines at the rugby ground are superior to the inadequately-re-modelled Hampden. You can even have a drink inside the stadium. Sure, ideally, we would have a purpose-built truly National Stadium, with terrific road and rail transport links, built on a green field site, somewhere central in Scotland - but, that will not happen in my life time. Even if we got Independence tomorrow, any incoming Scottish government would first have to sort-out the legacy of 300-years plus of Unionism and England being put first, before they got around to using some of Scotland’s wealth to build that stadium.

Maybe, by then the SFA would be fit for purpose, but, Ah hae ma doots on that.

It used to be said, when I was growing-up in the 1950s, after a “Disaster For Scotland,” such as the 7-0 doing from Uruguay, at the 1954 World Cup Finals, by the SFA insiders, as they were castigated in the sports pages of day: “Aye, the fans will forget all about this when we beat England.”

The trouble with that management plan was, we hadn’t beaten England since 1951 and we would not beat them again until 1962. Mind you, back then we had the odd diversionary run in Europe for our club sides - we haven’t had this for some years past this century.

The fact which, being Scottish, we are ill-disposed to face is - When it comes to football we are shite. And we have been shite for years.

The current campaign is our 14th qualifying attempt for the European Championships. We have qualified just twice in the previous 13 - a 15% qualifying rate.

Only TWICE in the previous 13 attempts, have we won more than 50% of our qualifying games, while on a further four qualifying efforts, we have broken even, by winning 50% of the games.

Over the 13 completed campaigns, we have actually only won 45.7% of the games. We do not have a God-given right to win European Championship qualifiers - we are simply not that good.

But, before we implement the necessary changes, we need our football leaders to lift their heads out of the sand, accept the realities of life and that we are poor at the game we all but invented. Only after this fact is faced can we move forward.