A Wee Bit Of Film Inspiration For Scotland

SORRY – a wee bit late in getting there, but, having got Friday night's rugby epic in Paris, and Number Two Grandson's mega-epic birthday party on Saturday out of the way, I can reflect on Thursday night's draw with Austria and look forward to tonight's game in Tel Aviv.

The big talking point from Thursday night was the penalty we were not given. That was a stonewaller every day of the week – I think even the members of the Refereeing Loyal would have given Celtic a penalty at Ibrox were such an incident to happen in an Old Firm game. That it wasn't given is a permanent black mark on the escutcheon of the match officials.

Stevie Clarke's current squad is not yet a great Scotland one. However, under a very-good manager, they have a unity of purpose and a will-to-win which has not always been evident in Scotland squads. I fancy they can win tonight, but, would settle for us not losing.

Last week a I watched, on Netflix, a “docu-drama” - 'The Summer of '92,' about Denmark winning that year's UEFA European Championships. You might recall, after falling short in the qualifying campaign, the Danes, under the far from popular Richard Møller Neilsen, were, some cases literally, rounded-up off the beach to replace the suspended Yugoslavs. Unfancied and un-rated, they got over a slow start to win the tournament.

I commend this Danish film to the House, it's a great watch, but, the underlying message is – nil desperandum, miracles do happen. It would be nice if a minor miracle overtook the Scotland team over this summer.

YOUTH development doesn't get a lot of discussion when it comes to Scottish Fitba – more's the pity. In fact, I often feel a good Scottish player comes through in spite of, rather than because of our development system, such as we have one.

Right now, there is a wee bit of talk about development, principally around the suggestion that the Old Firm pairing should be allowed to field reserve teams in the lower leagues of Scottish senior football.

This makes sense, on just one level, and it is this. Rangers and Celtic have more fans than every other Scottish club – each has upwards of 40,000 season ticket holders. The next-biggest Premier Division ground only holds at best some 20,000 fans, so, even if the bulk of the Old Firm's core support wanted to follow their team to an away fixture – they couldn't, because they would not get in.

But, supposing the Rangers or Celtic first team was up at Aberdeen or Ross county on league duty, and only able to take a limited number of fans with them – there would be a lot of fans willing to turn-up at Ibrox or Celtic Park, to see their Colts team take on a lower division club, such as Queen's Park or Partick Thistle.

Even if the OF first team was away from home, an away Colts fixture closer to home than the first team one might attract a good few OF fans, boosting the gate income of the lower league club hosting them.

Say the OF club had a young player who was starting to make waves, and being touted as; “the next big thing,” you would surely expect the fans to turn out to check-out his progress.

I have to admit, that is the only reason I can think of for allowing OF Colts teams to play in the senior leagues. And, I honestly don't think any of the other full-time clubs could rightly claim they have enough fans to justify having their second team in the lower divisions.

What I think would be better would be a total overhaul of the Scottish League. Four divisions, with a total of 42 clubs is, for my money, two divisions and some 20 clubs too many; come down to two divisions, or better still, American-style conferences, with a maximum of 12 clubs in each. Below that, make it regionalised.

I could make a case for these regional leagues to be like the minor leagues in American baseball – with each club tied to one of the big teams and filling a player development role for that club.

JOCK STEIN'S job, up there in the Great Pavilion in the sky, managing Scotland's Heavenly XI, got harder in recent weeks, with the passing of first Ian St John, then Peter Lorimer. Lorimer, who lost his battle with Cancer, was possible the best player I played against. We were contemporaries in Schools football and, even then, it was clear he was going to be good.

He flourished under Don Revie's development system at Elland Road, where he was a key member of one of the best teams in British football history. Peter was revered for his fierce shot, one of the hardest in football history, but, he was more than just a superb striker of the ball.

He played some 800 games for Leeds in more than 20 years on their playing staff. Add another 100 games with lesser clubs, plus internationals, and his playing career, which lasted 23 years, was exceptional. He scored an average of 0.3 goals per game, which is good going for a player who was essentially a midfielder. There are international strikers playing today who cannot match that strike rate.

In retirement, he ran a pub, close to Elland Road, which was a must-visit for football fans to the city, while he was a star turn for the Leeds United Legends team. Later on he had a spell on the Leeds board and was a highly-popular Club Ambassador.

He also scored one of the iconic Scotland goals, our first against Zaire, during the unbeaten 1974 World Cup Finals campaign. He was always very-good with journalists, when asked to comment on Leeds or Scotland issues.

For Scotland, he was maybe under-capped, with just 21 appearances in the big team, however, he is not the only player of whom that could be said. He was, however, by any measure – a Scotland Great, and not merely as a member of that wonderful unbeaten 1974 squad.

My Father Was Simply The Best - Wearing His Sash Down The Penny Arcade

WE DON'T have many banjo players here in the hollers of Hole in the Wall, East Ayrshire – the natives' annoying musical instrument of choice tends to be the flute. Boy were the local “musicians” busy yesterday: 'Simply the Best,' “penny Arcade' and, from the more-traditionally-minded – 'The Sash' were all getting laldy, as the true believers celebrated title number 55.

Aye, it's been a long time coming, but, as Big Carson, the Chief Bigot in the village, was swift to inform me yesterday: “Ra boays is back oan tap, where we belong.”

Pressure just increased on my old mate Dominic McKay, to get his managerial appointment right, when he swaps the alligator-rich swamp of Edinburgh's EH12 post code for that nest of vipers at the top of Kerrydale Street, in post code G40 3RE.

To be honest, I feel Rangers have played some very-good football this season, particularly in Europe. They have thoroughly-deserved their league win, and whoever picks-up the job of dethroning them for Celtic, he faces a huge challenge.

Stevie Gerrard's challenge, meanwhile, is to keep the team focussed. They have now achieved their principal ambitions for this season – killed-off “ten-in-a-row,” achieved the magic 55, but, the team is still in Europe, they can still achieve a league and cup double, and an unbeaten league season is still on the cards. Plenty there to keep the squad focussed and sharp.

Celtic, meanwhile have a different set of priorities. Some of the foreign mercenaries might be thinking of jumping ship, while for others, it's all about making themselves well-nigh indispensable, when the new boss is appointed. Whoever gets the gig, will almost certainly want to bring in his own players, so, stand-out performances between now and next season just make holding onto a first-team jersey that bit easier.

We are now down to the sharp end of the season, with the top-bottom six split. I think, at the top, the European places for next season are now more or less settled, the main interest will be in the bottom six, and the fight to avoid relegation.

As a Kilmarnock fan, I am worried – I can honestly see our long tenure in the top-flight in real danger over the coming weeks. This has been a dire season for the club; they have not had a “new boss bounce” from the arrival of Tommy Wright, and I am frankly, deeply-concerned.

Still, assuming Ayr United can stay up, there is always the prospect of four Ayrshire Derbies to look forward to in next season's Championship. Because, even if Killie can finish second bottom and get into the play-off, I have no great faith in their ability to win that nerve-shredder.

Finally, before I close this shorter-than-usual blog post. Why all the hand-wringing about Rangers' fans' bad behaviour over the weekend. They have never believed they ought to behave with decorum and good sense – it simply isn't in the average Bear's DNA.

Do Bears shit all over good sense and decorum? You betcha they do. 'Twas ever thus.

Farewell to The Saint

WE WERE colleagues together on the late-lamented Sunday Standard sports pages. It was always a joy to talk to him about football, and particularly about Willie Shankly, so I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing, aged 82 of Ian St John.

Saint and Greavsie was a great football show, it was funny, the two presenters realised football was a peripheral activity on life, but, they knew their stuff – having been two of the best strikers in a Golden Age for goal-scorers. In some ways, however, the success of that show rather over-shadowed what they had done on the park. Yes, Saint and Jimmy Greaves were terrific on-screen personalities, but, as TV performers, they were nowhere as good as they were on the football park.

He was a Motherwell boy, joining his home-town team straight from school, as a part-timer, while enduring an apprenticeship which he hated, at the Motherwell Bridge engineering company. The Steelmen sent him out to Douglas Water to be toughened-up in the juniors, before bringing him back once they realised – this young man was a natural goal-scorer.

He was one of the legendary “Ancell Babes” squad, nurtured by Motherwell manager – the former Scotland internationalist Bobby Ancell. Four of the Babes' forward line: Billy Hunter, St John, Pat Quinn and Andy Weir played for Scotland. The fifth forward, Sammy Reid, would later in his career score one of the most-celebrated goals in Scottish football history, for Berwick Rangers against Glasgow Rangers, to clinch one of the greatest cup upsets ever.

Half-backs John Martis and Bert McCann also became full internationalists, while

Bobby Roberts won Under-23 honours, and a big-money transfer to England.

St John won the first of his eventual 21 full caps in a 3-2 Hampden win over West Germany, on 6 May, 1959. He was never an automatic choice for his country. For instance, he was one of the players dropped after the 3-9 humiliation of Wembley 1961, but, his part in the victories at Hampden in 1962 and back at Wembley in 1963 made up for that horror show.

“I was on the park that day, but, in truth I didn't play,” he told me when I once raised the thorny subject of that April afternoon with him.

It was suggested during his Scotland career, that he didn't score enough goals, he managed nine for Scotland, an average of 0.47 per game. However, he supplied plenty of “assists” and although he didn't score that day, I recall him giving Wolves' Bill Slater a torrid time in the drawn Hampden game with England in 1960. That day, he did everything but score, and that was typical of his performances in dark blue.

He also played for Motherwell, on the night of 1 March, 1961, when they thumped Rangers 5-2 in a Scottish Cup replay, at Ibrox. Needless to say, he scored one of the goals and that goal helped secure him a move south, when Liverpool boss Willie Shankly paid a then club-record fee of £37,500 to take him to Anfield. That equates to just under £872,000 today, which indicates what a bargain Shankly struck, given the impact St John would have on Merseyside.

He scored 105 goals in144 Motherwell appearances.

He impressed immediately, scoring a hat-trick in his debut against Everton in the Liverpool Senior Cup, before going on to help Liverpool return to the English top-flight.

His 21 goals helped the Reds win the English First Division (now the Premiership) in 1964, but, his superstar status on Merseyside was clinched the following season, with his extra-time diving header past Leeds' goalkeeper Gary Sprake, to clinch Liverpool's first FA Cup win.

He spent ten years at Anfield, playing 425 games, scoring 118 goals and becoming a cult hero to the Koppites. Along the way he inspired a famous piece of Liverpool grafitti, when a “Jesus Saves” poster was defaced with the line - “but St John nets the rebound.”

He had a short spell in South Africa, before running down his career with Coventry City and Tranmere Rovers. He hung up his boots in 1973 and returned to Motherwell as manager. He then had a spell as Portsmouth boss, before finishing his active career in the game as a coach at Coventry City and Sheffield Wednesday.

From 1979, when he left Wednesday, he concentrated on media work, and was a very-popular turn on the after-dinner speaking circuit, while also establishing the successful American-style Ian St John Summer Football Camps. His partnership with Greaves ran on TV from 1985 until 1992, while he also wrote for several newspapers.

He was perhaps always destined for a career on TV. The BBC ran a nationwide competition to find a new commentator to go to the 1970 World Cup Finals in Mexico. St John entered and reached the final (anonymously). His commentary in the final was outstanding, but, Sir Alf Ramsey, one of the judges, showing his legendary anti-Scottish bias, made it clear he would not countenance a Scot winning it; so Welshman Idwal Robling got the gig – and seldom got past BBC Wales on TV, while Saint was a national figure.

In 2008 he was inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame. Strangely, he is not in the Liverpool Hall of Fame, but, is listed on fan-generated sites, such as 100 Players Who Rocked The Kop.

Ian St John's final years were blighted by Cancer, but, he never lost his impish sense of humour and his passion for the game of football. He will be sorely missed, and mourned by all who saw him play.

My thoughts are with his widow, Betsy, daughter Elaine and son Ian Junior.