A Busy Week For Scottish Fitba

DISAPPOINTED though I am at Wee Billy Dodds losing his job at Inverness – I remain hopeful of the silver lining, that some day he will return home and manage Glenafton Athletic. However, the Wee Man's departure has brought “Duncan Disorderly” - big Duncan Ferguson – back to Scottish fitba. My advice to those young whipper-snappers now writing about the game and covering Caley games: be careful, treat the big man with respect.

Big Duncan has worked under some excellent managers during his career and he has done well on occasions when stepping up in a caretaker role at Everton, I can see him making some big waves at Inverness Caledonian Thistle and I am jealous of Alasdair Fraser, the go-to man for football coverage in the Highland capital; his life is going to get a bit more exciting in the months to come, I fancy.

I DON'T bother much with Women's Football. I wish no harm to the girls playing and wish them all the best; Hell, my grand-daughter was the first girl to ever play for her Primary School's football team. So, for a time I had good reason to watch.

But, at the top end, while technically, some of the players are very-good; I am on record, for instance, as believing Caroline Weir has the best left foot since Jim Baxter's in Scottish football – somehow, the women's game has never grabbed me.

I watched a bit of the Scotland v Belgium game on Tuesday night, but, realistically, it didn't hold my interest. It was a wee bit like watching the pre-Stevie Clarke Men's team. My over-riding view was: “We could play here all night and we will never score.”

The Belgians caught us with a sucker punch – the defending prior to their goal was almost Old Firm class in its ineptitude – and I couldn't see us equalising, after the better chances we had spurned. But, we scraped a draw with the last kick of the ball, so, we are still, albeit in intensive care, alive in what is turning into a Nations League “group of death.”

One thing I did take from the game was the higher level of punditry on offer from BBC Shortbread. Instead of the often inane banter we have to endure from what I refer to as the Dukla Pumpherston squad, the half-time analysis from Jen Beattie and Lee Anne Crichton was a cut above normal.

In Lee Anne and Julie Fleeting, we have two extremely-good ladies, while Ms Beattie and her brother Johnnie, British Rugby Union's go-to man in France seem set to enjoy as long and rewarding a media career as their father John Beattie has enjoyed.

I WAS SAD to hear of the death, at 79 of Jim Forrest, the former Rangers and Aberdeen striker, who won five Scotland caps in the 1960s. For all the attention which Ally McCoist's goal-scoring record has rightfully gained over the years, the fact is, on a strict goals-per-game basis, Forrest is Rangers' most-prolific post WWII goal scorer.

In 163 first team games, Forrest scored 145 goals; that's 0.89 gpg; McCoist scored 355 goals in 581 first team games, an average of 0.61 gpg.

Forrest, of course, was ruthlessly jettisoned after Rangers lost to Berwick Rangers in the Scottish Cup in 1967. What might he have achieved had the Rangers management of the time not panicked at that defeat?

He was a Rangers supporter as a boy. The club genuinely was the only one he ever wanted to play for and, once they let him go, in all probability his motivation decreased. But, at his best with the club, more-so when playing with his cousin, Alex Willoughby, he scored for fun.

WATCHING the Rangers v Livingston game on TV on Wednesday night I thought we got the textbook example of an “honest mistake by Willie Colllum.”

When even the obligatory Rangers fan with a microphone – in this case Alex Rae, reckons Rangers' Abdallah Sima committed a foul in the build-up to a goal, then you have to ask two questions:

1. Did Willie Collum have his eyes shut?

2. What was the VAR doing? Surely the incident should have been reviewed.

I don't think I am the only guy watching who thought: had that been the other way the incident would have been checked. That's the problem with VAR, the human element – the big two will seemingly still get the benefit of “honest mistakes.”

Notwithstanding the fact they scored four very-good goals, I still maintain, the majority of the Rangers squad are simply not Rangers class, but, they're playing in a terrible league, so, they could well win it.

THE LEAGUE CUP quarter-final broadcast was followed by the live semi-final draw. This threw-up the potential for an all-Edinburgh final; with four poor teams through, it could happen.

Should it come down to a Capital Clash, might they switch the venue to Murrayfield and see if the locals could fill it? Or might it be a game which they could reasonably utilise the SRU's mini-Legoland 'Hive?'

FINALLY – the continued decline and fall of the once-mighty (Glasgow) Herald, part 365.

This week on the paper's Facebook page page they posted a picture from a 1933 Arsenal v Rangers game. The extended caption informed us that Rangers had celebrated their 50^th anniversary in 1973. That year, of course, they marked their Centenary – the Golden Jubilee was celebrated in 1923.

I suggested this mistake was unacceptable, for what styles itself a newspaper of record, and several old journalist hands backed me on this. However, one former “vice chairman of the Lap-Top Loyal” took umbrage at my criticism, which given his best work has been a Rangers' history book struck me as being slightly odd.

Well, being a dinosaur, I suppose I am out of touch with modern ways. At least the retired Herald sub who used to be RWM of the Lap-Top Loyal did agree with me, and, as he said: “It would never have happened in my day.”