FOR THE first time in long enough, I listened to Off the Ball on BBC Shortbread on Saturday. One of the items which Stuart and Tam inserted into the programme was an interesting piece on the long-term effect of heading the ball. They tackled, in the course of this discussion, the urban myth that the game was more-dangerous back in the days of leather balls. As was pointed out, the modern ball weighs exactly the same as the old leather ball.
I have a gut feeling, nothing more, that perhaps there was a bit more “give” in the old leather ball than the modern laminate ball. I have no evidence, far-less proof of this, but, I wonder if it's worth investigating, and we may yet see the old T-ball of legend brought back.
ALSO ON Saturday, we had a mistake which we Kilmarnock fans will go to our graves complaining about – when we were denied a perfectly-good goal, with play brought back to award us a penalty, which we then missed.
Maybe it wasn't as bad as that Frank Beattie goal that Tiny Wharton chalked off against Hearts in the League Cup Final back in the early sixties, but, it still hurt.
I could claim, it could only happen to Kilmarnock, but, I guess fans of every other Scottish club could probably dig-up an incident where a referee cost their side a perfectly good goal with a similar error.
But, fair play to Kevin Clancy, the referee concerned. He came straight out post-game and admitted he had boobed. Now this may well be the first recorded instance ofa Scottish referee making “an honest mistake,” even though, over the 150 years of the Scottish game, we have seen many “honest mistakes” - usually to the benefit of two clubs.
Maybe we should look at something like rugby's Penalty Try law, whereby, if an incidence of foul play prevents a goal from probably having been scored, then the goal is awarded.
The only drawback to that in Scotland is – how many “honest mistakes” would that provoke?
Speaking of honest mistakes – what about that disallowed Rangers' goal from Sunday. I honestly feel this is one of these cases which shows the application of VAR is flawed, badly flawed. I thought VAR was only supposed to get involved when there was “clear and obvious evidence of a mistake having been made.”
Well, the incident which led to the goal being chalked off was neither clear, nor obvious and it took about three looks at it in ultra-slow motion before the foul was given.
Watching the highlights on BBC Shortbread on Sunday night, I actually thought the incident which deserved greater analysis and which to me looked like an even-bigger honest mistake than the chalking off of the Rangers' goal, was the penalty they didn't get when Cantwell was felled in the box. To me, that was clear use of the elbow, but, it wasn't given.
After those two decisions, I fear the Celtic Family cannot use their normal excuse of: “We never get contentious decisions in Old Firm games.” They got away with two on Sunday.
Slow motion comes into play too in Rugby Union, I far prefer the American Football protocol for television review of incidents. These are always made in real time, and I reckon that's the fairest way. The referee only gets to see it in real time, so too should the back-up guys.
But, regardless of the howls of anguish coming from the beaten half of Glasgow, the fact is – Celtic, the less-bad of two poor sides, probably deserved to win. By Old Firm standards, the present squads are not good enough.
BACK IN the now sepia-tinted days of the 1950s, World Cup qualifiers were, up until the 1958 tournament at any rate, an add-on to the Home Internationals. How they scheduled the internationals back then was also interesting.
The only game for which the SFA cleared the schedule was the bi-annual visit of England to Hampden. The home games against Northern Ireland and Wales were midweek affairs, the away games in Belfast and Cardiff were Saturday games, but, there was still a domestic programme back in Scotland.
Later, in the 1960s, it was decided, if a club had three or more players in a Scotland squad, playing on a Saturday, they could call off their domestic game.
We are now, four fixtures into a 38-game campaign, seeing the top flight put on hold, while Scotland plays games on a Friday night, in Cyprus, then Tuesday night at Hampden. To me, that's crazy.
It is even crazier when you realise, Stevie Clarke's 23-man squad contains a mere six players from Scottish clubs:
Sander Clark (Heart of Midlothian)
Liam Kelly (Motherwell)
John Souttar (Rangers)
Ryan Jack (Rangers)
Callum McGregor (Celtic)
Laurence Shankland (Hearts)
Realistically, of these half dozen players, only Celtic skipper McGregor has a chance of starting either game – so, why do we need to cancel one week's fixtures? Better say I to have the domestic games on and fans through the turnstiles.
FINALLY – the first qualifying round of the Scottish Cup got underway at the weekend, and, it is still strange to see so-many of the great names of Junior Football involved at this stage, although I dare say, we will get used to it.
Auchinleck Talbot are in the early stages of a squad rebuild this season, with several long-serving players having departed Beechwood Park. Results to date in the West of Scotland League have had one or two of the less-indulgent fans, who forget the dire straits Talbot was in BWK – that's Before Willie Knox, calling for the head of the club's second legendary manager – Tucker Sloan.
But, it's amazing the effect a national trophy can have on the 'Bot; they opened their campaign with a 12-0 thrashing of Wigton and Badenoch on Saturday.
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