THE IMAGE below was unashamedly stolen from a Facebook post put up by a former Scotland cap. I can only echo his sentiments – chapeau to the Clyde fans who arranged this tribute to “Bleeper” appropriately at New Douglas Park, Hamilton, given Craig was raised and schooled in that town.
IT WOULD have been most-unScottish for us to have put Norway to the sword last night at Hampden, we tend not to win with style these days, and it's a long, long time since Denis Law used to score multiple goals for fun against our friends from across the North Sea.
We should remember too, when the qualifiers began, Norway were actually seeded above us, so I wasn't too-disappointed at the match ending 3-3. That's the qualifiers over, we're going to Germany, the Norwegians aren't and that's all that matters.
The next big date in our diaries is the actual draw for next summer's finals, which will be made in Hamburg, on 6 December. As yet there are no confirmed warm-up games arranged, but Stevie Clarke will surely be looking to have at last two and hopefully three games arranged for next Spring to prepare for the big show.
As things stand, and barring injuries or a catastrophic loss of form, Clarke probably already knows the majority of his squad.
Goalkeepers: (if fit) – Angus Gunn, Craig Gordon and one from Zander Clark, Liam Kelly and Robbie McCrorie.
Defenders: Ryan Porteous, Jack Hendry, Scott McKenna, Kieran Tierney (if fit)
Wing Backs: Nathan Patterson, Andy Robertson
Midfielders: John McGinn, Callum McGregor, Scott McTominay, Billy Gilmour, Stuart Armstrong, Lewis Ferguson, Ryan Christie, Kenny McLean, Ryan Jack
Strikers: Lyndon Dykes, Che Adams
That's 20 guys who can be fairly-certain they will be involved in the summer, leaving three places to be filled, and few opportunities remaining for fringe players such as Lawrence Shankland, (less so if the Scottish Media can get him that much-touted move to Rangers), Jacob Brown, Liam Cooper, Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston, Greg Taylor, not to mention guys who are, at the moment, “left field picks” such as the much-touted Newcastle United pair Eliot Anderson and Anthony Gordon, or Liverpool youngster Ben Doak.
So, plenty to keep Clarke occupied and thinking between now and the big kick-off in Germany.
THE NATIVES are restless in the quaint former mining village in East Ayrshire which I call home. The local junior football team is in a bit of a crisis, floundering in the relegation zone in the ultra-competitive West of Scotland Football League.
They went off the boil in the Spring, towards the end of last season, and have since gone through two managerial teams – which has failed to produce even one new manager bounce but merely seen the gloom deepen.
Mind you, the West League is so-competitive, a couple of wins could catapult them to mid-table, but, the consequences of not escaping the relegation zone are too terrible for the locals to contemplate.
I have already thrown-in my twopenceworth. The most-celebrated player this village has produced in the last 30 years recently departed the senior club where he was Manager and is currently strutting his stuff as a BBC Shortbread pundit.
When the club was in a similar pickle just over 30 years ago, the then committee made what some locals, as well as fans of the team's two bitter local rivals, described as a daft move – they recruited a legendary Scottish internationalist as player-manager, and went off on a glorious five-year journey which didn't half lift the gloom which the closure of the local mines had cast over the village.
I hope my suggestion, that they bring our local hero home – expensive though he might be – is taken up, we could do with some excitement around here.
GIVEN the massive ten-points deduction which Everton have been handed for non-compliance with Football's Financial Fair Play rules, I have a feeling it's getting very close to “Squeaky bum time” at some of the other English clubs whose fortunes have been totally transformed by the injection of petro-dollars.
Or, as I suspect might happen, will the Middle East liking for “backsheesh” persuade the powers that be at Wembley and St George's Park that the clubs as yet untried beyond the Court of Public Opinion really have been playing to the rules. After all, money talks, and one or two clubs have a great deal more than Everton.
FINALLY – Much talk among football's chattering classes this week about a return to the UK for former Ranger Ryan Kent. I have even seen it suggested, Kent might be a January target for Celtic.
I therefore felt, I had to include this snippet, heard down the pub the other night – it comes from 'Billy King', one of the many Huns you find in this village – where they used to give away framed pictures of King Billy on his white horse, alongside the keys to a council house.
Billy said: “Aye, he was never really Rangers class – so he would fit-in fine at the Stadio de Giro.”
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