The Hapless Herald - Getting It Wrong Again

I STILL get the (Glasgow) Herald's morning bulletin into my inbox, but I haven't bought a hard copy of this once-great paper in years. I recall, a few years back now, telephoning the Herald Sports Desk, and getting the late Hugh McKinlay. Now, in the Herald's order of precedence of brilliant journalists, Hughie, as he would tell you himself, wasn't in the front line alongside the likes of Dan Archer or Doug Gillon, but Hughie was a brilliant sub-editor, who could polish even their glittering prose, while he could go out into the front line of match reporting and deliver the goods. He was the professional's professional.

When I asked him how things were at the top of Albion Street, back then, (this was right at the start of the bean counters down-sizing the paper) he told me: There are still, just, enough of us in here who still care, but, it's getting harder and I am counting the days until I can go.”

Shortly afterwards, Hughie did indeed go, sadly, he didn't get to enjoy a long retirement, before he was taken, too-early.

I doubt if I could have that conversation today, there are people running desks and getting by-lines in the Herald who would never have got through the doors twenty or even ten years ago.

For example, take one of today's featured pieces, by Graeme McGarry, who asks what is the point of the Scotland Under-21 team under Scot Gemmill. On the face of it, a fair question. Scotland will not be going to the 2025 European Under-21 Championships, a result which young Master McGarry thinks has got Gemmill's trackie jaiket on a shoogly nail.

Here Son, have a reality check from an old hack who has endured far-more “Disasters for Scotland” than you. Scotland failing to qualify for the finals of this competition is nothing new – we haven't managed it this century. Our last visit to the finals of this competition was when it was held in Spain in 1996.

Our record in this competition since then is:

Played 128 – won 47 – drawn 30 – lost 51 – wins per-centage 36.7%

In the qualifying competition which has just finished, we finished third in our group, behind Spain (FIFA ranking 3) and Belgium (FIFA ranking 6). Lest we forget, Scotland is currently ranked 52 by FIFA. Scotland won 50% of their games in their 2025 qualifying group, so, rather than thinking of sacking Gemill, we ought to be praising him for a better than usual campaign.

But what Master McGarry and the great brains of the Scottish Football Writers Association will not tell their readers is: it matters not a jot who is managing our Under-21 team,; you could invest in a time machine, bring back peak Alex Ferguson and give him the manager's gig and we would still fail to qualify – because Gemmill is having to work in a system which is broken and against developing young Scottish talent.

Scot Gemmill is having to largely pick from players who are not playing for really big clubs, and, if they are, they are only getting occasional minutes on the park, because the clubs' first teams are packed by inferior non-Scottish imports.

It is easier to buy a ready-made journeyman from a nation which still believes in youth development, than for the SFA to enforce a genuine youth development programme in Scotland, and until that changes, out Under-21 team will continue to fail to qualify for the big tournaments.

Them are facts – face them.

WE ALL KNOW, managing the England football team is The Impossible Job, so good luck to Thomas Tuchel, the latest schmuck to be tasked with meeting English expectations via the reality of most of the available players coming from a league which is only English in where it is based.

Mind you, I reckon, these days, managing Scotland is fast approaching English levels of impossibility, we do love to make things difficult4 for the manager in whom we trust, or do not trust as the case may be.

I was disgusted by some of the immediate comments on social media from some Rangers supporters, continuing their insidious campaign of hatred against Stevie Clarke. It is a sad condemnation of Scotland and Scottish Football that the national manager should be getting abuse from a section of the football public, probably because, for them, to use a Scottish expression: “He kicks wi the wrang fit.”

That this criticism should come from followers of a club which has very-fre Scots in its first team squad, and whose management would far-rather they were a small fish in the larger and financially deeper English Premiership pond – well, to me, they are onloy embarrassing themselves by their stupidity.

SPEAKING of people embarrassing themselves, Cristiano Ronaldo didn't do himself any favours when he spat the dummy and threw his rattle out of the pram at the end of Tuesday night's Nations Cup match at Hampden.

Sure, it must be annoying when you, who sees yourself as The G.O.A.T. miss the only two half-decent chances which come your way in a game, chances you would have buried with aplomb even five years ago; then to see your expensively-rated team unable to beat Scotland, a nation ranked 44 places below you in the Coca-Cola/FIFA World Rankings – well, I think that gives you some right to throw a wobbler.

It is common knowledge that the hardest decision a sportsman has to make is when to call it quits. To be honest, the few who have managed to get it right are hugely out-numbered by the thousands who got it wrong, who soldiered-on too-long and ended up being dumped out of a game they loved when someone, usually of inferior ability decided: “Nah! He's over the hill and it's time to put him out to pasture.”

As yet, Ronaldo has not met anyone with the strength of character to pull the plug on his career, but, on the evidence of Tuesday night, he is swirling round the stank-hole and it is perhaps time for somebody to grab the bull by the horns and save him from himself.

EMBARRASSMENT is contageous; consider the case of the reports that Manchester United has cancelled Sir Alex Ferguson's contract as Club Ambassador – a move which has brought even more abuse down on the heads of the new High Heid Yins at the club.

Club Ambassadors are a fairly recent arrival in the world of football. Time was when the Club Chairman was its Ambassador. The Manager was perhaps the public face, but when it came to the politics of the game the man seated at the top of the board room table was the Main Man.

United were perhaps fortunate in having, over many years, top shelf, football royalty in the ambassador's role. Once he stepped down as Manager, Sir Matt Busby practically invented the position, before handing it over to Sir Bobby Charlton. After Bobby's death, the role passed to Sir Alex.

The Alex Ferguson of his days as a manager, well for that Alex Ferguson, diplomacy and an ambassadorial role was a definite no-way; however, he has embraced the role of Elder Statesman and while his presence around the club was far from ideal for those attempting to fill his shoes in the technical area, he added dignitas and lustre in the directors' box.

But, this came at a price and perhaps his reported £2 million per year plus employment package is now too-much for a mid-table Premiership club. I dare say, however, he will continue to sit in his free seat at Old Trafford on match days. But, in dropping him, the new United management has given themselves a face as red as the club's shirts.

 

Do We Really Have To Cancel Everything For A Game 1400 Miles Away?

ANDY MITCHELL or Douglas Gorman I am not, but I do enjoy delving into the rich history of Scottish Football. Indeed given the parlous state of our game in this third decade of the 21^st century, there is something comforting in looking back to the days when Scotland was a genuine force in the Beautiful Game.

Back in 2018 I was doing a 90^th Anniversary of the Original Wembley Wizards piece, when a snippet from the Daily Record picqued my attention. This was an aside to the effect that when the half-time score from Wembley (England 0 – Scotland 2) was announced at Ibrox, where Rangers were in the process of beating Clyde 3-1, it produced the biggest roar of the day.

That will seem strange to modern eyes. The perception these days is that Rangers supporters are, to a man, England fans in disguise. But, surely the stranger thing is – there was a full Scottish First Division programme going on that day.

OK, there were only three Scotland-based players in the victorious XI at Wembley: goalkeeper Jack Harkness (Queen's Park), inside-right Tim Dunn (Hibs) and outside-left Alan Morton (Rangers), but I reckon, from memory, it was only in the 1970 that clubs were given a dispensation to re-arrange matches – when they had three or more players in an international squad.

Nowadays, complete swathes of fixtures are cancelled when there are internationals on the agenda. To me, this does not make sense. Scotland are in Croatia on Saturday, so why cannot we have a full programme of domestic games played. After all, it's not as if Stevie Clarke calls on Scottish-based players, only seven of his squad for the games against Croatia and Portugal are home-based and of these, only Hearts (2) and Celtic (also 2 now that Greg Taylor has pulled out) contribute more than a single player to the squad.

You look at Rugby Union, where both Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh are expected to contribute a full team of players to a Scotland squad and still play league games. After all, if our 12 top-flight teams can register 399 professionals and only 7 of them are on Scotland-duty, 1400 miles from Glasgow, what's stopping them from putting-on a full domestic programme on Saturday?

As it stands, there are only two domestic SPFL fixtures scheduled for Saturday. I fear this might be a mistake on the part of the SFA and the League. What happens if a lot of the displaced fans decide to get their Saturday Fitba Fix by taking in something like a West of Scotland League game, and realise, they are getting better entertainment and more bang for their buck there?

There are some tasty-looking South Challenge Cup Third Round ties on the calendar, I can tell you.

When I was a boy the senior football season began in August and was effectively done and dusted by the end of April. The Juniors mind you, worked to a different calendar. I remember, back when he had hair on his head rather than his chin, Chick Young announcing: “This season's Junior Football shutdown will be on a Wednesday”. I remember one season covering one Ayrshire side's first pre-season friendly one July Saturday, then Auchinleck Talbot's final cup final of the previous season the following Wednesday.

With these blank weekends for internationals, the postponed games will have to be played on a midweek, which will mean additional costs for floodlighting, police overtime and so forth. Surely, if Scotland is in Zagreb, it makes sense to tive the stay-at-home fans games to go to at 3pm on a Saturday. You never know, it might catch on.

IN A RECENT BLOG I was somewhat scathing as to the talents of Rangers' wide man Vaclav Cerny. I reckoned, on the evidence of his early displays in blue that he wasn't Rangers Class.

He has quickly discovered, expectations are high when you patrol the wider areas of Ibrox,you are being judged against legends such as Alan Morton, Willie Waddell, Alex Scott, Willie Henderson, Davie Wilson, Willie Johnston, Davie Cooper and Brian Laudrop – and that judgement is being carried out by a support which demands, rather than expects excellence.

However, watching Cerny against St Johnstone on Sunday night, I got an idea that maybe there was more to the Croat than I had initially thought. He took his goals well and looked a much better player than previously.

Maybe he is starting to find his feet in the crazy world of Scottish Football. I think there is a player in there, simply struggling to get out. It certainly does not help that the current Rangers squad is very-much a work-in-progress, in the face of impatient, over-critical fans.

SEVENTY YEARS or so ago, Scottsh Football was supposed to catch up with the modern world. Embarrassed by doings at the hands of Hungary and Uruguay the English FA and the SFA decided to inaugurate Under-23 games, to help develop the next generation of young talent and feed them into international football.

Thus, on 8 February, 1955 the nations met, at Shawfield, for their first meeting at this level. The game finished 6-0 to England, the win mainly down to a second-half hat-trick from the great Duncan Edwards of Manchester United. It would be fair to say, Scotland centre-half Doug Baillie never really recovered from the Hell which the legendary Busby Babe put him through that night.

However, four of that beaten Scottish team: Alex Parker, Eric Caldow, Dave Mackay and Graham Leggat went on to wear the full team's kit with distinction. The full Scotland team that night was: Willie Duff (Hearts); Parker (Falkirk), Caldow (Rangers), Mackay (Hearts) Baillie (Airdrie), Bobby Holmes (St Mirren), Leggat (Aberdeen), Jimmy Walsh (Celtic), Ally Hill (Clyde), Bobby Wishart (Aberdeen), Davie McParland (Partick Thistle).

Nine of the England team, by the way, went on to become full internationalists.

In the pre-game preview, the Glasgow Herald pointed-out that the entire Scotland team, with the exception of Caldow, were already first-team regulars with their clubs.

Compare that with today, where hardly any of the latest Scotland Under-21 squad are even household names in their own households; 6 of the 25 players named are on-loan to lower-ranked clubs that their original sides and the squad includes Rangers' third-ranked and Celtic's fourth-ranked goalkeepers.

As part of their Player Development Programme, the SFA has initiated the formation of a number of Performance Schools across Scotland. These are at: Aberdeen's Hazlehead Academy, Dundee's St John's RC High School, Edinb urgh's Broughton High School, Falkirk's Graeme High School, Glasgow's Holyrood Secondary, Kilmarnock's Gtrange Academy and Motherwell's Braidhurst High School.

This programme has been running since 2012 and has brought through the grand total of one player – Napoli's Billy Gilmour, the only member of Stevie Clarke's current squad who is a Performance Schools graduate.

That's an awful lot of money spent on developing one player, even if, Gilmour is a wee bit special.

I also had a look at the make-up of the current full Scotland squad. Of the 23 players in the squad, 14 are graduates from the Under-21 team, on average taking just over two years to graduate to the full team. But there is no set pattern to this promotion. Some players, such as Ben Doak James Forrest or Grant Hanley are promoted quite-quickly. Others such as Ryan Porteous can take up to five years to graduate to full honours.

Maybe we need a half-way house between the Under-21 and full teams, Berti Vogts certainly thought so, when he came up with a German-style Scotland Development Team, but that idea didn't fit with how we have always done things here – just as the Scotland B team, a concept first tried in 1952, and which, in five seasons, was the breeding ground for two full teams of capped players – never caught on.

I fear we simply have to face it, we Scots don't do player development, or even planning for such development, at all well. We prefer to trust to luck, it's the Scottish way apparently.

 

Let's Not Laugh At Celtic

SCOTLAND'S STRANGE attitude to Football was perhaps best summed-up by the late Hugh McIlvanney's almost off-hand re-telling of an encounter he had with one of the High Heid Yins of the Scottish Football Association as they departed Hampden Park following the 1960 European Cup Final, in which Real Madrid hammered Eintracht Frankfort 7-3 – the Germans having reached the final via a 12-4 win over Rangers in the two-legged semi-finals.

As McIlvanney told it, this pillar of football administration assured him: “The ordinary Scottish football fan will never pay to watch that sort of football on a weekly basis.” As I understand it, the bold Hugh's response was a two-word reply, familiar to anyone from Scotland: “Aye right!”

Fast forward nearly 65 years, and I suppose, along the sixth floor corridor of power inside the same SFA's Hampden Park bunker and the successors to that 1960s “blazer” are probably, being Scottish, not exactly indulging in wailing, renting their garments, gnashing teeth and doing: “woe, woe and thrice woe” Frankie Howard impressions, in the wake of last night's Dortmund doing for Celtic.

At this juncture, we can rest assured, any sadness being felt by the High Heid Yins of the Celtic Family will be assuaged by reflecting on the wisdom of another SFA High Heid Yin from the sepia-tinted days of the 1950s – the blazer whose response to Uruguay 7 Scotland 0 at the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland was: “Ach! The fans will forget all about this one if we beat England next season.”

Unfortunately for him, the score at Wembley, ten months later, was: England 7 Scotland 2, and, nearly 70 years on, this writer still bears the scars that defeat inflicted on his eight year old self.

So, while heavy defeats in Europe are now becoming an all-too-familiar burden on the Celtic Family, I suppose a big win against Ross County, in Dingwall on Sunday and all will again be sweetness and light in the East End of Glasgow.

Perhaps in the cheaper seats, among the massed ranks of the Green Brigade and among the many in the corporate seats to whom, looking down on The Other Lot is their main kick in life, a typical multi-goal win on Sunday and, once again, all will be well with the world.

But, I would suggest that view will find little traction in the rarified areas of Dublin, in the locker room at The K Club, or the Members Club at The Curragh where no doubt, Dermot Desmond will be the butt of some humourous asides from the other movers and shakers of the Celtic Tiger – (that's Keltic with a hard K) he encounters there.

Perhaps Mr Desmond is having second thoughts about bringing back Brendan, after yet another European disaster. Maybe he is questoning a management model which sees his club paying over the odds for B or C List players, who may well be a tier or two above those they encounter in their domestic league, but who are found wanting on the big stage.

One of my Facebook friends, a Former Pupil of The Academy, who has blighted his reputation as a member of arguably the school's finest football team, by not just supporting Talbot, but also joining the Celtic Family. Well, he's hurting this morning and is suggesting: perhaps it would be better if his team and (maybe) The Other Lot, got out of Scottish football and into a European League – to allow the other Scottish clubs to find their own level.

Sorry Tam, won't happen. Not that you are wrong; I firmly believe there has to, sooner or later, be a European League, but, the entrenched interests of the long-established national associations, of FIFA and UEFA, werll, for a start, they will want their pound of flesh in setting-up such a League. They will also place every obstacle they can erect in the path of that League getting going, far-less thriving.

Even getting the Ugly Sisters into the English system would not really work – that would require the SFA to be taken over by the English FA. Good luck in selling that to the “blazers”.

Good luck too in the obvious answer to the problem, by raising the standard of players, coaches and team managers and overall club managers in Scotland. We could make a start to this, by making the Scottish League more Scottish.

I did a wee search this morning, on the number of Scottish players playing in the top flight in Scotland. It wasn't easy, but here is what I found:

1. Celtic – 29-man First Team squad – 9 Scots – only 2 of whom are first-team regulars

2. Rangers – 30-man squad – 12 Scots – only 1 of whom is a first-team regular

3. Aberdeen – 30-man squad – 11 Scots

4. Dundee – 26-man squad – 11 Scots

5. Dundee United – 42-man squad – 21 Scots

6. Hearts – 30-man squad – 10 Scots

7. Hibs – 35-man squad – 10 Scots

8. Kilmarnock – 30-man squad – 21 Scots

9. Motherwell – 45-man squad – 19 Scots

10. Ross County – 34-man squad – 16 Scots

11. St Johnstone – 34-man squad – 16 Scots

12. St Mirren – 30-man squad – 17 Scots

This adds up to 399 professionals across the 12 clubs, only 173 of whom (43%) are Scottish. Only two of the clubs, Kilmarnock, with a staff who are 70% Scottish and St Mirren, with a staff who are 57% Scottish have more than half their sqaud qualified to play for Scotland.

I would suggst that no national governing body worth its salt should be allowing their memebr clubs to so openly recruit players who are not qualified to play for the national side.

In the early days of the Bosman Ruling, UEFA introduced the Three Foreigners Rule, which Chick Young immediately christened: “The Eight Diddies Rule”. Maybe we should go back to those days.

I would suggest, no Celtic XI composed entirely of home-grown Scots would have shipped seven goals in Dortmund. After all, look no further than the greatest Scottish, far-less Celtic club XI: Simpson; Craig and Gemmell; Murdoch, McNeill and Clark; Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld and Lennox.

None of them born more than 40 miles from Celtic Park, nine of them brought through the ranks at Celtic Park.

Or: McCloy; Jardine and Mathieson; Greig, Johnstone, Smith; McLean, Conn, Stein, MacDonald, Johnston; again, every one Scottish, five of them home-grown, the other six bought from other Scottish clubs.

Or: Leighton; McMaster and Rougvie; Cooper, McLeish and Miller; Strachan, Simpson, McGhee, Black and Weir. Once again, 11 Scots, 8 of them home-bred by the club.

I do not accept the: “That could never happen nowadays,” as if we suddenly lost the knack of recruiting and training-on talented young Scots. I am convinced we still have diamonds out there, maybe we have lost the skills to polish those raw diamonds.

So, today, I caution my fellow Scots:

Let's not laugh at Celtic, because, if we do not waken-up and smell the coffee, such results may well become more-common.