THIS IS the best time to be Chief Football Writer for a mainstream Scottish media outlet, but 2026 brings additional joy. Instead of writing the normal midsummer pish - outrageous rumours about who The Ugly Glasgow Sisters are about to recruit, this close season, they have the added bonus of speculating on who is going to pick up the poisoned chalice, recetly discarded by Stevie Clarke, and become the new Scotland boss.
What joy: freedom to regurgitate any old rumours, carte blanche to make-up pish, a free pass to let your mind run free and all in the certainty, it's impossible to second guess the gigantic minds along the sixth floor corridor at Hampden – because, collectively, that lot haven't enough brain power to blow their bunnets off should they collectively explode.
Well, it will fill column centimetres, but, the elephant in the room will be left unmolested – because the truth is – it doesn't matter who gets the gig, under our warped system of football governance, Scotland will continue to be what we have been almost from the day International Football became truly thus – a lower mid-table nation on the periphery of the game at the top level.
You could make a reasonable argument for suggesting, up until the end of the 1920s, Scotland was one of the leading nations in the international game – mainly because, we ignored the rest of the world, being quite content to play against only England, Ireland and Wales.
Our record against the other three Home Nations as the four British associations were collectively known was a good one. At the end of the 1928-29 season, the record in the Home International Championship was:
Scotland – 23 wins
England – 20 wins
Wales – 4 wins
Ireland – 2 wins
Scotland was also in a dominant position in the head-to-head meetings with the other three, for instance, Alec Cheyne's iconic goal, direct from a corner, which won the 1929 meeting and allegedly gave birth to The Hampden Roar clinched Scotland's 24th win over The Auld Enemy, who had only beaten The Jocks 15 times. Our lead over the Irish and Welsh was even-more emphatic.
Over the ten years up until World War II, we continued to hold sway, in the ten fixtures of the 1930s, we beat England by five wins to four with one draw.
After the war and with the Home Nations back in the bosum of FIFA – everything changed. England appointed Walter Winterbottom, a former Manchester United wing-half as their first Team Manager in 1946; and while he did not pick the team, under his tenure, England began to cut into our lead in head-to-head victories, while England became better than us internationally. The SFA clung-on to control, long-serving Secretary Sir George Graham insisted, with Rangers' George Young as Captain, we didn't need a Team Manager.
I have been assured by international team mates of his that Young was indeed the Scotland Team Manager in all but name. Including the games against Austria and Hungary, on the 1955 end of season European Tour, when he was injured and couldn't play but directed operations from the dug out, Young led the side in 50 internationals, the record in these games reads:
30 wins
7 draws
13 defeats
60% wins
65% available points won
1.95 points per game
That record should earn Young a place on the top shelf of any pantheon of Scottish managers.
When Rangers' club commitments meant Young wasn't available for the 1954 World Cup, the SFA Selection Committee appointed Huddersfield Town Manager Andy Beattie as part-time team boss, but, this was hardly a marriage made in Heaven, and, after losing their opening game, to Austria 0-1, Beattie had had enough of interference from the blazers and resigned, although he was prevailed upon to take the team in their second game – the notorious 0-7 loss to Uruguay which signalled us crashing out of the tournament.
Young came back to set Scotland en route to qualification for the 1958 World Cup Finals in Sweden; his thanks, to not be selected for what he had hoped would be his final international, against Spain, in The Bernabeau – which we lost 1-4.
The next decade saw Scotland stumble along. The Selectors continued to pick the team while various Team Managers prepared the squads, with varying degrees of success.
Beattie had a second go at the job, with no more success than first time round. Ian McColl managed a credible near 61% winning ration, but was sacked after back-to-back draws with England and European Champions Spain. Jock Stein was brought in to get us to the 1966 World Cup in England, but couldn't manage it, then after short spells with John Prentice and Malcolm Macdonald in-charge, in 1967, Bobby Brown was appointed as our first full-time Team Manager, and was also given the right to select the squads.
Apart from perhaps one or two of the backwoodsmen in SFA blazers, this switch to giving the Team Manager absolute authority, including over team selection was met with huge approval – by the fans, and in particular by the fans with typewriters from the mainstream media. However, in a definite case of being careful what you wish for, here are the relevant statistics:
Scotland's record when the Selectors picked the team and either the Captain or a Team Manager prepared the team:
p 321 – w 177 – d 62 – l 82 – w 55% - points per game 1.85
Scotland's record when the team is selected and managed by a Team Manager:
p 535 – w 227 – d 121 – l 187 - w 42% – ppg 1.5
Opinions naturally vary, but, it generally believed that the hardest part of coaching a team is team selection, getting the balance right so a team performs to its optimum potential.
I am not saying we go back to the bad old days when the SFA Selection Committee was all-powerful, so that a guy who was a butcher, baker or candlestick-maker from Monday to Friday could suddenly, by putting on his SFA blazer and sitting in a directors' box on a Saturday become the all-knowing judge of whether or not a particular player was international class.
That system may have got us some big wins, but, it also produced several One-Cap Wonders whose performances in the Scotland jersey had the Tartan Army, to a man, wondering – how did he manage to get picked for Scotland?
Maybe there is a case for something like the All Black's system in Rugby Union, where the Head Coach is a Selector, but, he is not the only guy picking the team and he has other qualified guys assisting him in answering the selection dilemmas.
Such a system might get us into the knock-out stages of the big competitions, but, I fear it will still not cure the blatant failings in our system of football governance.
