Wonderful Thing Technology

RESEARCH for a book I'm currently writing has seen me, this week, trawling through a film archive. It's great fun, viewing footage, mostly in black and white, of long-ago games. In the course of my researches, I have gone off-track once or twice to have a look at iconic matches, which don't really fit in with the on-going work.

Yesterday, I chanced upon footage of the England 3 Hungary 6 match in 1953 and found myself chuckling quietly. This was a highlights package, an English edit - which made it seem that the Hungarians, instead of playing England off the park, had been lucky to win by three breakaways.

I was once given, as a present, a two-part "History of Scottish Football" video. The footage of the 1967 Wembley match was, like the Hungarian footage, an English edit - looking at it: boy were we lucky to win that one.

Match coverage rights are now big business; for example, Sky has the rights to home Scotland internationals, so, if you cannot get to Hampden, haven't got Sky, or cannot be bothered going down to the nearest pub which is showing the game, you're ever so grateful for the BBC Scotland highlights show at night. Trouble is, this can give you a somewhat distorted view of the game and with today's spread of internet forums and chat rooms - received wisdom can in actual fact be fairly stupid, if what's posted on-line is based on watching edited highlights, rather than the entire game.

Football is now more widely publicised than ever before. When I was a boy, you got the FA or the Scottish Cup Final, most but not every Scotland v England game and the very occasional important World Cup tie - for everything else, you had to actually go to the game.

Gradually, however, as Sports Report switched from radio to television and Scotsport began, edited highlights were shown, which helped spread football's appeal. This, by the way was not such good news for football reporters who actually writer their reports.

In the days before TV, the big name writers of the day - the likes of 'Waverley' in the Daily Record or RE "Rex" Kingsley in the Sunday Mail had a bit of poetic licence when it came to describing goals or a match in general.

Today, if you tried to embellish your goal description as these past-masters and their peers were able to, you'd be laughed at, since the goal had been seen from 15 different angles, in real time, solw-motion and stop-action; it had also been thoroughtly analysed by a former professional -you now have to tell it like it is, or else.

That's not such a bad thing: we are always told as we get into the journalism game, that facts are sacred, comment is free. Trouble is today I more often than not feel it's a case of not letting the facts get in the way of a good line, and don't comment - less you offend someone in football.

Today, the gospel according to St Rupert of Wapping is: Verily, the English Premier League is the greatest show on earth, everything else is inferior and thou shalt not point out that most of the Premiership games are crap.

Furthermore, I say unto thee, the SPL is mince and not to be mentioned in the same breath as the English league.

Aye, the SPL is mince, but it's guid Scotch mince, which is just as tasty and not nearly as over-priced as the English variety.

I sometimes long for the good old days, and no wonder.

Another meander down a side track yesterday had me watching edited highlights of the 1961 England v Scotland match, the 93- game. Received wisdom has it that that heavy defeat was all Frank Haffey's fault. Now the package I watched wasn't the best, too many cut-aways to the crowd at vital moments and with the goals limited by and large to the final pass and shot. But, from what I saw big Frank can only really be blamed for two of the nine goals he conceded. So the big man has for nearly 50 years carried the can for the deficiencies of the 10 in blue in front of him.

OK, it's nice to hide behind Bobby Shearer's famous excuse: "The English cheated, they used an orange ball, (Eric) Caldow and I wouldn't kick it and Frank and Billy McNeill refused to go near it", it helps us laugh, which stops us crying - but, time perhaps for history to be revised.

Yes Please

MARADONA for Villa - "Yes please" say I. After all they've already got Prince William as a fan, even if he has yet to be seen in the Holte End at Villa Park; so if an Anglo-German princeling is good enough for them as a fan, why not have genuine football royalty in the dug out.

Just a pity John Robertson packed his tent along with the Blessed Martin, what might the Villa players have learned from having Maradona and "The Tramp" on the training pitch on a daily basis.

Of course, it will never happen, and even if the impossible was to come to pass and Randy Lerner did give him the job, I reckon the Tartan Army's favourite non-Scot would have shot about a full team of tabloid hacks in the first month.

The press conferences would be great though.

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Week One of the new season, at least as far as the big, self-important clubs are concerned, and what do you know - the referees are in the firing line already. Between an assistant in the Wigan v Blackpool game who seemed to be making-up the offside law as he went, and Craig Thomson falling foul of 'Jack and Victor' at Motherwell on Sunday, the men in black haven't had the best of starts.

I try to avoid criticising referees; theirs's is mission impossible and what I always tell myself is: if football was perfect, every game would finish 0-0, because every pass would be to feet, every tackle would be perfect, every shot would be on-target, but the goalkeepers would make every save.

It's the imperfections which make it such a great game, the mistakes which undo all the coaches' careful planning and rehearsals. We don't look for perfection from the players, so why expect it from the referees?

They are much-maligned, but, we couldn't have a game without them and in my experience, referees care far more about the game than players or directors.

As the Lord taught us: Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. (I know that's the Church of England version, but the Church of Scotland version is all about forgiving debts and debtors - a most un-Scottish concept.

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HOW are the mighty fallen. Rangers and Celtic are now reduced to scrabbling around in the bargain bins of Eglish Premiership clubs which haven't got their history, support, standing or ambition, to take off their hands over-hyped, over-paid players who are surplus to the English clubs' requirements and have to be off-loaded on-loan to fit-in with the new rules about squad sizes and eligibility.

Now tell me money hasn't ruined football.

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AS a goalkeeper myself, I feel for Pepe Reina of Liverpool after his own goal against Arsenal. All a keeper can do in such instances is quote Forrest Gump: "Shit happens".

I well remember, many years ago, when he was first touted as a Scotland goalkeeper, looking forward to my first sighting of the young Billy Thomson of St Mirren. This came in a League Cup tie at Somerset Park.

Early in the second half, as he tipped away a shot for a corner, I opined aloud: "Ive been impressed by young Thomson in goal, so far".

Over came the corner, which Big Billy proceeded to punch into his own net.

There's only one response to that: "Doh!"

A Good Idea Son

HAS Sepp Blatter, or Sepp Bladder, fitba's biggest tube as some Tartan Army irregulars call him, been rifling through the trash bin on my lap top?

I ask this, because doing away with draws has long been a bee in my bonnet, and much abuse I have taken for holding it in late-night brainstorming sessions with fellow members of football's intelligentsia.

And why not, in American sport, by far the most-professional arenas in the world, they simply don't get draws (like kissing your sister, they say). Well kissing your sister might make sense in certain parts of Fife, Ayrshire, north of the Highland Line and in the Borders, but is anathema to the great majority of us.

So why, because it was acceptable in the English public school sporting tradition, of fair play and not excelling, the rest of the world has to put up with it, has long been beyond me.

Herr Blatter is proposing abolishing draws in the group games in the World Cup - why stop there? Abolish it altogether.

Would you not rather see your team going flat-out for goals but losing 5-4, than getting all ten outfield players behind the ball and trying to hold out for 90 minutes for a 0-0 draw?

Football is supposed to be part of the entertainment business - so let's entertain by going for goals and deil tak the hindmost.

Bonus points work in other sports. In rugby you can lose a match, but still take two points from it: score more than three tries, you get one bonus point - lose by less than two scores and you get another. Let's try it in football, then, if you lost 5-4, you'd get two points, for the more than three goals and the one-goal deficit.

Since we'd be doing away with draws, we could adapt the game time and its consequences.

One-one at 90 minutes: both sides get a point.

Ten minutes of extra time to produce a silver goal - if it happens, the winning team gets an additional two points, the losing side gets an extra point for the one-goal final deficit.

No more goals, or the teams still level, go to a second ten minutes, to produce a golden goal, with the added points accruing as for the silver goal.

Still no result, we go to penalties to produce a winner; losing team still gets two points, winner three.

Playing for bonus points would positively discriminate in favour of all-out attacking football and mitigate against the present-day "don't lose" attitude. It would probably bring many of the absent fans back.

I commend the idea to the house.

Pre-destination

"HOLY" Willie Fisher, that 18th century Mauchline kirk elder, immortalised by Robert Burns, believed in pre-destination. This was a popular belief in the Church of Scotland at that time - that God sent one to Heaven and nine to Hell, willy-nilly, so you'd better appear good, to have a better chance of being the one in ten going upstairs at time up.

Pre-destination almost works in today's Scottish football. Being an old saddo, I spent a lot of time over the close season working out a post-war Scottish League table, taking the 65 seasons and turning them into one.

Eight of the season 2010-11 SPL Top Twelve are in this 1945-2010 top flight, in descending order the line-up is: Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell, Dundee United, Dundee, St Mirren, Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle and Falkirk.

St Johnstone are in 14th spot, Hamilton Accies are 24th and Inverness Caledonian Thistle are 25th. Swap the Perth Saints for Dundee and Accies and the Highlanders for the bottom two and you have a finishing order for next May which is entirely possible.

I should add here, to avoid offending tender Edinburgh sensibilities, that Hibs are above Hearts because they've played more top-flight games, in terms of percentages of games won and points gained, Hearts are just ahead (43.2 to 40.4 per cent of games won, 53.7 to 50.5 per cent of points gained).

Therefore, if we accept that the Glasgow Boys will finish first and second, the rest are playing for third place, the fans ought to be accepting what Fergus McCann used to insist was a reality check about Scottish football.

Don't make noises about splitting the Old Firm - it has only happened once since the SPL was formed. If you're not a fan of a "City" club, don't go on about yours being "a Top Six team" - you're deluding yourself.

Instead, accept it will be tough, you're club is where it should be, and remember the words of Mick Jagger: "You can't always get what you want".

But, if your players and coaching staff try hard enough, you might get a pleasant surprise come May.

AND while I'm getting at the self-delusional, what about English players? This week we've had Wes Brown and Paul Robinson retiring from international football and David James and David Beckham being retired from the same. Fabio Capello, being Italian, probably does not understand, in England there is a way of handling such things - the two Davids should have received vellum long and distinguished service scrolls from the FA, while behind the scenes steps were taken to ensure James had his MBE up-graded to an OBE and Beckham finally got that knighthood the English football press pack have been touting for years.

The other two should have been pissed upon from a great height. Wes Brown has never been a first pick at Manchester United, but he would NEVER try the "pick me or I'm off" ultimatum to the Govan Godfather. Why then did he think it would work with Don Fabio?

Robinson might have more of a case. Sure, he's made his boobs on England duty, but, at Blackburn he has rebuilt his reputation. But, Joe Hart is the future and after so long as a club number one, Robinson is probably not inclined to go back to being an international back-up.

But, the British way is to turn up when your nation calls, not when it suits you, so Capello must keep the door closed.

Our Carling Cup Could Runneth Over

FOR some time now there has been an acceptance that "British" football is different from the game as played in Europe and South America. On these islands there is not the same demand for technical skills; we play a more-physical, biff-bang, long-ball game, at a higher tempo.

Once upon a time we could compete, our players were maybe not so skilled as the Europeans or South Americans, but we were fitter and could blow them away almost with our power.

This hasn't been the case for a number of years and as the Europeans matched our power, their greater technical skills have increasingly embarrassed us on the big stages of World Cups and European Championships finals.

And if the top English Premiership clubs have continued to fly the flag at the sharp end of the Champions League, well they are "English" clubs only in as far as they play their domestic league games in England - you don't find too-many players who are qualified to wear the three lions, or the lion rampant, in their first-team squads.

But despite reams of evidence to the contrary, the English still believe themselves to be big players on football's stage - too big to participate in the new Carling Nations Cup, which was unveiled this week in Dublin.

The reality is: this is the Alba Challenge Cup of the international arena - a diddy cup, competed for by four diddy nations. It has as much to do with front-line international football as the SFL's second tournament has to do with the Champions League.

Sure, the games will be competitive; they will be fought-out like junior cup ties; there will be passion on the terraces, particularly when the two Irish sides clash. But will it help Scotland, who remember, for all our current problems will still go into it as the top-ranked side, end our years of banishment from the top table?

Maybes aye, maybes naw - to quote our finest (only) impressionist of one of our finest players.

I'm sorry to keep on flogging this particular horse, but, if Craig Levein uses the Nations Cup properly, it can help us qualify for Euro '2012 and maybe even Brazil 2014 - but I fear, once Gorgeous George Peat and the Pathetics in the top corridor at Hampden have put-in their twopenceworth, it will be the same old, same old.

We don't have a system for progressing our best talent through the ranks - our Under-21 players all too often cannot get a game for their clubs, so it takes longer for them to take that step-up from Under-21 to full internationals, if they ever do.

Just this week I had a look through my international football data base for the progression rates from the Scotland Under-21 team to the full side, since the SPL was formed - and remember, one of the main planks in its formation was that there would be a proper development system for young players.

In 1999, the first season of the SPL, we blooded 11 new boys into the Under-21 team: four were from SPL clubs: Paul Gallacher of Dundee United, Gavin Rae of Dundee and the Rangers duo of Barry Nicholson and Scott Wilson. The first three of these subsequently made the jump to the full international team, even if Nicholson had to leave Rangers for Dunfermline to do so.

In 2000, we blooded 19 Under-21 caps, 14 from SPL clubs; 6 of these 14 got full caps, as did three of the five Anglos capped. In 2001, six home-Scots and two Anglos were blooded, only Motherwell's Stevie Hammell and Hibs' of the six home boys made the step-up.

In 2002, eight new Under-21 caps emerged, six of them from SPL clubs; of these, only Stephen Hughes, a one-cap wonder from the ill-fated Burley Tours trip to Japan and Shaun Maloney "trained on" to become full caps.

Certainly the stars shone on the 2003 intake. That was the year of Kris Boyd, Darren Fletcher, Craig Gordon, James McFadden, Allan McGregor, Andy Webster and Garry O'Connor. Eleven of the 21 new caps that season have gone on to win full caps, but some, such as Rangers' Andy Dowie and Celtic's Anthony McParland found their level somewhere below the SPL.

From 2004's 25 Under-21 caps, we got eight full internationalists, the best-known being Alan Hutton. In 2005, Kirk Broadfoot, Christophe Berra, Kevin Thomson and Steven Whittaker, all of whom played in Stockholm in midweek, made their Under-21 international bows, along with substitute goalkeeper Iain Turner and the injured Scott Brown - but what became of Tom Brighton of Rangers, Daryll Duffy of Falkirk and Peter Leven of Kilmarnock? Certainly Duffy got a big-money move to Hull City, but his career has stalled.

In the first ten seasons of the SPL 102 young players from clubs in that league were capped at Under-21 level; 42 of these have gone on to become full caps. That is actually quite a good percentage, but, given that for most of these years the SPL clubs appeared to have something against young Scots players, preferring to buy third or fourth rate overseas players, it is a percentage which surprised me.

So, the talent is there, just as it has always been there; but we're not making the most of it. I would like to see the Nations Cup used as a half-way house between the Under-21 and full teams, as a means of Craig Levein ascertaining which younger players are ready to take the step up to the full squad.

A competitive format such as this new competition, albeit one which is some way away from the challenges we will face against Spain and the like, just might be the making of a new, more-successful Scotland team. It strikes me it would be better to blood young players against Wales and the two Irelands, in a tournament, than in a meaningless away friendly.

We Don't Do Friendlies

THE Scots are acknowledged around the globe as among the friendliest people anywhere, visitors to our fair land all acknowledge this facet of our national personality. Paradoxically, we are also seen as dour and self-effacing, nippy and, in military terms these friendly Jocks are, at the same time, among the fiercest fighting men on the planet.

Our Tartan Army of football fans are a by word as party animals, yet, few national games have as many private wee wars going on as Scottish football - aye, here's tae us, wha's like us - damn few an they're awe deid, right enough.

One thing is clear about Scottish football, however - we don't do friendlies, never have, perhaps never will. Scotland's success ratio in international football regularly hovers around the 40% wins mark. Sure, we had the odd good spell, this was usually in the 18 months or so before the World Cup, but whether we had our own Golden Generation, Baxter, Law, the Lisbon Lions, via Bremner and Dalglish and Souness, or, as recently, we've been forced to field teams of journeymen, overall we still struggle to win more than 40-45% of our internationals.

That said, we have always won a higher percentage of competitive rather than friendly internationals; in recent years, however, our successes in friendlies have become rarer than ever.

I was not, therefore, too confident about the outcome of yesterday's trip to Stockholm, and my fears were all too soon realised, once the Swedes got that early goal.

International football has never been as competitive as it is today. Every international counts towards a country's FIFA co-efficient. The UEFA co-efficient is more-sensible, only competitive games count for that.

Once upon a time the SFA could take a squad away to Europe at the end of a season, play two or three no-stress friendlies, bond as a squad, sight-see, get to know each other, enjoy a working holiday.

Today, with the higher-pace of the game, the greater financial rewards, the greater stresses on players of the modern game, that cannot be done. Also, international football, once a sort of break from the club game, is now just as competitive - you try to qualify for the World Cup and, once the finals are over, you start to try to qualify for the European Championships; once these finals are over, it's back on the World Cup treadmill - there is no let-up.

So, to get off the treadmill, build a squad, try things out, why doesn't the SFA adapt an old technique?

Back in the 1950s, there would be games such as Scotland v Anglo-Scots, Scotland v the Scottish League, Scotland v the British Army (a team comprising very good young players doing their National Service). Even, in the build-up to the 1958 World Cup, we had Scotland v Rangers and Scotland v Hearts.

Craig Levein would perhaps have been better giving Stockholm a miss this week and instead splitting his squad into SPL players and the rest - Over-25s v Under-25s, even that staple of club practice matches: Tims v Proddies, (no, scrub that - bad idea).

With a bit of commercial pizzazz this squad get-together-cum game could have been sold as a charity game, played at one of the smaller SPL grounds, away from Hampden, at reduced prices, kids in free, and he could have worked-out a few things without endangering Scotland's FIFA co-efficient. It would also have allowed the next generation of Tartan Army recruits to get up close to all their heroes.

As I've said before, we don't have a proper plan for the development of our international team - we need a B or Futures squad to plug the gap between the Under-21 squad and the A team. That interim squad would I feel, be the perfect vehicle for the proposed British Isles Cup, but until that is brought into being, I would suggest the first international date of any season is utilised for the inter-squad match I have suggested above.

The Carnage is Coming

SO "The Blessed Martin" has quit as manager of Aston Villa.

I've seen this one coming, just as the parting of the ways between Liverpool and Rafa was well-signposted. The common denominator: American owners, for with both Villa and Liverpool the crucial decisions are taken Stateside, by club owners brought up in the somewhat different climate of professional sport, American style.

Over there, there isn't a European-style transfer market; Washington Redskins cannot simply buy the Dallas Cowboys quarter back or the LA Lakers purchase the Boston Celtic's point guard in the way Real Madrid could buy AC Milan's play-maker or Real Madrid Manchester United's main striker.

In the USA, most player moves take place at the end of a contract, or after a sometimes complicated player trade deal is set-up. There is so much money in professional sport over there to waste it by buying the services of a single player.

The concept of "cashing-in" on a player's transfer value in the final year of his contract is unknown. Sure, NBA team A might pay-up to get a big name player from Team B in the final year of that player's contract, but the deal will only happen if Team A is prepared to trade a player whome Team B's coach feels can add something to his roster.

I think maybe Randy Lerner, Villa's American owner, a man brought-up in the ways of American sport is somewhat bemused by European football at the top level's obsession with transfers.

He perhaps feels that, if Manchester City, with all that Arab wealth, wants to pay over the odds for James Milner, then Villa ought to take the money - but doesn't want to waste that wind-fall on paying over the odds for a replacement - cue conflict with MON, a manager who is good at spending owners' money, not so good at encouraging young talent..

There is a considerable American influence now at Arsenal, while Manchester United is American-owned. There is no public knowledge of friction between the American money men at both clubs and their very European managers. Because, quite simply, Messers Wegner and Ferguson are the only two top-flight bosses at the top in England whose first instinct is to breed players rather than buy. Of course, both will, if pushed, get out the cheque book, but unlike bosses such as O'Neill, both would rather breed than buy.

Football is changing. The spending spree of recent seasons, fuelled as it was by television money, in some ways resembled the pre-World War I arms race, to build the biggest ships and the biggest guns.

That race ended with the slaughter on the Western Front - there will be similar carnage, without, thankfully, the same waste of life, in European football soon.

World War I put paid to the upper classes across Europe, the class who ruled as of right. The fall-out from football's over-spending will be just as catastrophic and could lead to a more American-style egalitarian, game - run by a meritocracy rather than an aristocracy; Martin O'Neill, heir to Clough of the East Midlands, just might be an early casualty.