Ranting Ranging Raging Charlie

THERE has been a void in my life since wee Davie Leggat's blog 'Leggoland 2" was forced off-line recently, I miss his pro-Rangers, anti-Celtic rants, they were ill-informed, but entertaining. But, yesterday, I think I found where wee Davie, the Bluenose's Bluenose, had taken himself off to. I feel he has a new - and I hope well-paid gig as Charlie Green's speech writer.

Charlie Boy's latest rant - about possibly taking Rangers elsewhere if they are not immediately placed in the new 12-club "Championship" league when the re-drawn senior game kicks off, perhaps in August - is probably his worst example yet of playing to the gallery; or to be precise the claque/rump of that time-dishonoured group the Wee Arra Peepul. This group, the worst examples of Ibrox imperialism are incapable of accepting the reality of their club's present situation, and that reality is, they don't deserve to be in the new 'Championship' on their club's playing record.

If, as we now expect, Rangers win SFL Division III at the end of this season - if there was to be no change in the leagues set-up and the status quo was maintained, when season 2013-2014 kicks off, Rangers will be - on paper - the 32nd-ranked team in Scotland. Now old Charlie Sturrock, my long-dead mathematics teacher at school would quite rightly line me up for four of the best, were I to try to argue that 32nd is one of the top 24 places in any pecking order.

There might be a case for putting Rangers into the 'Championship' IF as with the Greed is Good SPL, ground capacity and facilities become part of the consideration for a place in the two top leagues, the 'Premiership' and 'Championship'; but, as yet we don't know if this will happen. And if having what we might call SPL compliance, then Airdrie, whose New Broomfield (or whatever it is called this week) ground is also SPL-compliant and who are ranked above Rangers in the current pecking order, have greater call on one of the top 24 places. Also, I don't see those hadnful of non-SPL-compliant clubs who are ranked above Rangers being too-happy if they are demoted below them and miss-out on the perceived riches to be had from entertaining the Ibrox hordes in league games.

No, in this instance, my advice is: shut up Charlie, work your way up through the ranks with the perceived "dignity" which Rangers have always shown.

That said - the whole 12-12-18 plan is a joke and a non-starter. It will make not a jot of difference to Scotland's slipping place in world football. We are still heading down the stank at a great rate.  

The Lunnys Are Running The Asylum

I SEE Vincent Lunny, the unqualified, unelected SFA Compliance Officer has decided that Heart's Ryan Stevenson's tackle on Hibs captain James McPake during the recent Edinburgh "Derby" is worthy of a two-game suspension. This is yet another example of my contention that the "lunatics" have well and truly taken over the Hampden "asylum".

 

To go to basics: football doesn't have "rules", it has "laws" (not that that makes much difference); these laws are enforced by the match referee, who, as Law V (i) grandly proclaims: "is the sole judge of fact".

 

Down the 150 years since the Football Association was formed to organise and govern the game in England, through the start of international football in 1872, via the formation of FIFA, there have been literally thousands of instances whereby referees apparently got things wrong - England's third goal in the 1966 World Cup Final; the over-the-line cross and goal in the 1932 FA Cup Final; Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal (come on England, the ball "played" him); the unawarded Frank Lampard "goal" in the England v Germany World Cup clash in 2010, (pay-back for 1966 perhaps). All these decisions have stood - in no case has any governing body ruled that because of an apparent refereeing error, the game should be replayed.

 

The view has grown over the years: "Yes, referees, being human, make mistakes, get over it and move on". Now, here we have Mr Lunny, a man with no refereeing qualifications of experience, a man who has never played a single game as a professional footballer, acting as judge and jury in over-ruling referees, in this case Willie Collum, one of Scotland's indeed Europe's, senior officials.

 

I accept, by the way, that Mr Collum has some "form" with regard to controversy. That said, he remains for my money a top official. He may well have had an "off" day in the Edinburgh Derby; perhaps he got this call wrong, but, when he decided to take no action on Stevenson's tackle, that should have been the end of it.

 

In appointing Mr Lunny the SFA, I believe, exceeded their authority. If we accept that there is need for a compliance officer to mentor contentious refereeing decisions and perhaps review decisions made post-match, then hand-down bans, then the appointment of such officers ought to be done through FIFA and IFAB, the International Football Associations Board - the game's supreme law-making body.

 

Here, Scotland does still have clout, with its own place on IFAB. If the SFA is so keen to see compliance officers installed and given real clout, then they ought to table motions at IFAB, to alter the wording of Law V (i), I would suggest they follow Rugby Union's lead and change the wording to: "The referee is the sole judge of fact, as regards events during the duration of the game". This would allow for proper review post-match, again provided the duties and scope of authority of any FA's compliance officer was agreed and set down on paper.

 

Any compliance officer appointed then had to have refereeing qualifications or considerable experience of top-flight football. I am sure, human nature being what it is, we would still have argument and dispute, but, at least the "judges" we were criticising would be experienced men who had earned their right to sit in judgement, not jumped-up articled clerks like Mr Lunny.

 

 

 

IT'S crunch time this week for Terry Butcher, arguably the most-popular Englishman in Scotland. Does he stick with Inverness Caledonian Thistle or return to England to manage Barnsley?

 

Now, in terms of: "where would I rather live, Inverness or Barnsley?" it's a no-brainer, he stays put. There is the small question of a possible crack at European football, should ICT pick-up where they left off when the SPL returns from it's winter shut-down. Add the intrigue of whether, after three "failures", at Coventry, Sunderland and Brentford, Butcher still feels he has to prove himself in his native land; sprinkle-in the bigger budget he will enjoy in the Championship, a far-richer league than the SPL, and Big Tel has some serious thinking to do.

 

Also, he just might feel that, should Ally McCoist fall or be pushed off the platform at Copeland Road subway station, he might have a chance of becoming boss of Rangers - decisions, decisions.

 

I hope he stays in Inverness for the time being. See the romantic story through to the end Tel.

 

 

 

WELL done to the magical Lionel Messi, on winning his fourth straight Balon d'Or. And while you're enjoying your triumph wee man, think how lucky you were not to have been born in Scotland, where you'd have been telt at 12: "Sorry son, you're too wee tae ever be a fitba player".

More Piss From The Men Who Have Pissed On Scottish Football

HERE we go again, the SPL has shut-down for January, so, in an effort to body swerve having to attend games in the backwater of the SFL, the opinion-formers in the mainstream media, in particular the A Team of the Scottish Football Writers Association, the intellectual "fans with lap tops" division of the Tartan ARmy are taking to writing what we in the trade call "opinion pieces".

This will prove difficult for a bunch of ne'er do wells who have, by and large, never had a self-generated opinion in their puffs. Over the week-end we have been told that an agreement is on the way, between the SPL and the SFL, which will foist a three-division 12-12-18 league set-up upon us, perhaps as early as next season. This apparently is the preferred option of those leaders of our game with huge waistlines, even bigger egos and pea-sized brains, the Hampden "blazerati".

So, the men whose inspired leadership, financial genius and football knowledge has led Scotland to hitherto unplumbed depths in international standing and has made Scottish football a standing joke across the football world are being entrusted with digging us out of the hole they got us into in the first place. Haud me back.

The fans don't want the proposed set-up, overwhelmingly they want a two-division set-up, with at least 16 clubs in the top flight. Such a system worked very well for years, but there is no going back to it.

Let's be honest, in the current economic climate, which is likely to continue for a few years, there are only two clubs in Scotland with the fan base to finance full-time football - this was the case in the golden era, post-World War II, when football enjoyed attendances they can only dream about today, it is even more obviously the case today. The rest, instead of struggling to finance over-inflated full-time squads, should be adopting the junior approach, cutting back to tight, small squads - perhaps with a Champions League-stylke cap at 25 players, ideally mostly part-time - the small number of full-timers employed primarily as development officers, going out into the local community to "sell" football. The clubs need to insist the players work harder and are paid less; this is the only way to survive.

Let's be honest too in what we can afford in infrastructure terms. David Longmuir, the SFL Chief Executive, insists Scotland must safeguard the continuation of all 42 clubs. Frankly DAvid, this is bollocks. Most of the clubs in the bottom half of the senior game are literally bottom feeders, they contribute little or nothing to the overall success or continuation of the game here.

The wee teams have a right to continue, but, they have to, in my view, re-invent themselves as community clubs, playing in regional leagues, with a priority towards making LOCAL boys fit for, if they have the talent, higher things.

We certainly need as many clubs as we can get, we need as many people as possible playing football - what we do not need is a set-up of 42 senior clubs. I still think we should be looking at a maximum of 24 

teams, playing in one national league, of two 12-club conferences of equial standing, trying to qualify for the Scottish title, which could, after the preliminary conference stage of home and away games, 22 fixtures, revert to some sort of Champions League-style knock-out format, playing down to a Scottish Superbowl at Hampden, to find the national champions.

The smaller teams, playing in regional competitions, in a pyramid with the Highland League, EAst of Scotland League and juniors, should be charged with young player development and there should be rugby-style "associate club" agreements between the 24 national league sides and the regional ones.

Then, we might have a chance of seeing Scotland prosper again. But, going to 12-12-18 and the same-old, same-old, with merely hast4en the day when football dies a lingering death in Scotland.

I have seen Scottish football's view of the future - and it will not work.

A Guid New Year Tae Ane an Awe

A Guid New Year to all readers of this blog and apologies for the recent silence; take a hard to beat virus, add the holiday season, sprinkle on a dash of melancholy and, it suddenly becomes hard to find things in Scottish football worth philosophising about.

 

However, new year, new energy, so, here we are again.  There is no disputing, 2012 was a terrible year for the beautiful game in Scotland. Almost every one of the 52 weeks was dominaterd by a single story - the Rangers melt-down and re-birth. Some fans of other clubs, in particular the members of "the Celtic Family" have spent most of the past year screaming from the rooftops that Rangers are dead, they are no more: for their own peace of mind, I wish they would shut-up and forget it. The management may be new, the controlling company ditto, but, Rangers are still very much alive and kicking. There is a clear and continuing timeline between the Gallant Pioneers and the current management; there is still a team, wearing blue shirts, white shorts and red socks playing at Ibrox - get used to it.

 

That said, the hoped-for humility which followed the Murray/Whyte mis-management, the to use HRH the Princess Royal's great phrase - "the Horlicks" which was the Duff and Duffer administration process and the uncertainties of Sevco's take-over, has as yet to emerge from Ra Peepul.

 

Leave: "We'll be back" threats to Arnie and the T101 cyborgs boys; better to say nothing, but to use the years of exile in the SFL to develop a well-oiled machine capable of returning to the top flight in Scotland and storming through that division.

 

I have a feeling that, by the time Rangers get back to the top division, the young players such as Ross Perry, Darren Cole, Chris Hegarty, Barrie McKay, Kyle Hutton and Co, currently enjoying first team exposure denied all but the best of their youthful predecessors, will have become valuable players in a more-Scottish Rangers squad than has been the case since the arrival of Graeme Souness those 27 years ago - and Rangers will be all the better for it.

 

You will note I have not used the letters S or P or L in my description of the top flight into which Rangers will be promoted, perhaps as early as August 2015, because I do not believe the "Greed is Good" league will last that long. Indeed, unless there is a wide-spread outbreak of fiscal good sense in Scottish football between now and 2015, we may well see a return to the old days of full-time squads at Celtic Park and Ibrox and mainly part-time ones elsewhere, whilst there is a real danger that Scottish football will have sunk to the level of the Welsh, Irish or League of Ireland leagues.

 

For too-long we Scots have had an unrealistic, over-inflated sense of our prowess at football and I can see little or no evidence of this changing soon. We may not all be doomed, but it seems like we are to me.

 

Scottish football isn't working, it hasn't been working for years and the biggest shame about all this is, regardless of the self-inflicted disaster which befell Rangers and the warning that ought to have been to the smaller clubs, there seems little desire within Hampden's corridors of power to put things right.

 

My biggest wish for 2013 is a wide-spread outbreak of realism striking Scottish football, coupled with a genuine desire to sort out the mess. If we got that, I'd be a happy old grump.

 

We all know what the Scots do best is fight with the English; and if they haven't got the English to fight - they fight amongst themselves. Today, there is too-much in-fighting, while the big money of Sky and the rest pushes English football at us.

 

Let's turn the tide, starting this year.

JT - Fire-fighting isn't like fanning the flames

I HAVE, thus far, avoided commenting on James Traynor's ranting departure from the Daily Record for pastures new at Rangers. For a start I never had James down as even a closet member of the Lap Top Loyal; certainly, public perception has it that Airdrie people are programmed from the womb to be Rangers' fans, but, that is not an absolute rule.

 

However, where I fear James has gone wrong is in embracing the cult of personality - it never suits a journalist to become "the story" - our role is to observe and comment, the idea of the journalist as a "personality" doesn't sit well with me - we should put our personality into our writing.

 

James I like, his early work at the Herald, particularly when he succeeded Brian Meek as the paper's man at Wimbledon every year, was uplifting and suggested that, here was (perhaps) the successor to the great Ian Archer at the paper. But, like "Dan" Archer, James went after the cash and the more money he accrued, the slacker became his columns.

 

However, it is good to see him, at a late stage in his career, getting off the treadmill for the supposedly smoother life of a Head of Media - mind you, with wheels within wheels still turning around the Big Tax Case, the administration of oldco Rangers, the subsequent liquidation, the machinations of the player exodus at the end of last season, the continuing fall-out from the EBTs, I fancy James might have a bit of fire-fighting to do in the short-term.

 

Good luck to him anyway - he'll need it.

 

 

 

OLD Red Nose was noticeably unmoved by the waves created from Sunday's Manchester Derby - after all, whether as a fan on the terraces, or a major player on the park, he's seen it all. After one or two of the Old Firm games in which he was involved, Sunday's stramash was like tea at the vicarage.

 

However, if you read some of the comment pieces in the papers since - it might seem Armageddon is upon us.

 

Football has (again) been kicked around for not setting a good example, for condoning lawlessness and so forth. PLEASE, I've got news for you - football is a whole lot cleaner than it once was. Think the Hampden Riot of 1909 for instance.

 

Football has ignored the excesses of the fans for generations. It seems to be OK for otherwise law-abiding citizens to turn up at a football match on a weekend, to shout, swear, jump about and generally behave in a manner which, if repeated in the street between Monday and Friday, would guarantee arrest.

 

Football clubs have, for generations, treated their fans like cattle, so the game shouldn't be surprised if these "cattle" shite all over it.

 

 

 

AS SOMETHING of a football historian, I simply love pieces such as that which appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on Saturday. Written by Brian Marjoribanks, it highlighted the great uncapped of Scottish football; the "Greatest Uncapped XI" which Brian came up with was: Hamish McAlpine (Dundee United), Alex Miller (Rangers),Doug Smith (Dundee United), John Brown (Rangers), John McMaster (Aberdeen), Peter Marinello (Hibs/Arsenal), Billy Stark (Aberdeen/St Mirren), John McGovern (Notts Forest), Andy Ritchie (Morton), Joe Baker (Hibs), Harry Hood (Clyde/Celtic).

 

Since this was an opinion piece, Brian is welcome to his, but, for me, not by any stretch of the imagination Scotland's "Greatest Uncapped XI".

 

This is actually an exercise I carry-out myself fairly regularly - and when you see my team you will see my bias.

 

My team: Jimmy Brown (Hearts/Kilmarnock), Matt Watson (Kilmarnock), Danny Milloy (Dundee/Cardiff City), Neil Cooper (Aberdeen), "Spud" Murphy (Ayr United), Alex Edwards (Dunfermline/Hibs), Tommy Bryceland (St Mirren), Frank Beattie (Kilmarnock), Billy Stark, Andy Ritchie, Alex Ferguson.

 

Brown went as stand-in  for Jimmy Cowan, on the 1949 close-season Scotland tour of North America, 12 years later, winding down his career with St Mirren, he sat on the bench for the World Cup qualifier against the Czechs, but no caps. And what about Rangers' George Niven - picked at least three times for Scotland, but injured every time and never capped?

 

I realise I have switched Matt Watson from left back to right back, simply because I am still unable to differentiate between him and Spud Murphy, so both get in. Danny Milloy will be a strange name to many. Danny, as a young Dundee player, was being groomed to take over from Willie Woodburn and George Young as the Scotland centre half. He was a regular pick for the Scottish League XI, for Scotland B and for "Scotland" in the trial games between "Scotland" and "The Scottish League" which were a feature of fifties football - but, he never won a full cap.

 

Beattie was a colossus for Killie for nearly two decades, but, against the likes of Baxter, Crerand and Mackay, again, no caps. Ditto Bryceland, permanent understudy to John White, but, no caps.

 

And, what about Sir Alex? Well, he unluckily missed out on the 1967 Wembley win, at a time when he was scoring for fun for Dunfermline. He then went off on the World Tour at the end of that season, scoring in non-cap internationals against Israel, Australia and Canada. I have long believed, when the great man finally retires, the least the SFA could do was retrospectively award caps for those internationals.

 

But, the above is just my team, almost everyone else's would be different.

Why Stop At 16 - Keep The Fun Going

LIVING as I do on the outskirts of a small former mining village in darkest Ayrshire, I am divorced from the greater excesses of the on-going religious/Irish political side-show in Scottish football. But this week, wee Liam (aka the only pape in the village) has been finding himself unusually popular; one or two of the guys have been  buying him drink to celebrate his team's success in reaching the last 16 of the Champions League.

 

And quite right too. Celtic and Scottish football badly needed the boost which qualification has given them and when you review the list of the seven sides, one of which will be their next opponents, then I don't think Celtic have too-much to worry about. After all, if they can beat Barcelona, why should they worry about Malaga?

 

As Liam said: "Well I would love to see auld red nose greetin' efter the final" - so yes, let's avoid MU the noo, but, if they believe - why shouldn't Celtic make it to the last-eight, or further for that matter.

 

 

 

SO, the English Premiership is "The best league in the world" - aye right. That typically over-the-top Saxon belief took a hammering this week as Chelski and The Sons of the Desert tumbled out.

 

As the more erudite of you residents of the blogsphere are well aware, the Sons of the Desert are the members of the world-wide fraternity of Laurel and Hardy fans, and there is something truly comic about the mess Manchester United's noisy neighbours find themselves in this week - bounced out of Europe and set to take-on the Joneses they thought they had overtaken rather than kept up with.

 

But, give them time and surely the Premiership cheerleaders within the Evil Empire of the Dirty Digger and the assorted red top rottweillers from elsewhere will again soon have lots of people convinced Premiership is best, and this week's showing-up didn't happen.

 

 

 

THE 2020 European Championship finals COULD be coming to Glasgow. Haud me back. IF the proposed dog's dinner of changes do go through and IF the planned move to 12 different venues, prior to the semi-finals and finals being held in a 13th does happen - IF the finals are in the UK, they will be in London. After all, even on Platini's new-look level playing field - money will still talk, loudly, and they've got a lot more up in that there Lunnun than in Glasgow.

 

However, with three stadiums of over 50,000 capacity and a fitba-daft fan base who would be all-too-ready to come out and party, why not Glasgow?

 

That said, going to 24 teams in the knock-out stages wasn't in my opinion Wiggy Smith's best idea, and he has had a few belting bad ones over the years. Call me old-fashioned, but I reckon the final stages of the Euros should be for the best eight teams and for the World Cup the best 16.

 

Diluting the final stages, simply to have more games, dilutes the product too-much. Less is more in my view.

Celtic Fans - Enjoy Neil Lennon While You've Got Him

NEIL LENNON clearly has an image problem; I have only occasionally been in the same room as the Celtic manager, at post-match press conferences, so I canot say I know him or have much experience of him. However, those few members of the Scottish Football Writers Association's A-team: the guys on Old Firm patrol, who still speak to me, tell me, away from the pressures of work, say in one of the West End bistros he sometimes visits, he is stimulating and funny - great craic as they say in his home island.

 

If we take the Brian Clough dictum that there is one inevitable outcome to any managerial career - the sack, then Lenny should enjoy his present time at Celtic Park. Of course he got some flak after last Saturday's loss to Inverness CT, that goes with the territory. There is a sizeable sect or sects within the Celtic Family which is incapable of accepting that their team can lose to another Scottish side, other than a Rangers team vying with the Hoops for the title.

 

The Celtic Family (ok, some of them) will (reluctantly) accept losing to Rangers - in the moments after it is shown that the penalty Celtic didn't get wasn't a "stonewaller", while though it was a soft one, there was a case for giving Rangers their match-winning one. But, losing to Inverness, or St Johnstone or say St Mirren - no, they couldn't possibly have lost because every man jack of the opposition played above themselves, or because Celtic enjoyed absolutely no luck.

 

Never, Celtic lost, because the players let the jerseys down, or the manager got his tactics, his substitutions, his motivation wrong. If you beat Celtic (or Rangers for that matter) it wasn't down to you, it was because the CEltic (or Rangers) players let the side and the fans down - and they must be punished for this, even if that punishment amounts to no more than a stream of invective.

 

I ask the Celtic Family - how much of this would you be prepared to endure? If, at your work, you go in every day and do your best, week-in, week-out, you go home at night, having worked well, or maybe spent the day skiving on the internet, but, your work-mates don't line-up at the door to shout abuse at you. How would you feel, if, like Neil Lennon, you had to endure such treatment?

 

The pressures on Lennon particularly are immense - he HAS to keep Celtic winning; his team may be the best in Scotland, but, in European terms, they are a mid-table side. They may be the richest club in Scotland today - in Europe, they are paupers.

 

He is doing a great job at Celtic, he's a young manager, with ambition. He has played in England, he must surely, deep-down, wonder: "I cut it as a player in the top-flight in England, could I also cut-it as a manager"?

 

The riches available down there are eye-watering in comparison to what even he can get up here. There will come a day when Lennon will jump - it is not too-outlandish to suggest, he's the right age and with the right "apprenticeship" to be a credible potenital successor to the Govan Grump at Old Trafford.

 

Those dissenting Celtic fans might do well to ca canny in their criticism; don't push, enjoy him while you've got him.

 

 

 

I LIKE Owen Coyle. He was always good value when learning the managerial trade in the First Division in Scotland. His sacking by Bolton was typical of the short-termism in the English game today and he is keeping his profile up nicely by his media work just now.

 

Given what he did at Airdrie, St Johnstone, Burnley and Bolton - getting not quite top-drawer players to produce the goods - he has the skill sets for the Scotland job. But, so too has Billy Stark, just as Craig Levein and George Burley had these same skill sets.

 

What I am saying, almost anyone could be Scotland boss - without getting us winning more than our average 40% of games, and without getting us to the European Championships or World Cup Finals.

 

The Scotland job is a poisoned chalice and will continue to be thus until we get the entire Scottish Football model changed for the better.

 

Can you see this happening under the present shower of Hampden blazers?

 

No, neither can I.