We Arra Peepul an' We Urny Happy

DOWN HERE, in “Orange County” - where real men wear bowler hats, white gloves, dark suits and brown brogues, there is a sombre air around this morning. 'The King's XI' had their bums handed to them on a plate, by a gang of genuine 'Oranjie Men' and in my own and the other former pit villages nearby, the natives are decidedly unhappy.

The glory-seeking hingers-oan are keeping quiet; those whose beliefs have been tested by off-field events over the past decade too. Meanwhile, the very-few members of the Dark Side Family whom we allow to live amongst us are chipper. As ever in the Land of the Two Warring Tribes, any defeat for one side has the other lot salivating, more-so when they can see the possibility of inflicting further pain at the weekend.

Still, look on the bright side – my Grandson – The Polis, might earn his overtime this weekend.

That own goal rather summed up the Blues in Eindhoven. Some might say the performance stank, I don't think it was that good. The team's form in Europe last season was unacceptable. The manager has tinkered with his team and got no return in the CL this season, but, perhaps in the calmer waters of the Europa League, results will improve. Mind you, I, for one, am not confident of that.

I still maintain – more than half of the current squad are simply, to use my late Hun Faither's expression: “Not Rangers' Class.” Of course, such is the paucity of talent and ambition in the domestic Scottish game, they could still win a Treble this season – simply because, the Other Lot do not appear to be as strong or as well-managed as they were last season while The Diddy Teams, having taken their lead from the Bigot Brothers, are recruiting even poorer non-Scottish mercenaries than their so-called betters.

It may well be cheaper, easier and less stressful all round to recruit on the second-hand market, rather than implement a working youth development programme. It doesn't help that even non-league clubs in England can offer players better wages than can be had in Scotland – and agents are only too willing to take their cut in sending talented young Scots south.

However, I still believe, having faith in Scottish talent could offer a better pay-off, domestically and in Europe, than buying-in badge-kissing mercenaries. But, the whole landscape of Scottish Fitba is now so skewed against home-grown talent, I think it will take years, and an as yet absent desire in the board rooms and managers' offices to turn back the clock and then turn things around.

It is now 40 years since a Scottish side last won a European trophy. It is now 37-years since Graeme Souness was repatriated and decided the local talent pool was insufficient for his and his Chairman's ambition. We've been slipping downhill ever since. It is surely time, the slippage was halted, then reversed. However, I do not see a desire to do this anywhere in the game up here. Truly, we are all doomed.

Looking at this week's European results makes dismal reading. I don't suppose it was much of a surprise that a poor Rangers team, still attempting to gel, should lose to PSV, but, the margin of defeat has to be an issue. At least, they have the consolation of a Europa League group place.

Aberdeen too are still in Europe, dropping into the Conference League following their hardly-surprising loss to the Swedish Champions BK Hacken. Again, however, the margin of defeat should, I would hope, get the great brains at the top of our game thinking: “What are our clubs doing wrong, and what can we do to correct things?”

As for the demise of Hearts and Hibs – it reminds me of a throwaway line I first heard from the late, great, Bobby Knutt, at Batley Variety Club back in the mid-1970s, when he mused: “What about football in Sheffield – you never know, it might catch-on.”

Sheffield native Knotty's disquiet at the state of The Blades and The Owls back then is today being mirrored in Auld Reekie.

To sum up – we appear to be doomed to wander in the wilderness for a while longer yet. Moses and the Israeilites' 40-year stravaig around the Sinai looks increasingly like a short sentence from where Scottish football now is – 40-years and counting since our last win in Europe. I don't see things changing any time soon.

Meanwhile, along the sixth-floor corridor at Hampden, our Footballing High Heid Yins are unlikely to lift their heads out of the gravy trough long enough to notice. So long as they get even one away freebie to Europe each season, it's a case of: “job done.”

FINALLY – I see from reading posts in Facebook, tickets are still available for our upcoming COMPETITIVE game against Cyprus, but, already, briefs for the CELEBRATION FRIENDLY against England cannot be obtained without selling a kidney (and throwing in as an added incentive – the deflowering of a youngest daughter). Maybe Mark Renton was onto something in his rant – we are obsessed by the wankers next door.

 

Nae Pressure John - Just Tell Them

JOHN McGINN just might be going through the most-difficult few days of his career, as he seeks to persuade his Aston Villa team mates that it will be anything but a dawdle when they face Hibernian, at Easter Road, in the Europa Conference League Play-Off Round.

Of course, Villa will start as favourites; however, they need to remember, they might have won the European Cup over 40 years ago, but, today they are in the continent's third tier competition, facing a Scottish side whose European credentials were forged even longer ago. This is still a Battle of Britain contest, and while Villa will be expected to prevail, against a Scottish team, determined to beat an English one – they can take nothing for granted.

It falls to McGinn to persuade his team mates – they cannot treat this one lightly.

MORE THAN 60 year ago, I spent a year at a commercial college in Glasgow, being taught shorthand and typing, to help me along my chosen career path into journalism. I boarded with an aunt and uncle in Springburn, ane my uncle, who worked on the railways, used to take me to watch Rangers play.

I can honestly say, in my intervening years covering The Beautiful Game, I have never seen any team waste time and rub-in superiority with quite the elan that that Rangers team, inspired by Jim Baxter at the peak of his powers demonstrated that season.

In particular, I remember them humiliating Celtic at Celtic Park, as Baxter, Ron McKinnon and John Greig indulged in a bout of keep ball to wind down the clock. The Celtic fans didn't hang around to suffer this, they had departed early, but, the Bears loved it.

I mention this memory of long ago, since time wasting and how to counteract it is apparently a hot topic at the moment – with referees being instructed to add-on time should they feel a side is time-wasting.

This shows, when it comes to improving the product, the game's High Heid Yins show a magnificent inability to learn from other sports. For instance, covering Ice Hockey I have seen players sent to the sin bin for Delaying the Game penalties. Other sports, such as Basketball, have rules which demand that players get a dead ball back into play within certain time constraints.

In Rugby Union, goal kickers have a limited time in which to take their kicks at goal, and, while the referees in that game, sadly, do not penalise often enough – there are also time constraints on getting the ball into the scrums and lines-out.

Here's an idea for Football:

• Why not go to what I would call “Ball in Play” time.

• This would demand, we get a set period of actual play – maybe 60 minutes

• Every time the ball goes out of play, the clock stops; ditto every time the referee blows his whistle to stop play.

• That way, we get ball in play time – with the teams required to restart the game within a set time of the referee telling them to do so.

To help with this, we take time-keeping duties away from the referee and give it to a time-keeper. This, I think, would be a good start towards improving the spectator experience.

NOT FOR nothing is Marie Osmond's 'Paper Roses' associated with Kilmarnock. Ever since Willie Waddell showed perfect timing, in getting out at the top, we supporters have been fed a diet of promises from the various directors of the club.

The years since 1965 have generally been hard, but, we're still here and if all the pain hasn't been washed away, times such as this, what some fans are calling: “Carlsberg August” has left us feeling good about ourselves.

Back-to-back wins over the Ugly Sisters has meant life is, for the moment, a bowl of cherries for Derek McInnes. But, knowing how some Rugby Park regulars think, it will not be long before some will again be calling for his head.

Meanwhile, enjoy the moment Killie fans.

DOWN HERE in God's County, these are strange times in football. As if Killie beating both halves of the Old Firm wasn't a big enough surprise, it is insignificant compared to the state of the West of Scotland Premier Division table, which shows Auchinleck Talbot lying in 14^th spot in the 16-club division.

Legendary gaffer Tucker Sloan has embarked on a major rebuilding job this season, after the 'Bot crashed out of the Junior Cup to Cumnock last season, and several club legends departed Beechwood Park.

Talbot have won just one of their first six league games, but, Tucker is such a terrific manager and the 'Bot has such a well-oiled club machine, I have no fears about them recovering – a league campaign is a marathon, not a sprint.

SO, The Women's World Cup is over, and The Lionesses lost. Dear Me, such a shame. Still, it's now safe for us Scots to turn back on our televisions – the BBC and ITV commentaries were right up there with the legendary Marty Feldman, England v Uruguay commentary spool, so, it was a relief when they lost.

Still, one World Cup win every 93 years does mark England out as the game's Master Race, doesn't it.

By the way, am I alone in thinking, had the Spanish goalkeeper made that penalty save which Mary Earps pulled off, by going early and getting away with it, then the FA would have been consulting Owen Farrell's KC in an effort to get at least a retake. I reckon, even Willie Collum could have seen, Earps moved before the kick had been taken.

FINALLY, I have never been aware of any magical properties around Brendan Rodgers. To me, he is one of those managers who has been built-up way beyond his abilities, and I fear his second coming in the East End of Glasgow may be a damp squib.

So, I was not surprised when he came up with his reason for losing to Kilmarnock on Sunday – it was all down to the Rugby Park pitch. Listen wee man, good players can play and win on any pitch.

 

BBC Shortbread - Mair Like Purritch And Auld Claes

I HAVE long had my doubts about BBC Shortbread, oor ain, haund-knitted outpost of the English Empire. Even back in the days of Queen Margaret Drive, I thought it a strange organisation, low on confidence and, like so-many Scottish branches of a UK Establishment institution, needing permission from London before even going for a toilet break.

Particularly when it comes to sport, the Glasgow outpost has long had a liking for enthusiastic amateurs, rather than professionals. Now, at the highest level: Bill McLaren or Bob Crampsey for instance, guys who worked at the chalk face from Monday to Friday then picked up a microphone on a Saturday, well, they could do as good if not a better job than the professional journalists. However, The Voice and The Brain were pretty unique talents in their fields.

BBC Shortbread also inflicted on us, and still inflicts on us, lesser talents who should probably have stuck to their original career paths. More recently too, they have gone down the road of putting on-air coverage into the hands of retired footballers, many of whom emphasised the belief that footballers wore their IQ on their backs. This, I fear was all part of a systemic plot to “dumb down” sports coverage.

All is not lost, I have to admit. The front page of the BBC Shortbread Sports website on Friday had thumbnails linking to 40 different stories. Twenty-six of these are football stories; eleven are stories from the UCI World Cycling Championships, being held in Scotland; there was one Athletics story and two rugby stories.

So, while 65% of the stories are about football – the High Heid Yins at Pacific Quay have noticed, sports other than football are available in Scotland. I cannot help thinking, maybe if they employed real sports writers, they could better reflect the wide range of sports played up here.

For instance, our young athletes, in various disciplines, are doing rather well in the Commonwealth Youth Games, currently taking place in Trinidad and Tobago. The Commonwealth Games Scotland and Scottish Athletics Facebook pages are carrying stories of medals won and outstanding performances – it would be nice if the team at Pacific Quay, and the mainstream media in general, could lift their eyes from their fitba obsession and give the kids a boost.

BBC Shortbread were seen at their collective “best” on Wednesday night, with their coverage of the Rangers v Servette Champions League qualifier. Neil McCann made some good points, as did co-commentator James McFadden, however, I fear Alan Hutton and Stevie Thompson are definitely members of the fans with microphones sub-sect of the Lap Top Loyal.

The truth, as I see it, is – there are total frauds out there, guys taking a very-good wage from the club, who are what my auld Hun of a Faither use to describe as NRCs – Not Rangers Class.

OK Not being a Rangers' fan, I go along with which Rangers players did you least like to see lining-up against my side – Kilmarnock? By that measure, my Rangers Nightmare Team would be (in 4-4-2) formation: Goram; Jardine, Woodburn, Gough, Caldow; Henderson, Gascoigne, Baxter, Wilson; McCoist, Hateley. Measured against that XI, not one of the Rangers' squad on Wednesday night would make the Third Team.

That game on Wednesday should have been over by half-time, a half-decent Rangers' team would have put five or six goals on Servette. I predict problems in Geneva.

FOR A WEE WHILE on Saturday night and Sunday morning, St Mirren were sitting top of the league. This gave me the chance to ask two of my Buddies-supporting sports writer friends if they were suffering nose bleeds from such a lofty perch.

One replied, he was coping – just, the other, better known as a rugby writer, replied he was very-happy, but, more-concerned as to where the team would be in May. He's too-sensible to be in this business methinks.

I DO NOT often watch the top-flight English games. To be really exciting, football needs mistakes and the players at that level, while they may no longer have the individual skills of the guys I grew up watching: Baxter, Law, Best and Charlton, the Lisbon Lions etc., they make fewer mistakes, because they so-seldom attempt the “killer ball” the likes of Baxter, Charlton, Bobby Murdoch and Co would regularly pull off.

But, I did catch the Arsenal v Nottingham Forest game on Saturday, and was pleasantly surprised. The game, however, only came alive when Forest scored and realised – hey, we could still get something out of this.

Of course, it helped that Alistair McCoist was on commentary. He really is the best “colour man” in the business. I love Test Match Special, particularly when they go “off piste” to talk about somethng other than the actual game they are covering. Coisty has such entertaining moments, such as, on Saturday, when he got started on statues in Kirriemuir. The man is a National Treasure.

FINALLY – about this suggested £60 million joint signing deal, between West Ham United and Manchester United. I hear David Moyes actually negotiated a £100 million deal for Scott McTominay (provided they got the version that plays for Scotland and not the one that plays for MU) – but agreed a £40 million discount if he took Harry Maguire as well.

TIME to do my celebrated David Francey impression: “Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Disaster for Scotland.” Or perhaps it would be better to reprise part of one of Chic Murray's lines from his celebrated 'Blackpool Wedding' monologue and say: “the organist played Here We Are Again.”

OK, the Old Fool hasn't lost it again, I am referring to Hibs' 1-2 loss to their unheralded Andorran opponents in Thursday's opening European match of this new season. There is a clip on Facebook of the travelling Leithers' response to this defeat; one which was made perhaps slightly more-tolerable by a 91^st minute Hibs' goal.

Let's just say, a moving rendition of 'Sunshine On Leith' it wasn't. The troops were not amused and making their unhappiness all too clear to the Hibs players as they left the field.

Am I surprised? Not really. Scottish clubs have been doing prat falls in the early rounds of Europe for many years now. You might think the High Heid Yins at the clubs would have cottoned-on to the fact, their management model was faulty and done something lang syne. But no, I reckon we will stumble along, under-achieving with greater regularity for a few years yet.

To quote dear old Craig Brown: “there are no easy international games these days,” and that applies equally if the international game involves a club or national team.

Gaining parity – the first task; then winning the second leg at Easter Road will not, I suspect, be an easy ask.

Still, you reap what you sow; so when you go down the road of signing third and fourth-rate non-Scots, only giving native talent its chance after you have exhausted every other avenue, and totally junked the legacy of The Famous Five, Joe Baker, Pat Stanton and so on – you end up losing to the representatives of a country which has, as one poster noted on Facebook: “a population smaller than a full house at Celtic Park.”

Of course, those thoroughly pissed-off Hibs fans in Andorra, and, can I say, after shelling-out hard-earned cash, in times of real economic hardship, to follow their side to the Pyrennes – they had every right to be angry, are Scottish fans.

We have been raised to believe nations such as Andorra produce “diddy teams” that we, the 21^st century descendants of the Scotch Professors who taught the world the passing game, should be able to beat without breaking sweat.

Recent results in the early qualifying rounds in Europe have surely proved – now, our sides that sneak into the lesser European competitions on the coat tails of the Bigot Brothers, these clubs are not just 'diddy teams' inside the mind of Charles Young Esquire – in Europe, they are 'diddy teams' in their own right.

LOW POINTS in the stellar history of Scottish Football Writing. I can report a late contender for the top ten – Aidan Smith's piece in Saturday's Hoots Mon.

Here young Aidan manages to name-check Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage, suggesting Scottish Fitba's High Heid Yins should consult that pair of numpties on a way to get us out of Europe, in the wake of Hibs' Andorran Apocalypse.

Pay attention Aidan – Scotland's 'diddy teams' such as Hibs, Aberdeen, Motherwell, Kilmarnock, even Rangers some season ago, could have given the Brexiteers lessons on how to exit Europe in the most-embarrassing way possible.

Our clubs have long been “the three-pin plugs” of football - “useless in Europe.”

MEANWHILE, in that other parallel universe, occupied by the Glasgow-based Scottish football media, it's still all about the Bigot brothers, which diddy non-Scottish players they are supposedly buying, while preparing for the Breengers opening European game, next week, against either Servette or Genk.

The Belgians are ranked 137 in UEFA's Club Co-efficient list, while the Swiss are at 201 – lower than Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United, Motherwell, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock. So, a guaranteed win for Rangers, or a potential banana skin? You decide.

By the way, the second round draw – the last 16 - for the Viaplay Cup was made over the weekend. Another question, will it still be known as that by the time the final comes around – or will Viaplay's pull out of the UK market see it renamed?

I WAS AWARE that Scottish Gas have purchased naming rights to Murrayfield, Scotland's largest sports ground, now known as Scottish Gas Murrayfield. However, the news that the same company were now sponsoring the Men's and Women's Scottish Cup passed over my head – probably because I've largely given-up on newspapers and BBC Shortbread.

It's strange to see the early rounds containing stellar Junior Football names such as Auchinleck Talbot, Glenafton Athletic, Irvine Meadow and Hill o' Beath, our game is definitely changing. Tie of the early rounds, either The Glen v Darvel, or Hill o' Beath v Tayport.

My new favourite team name, ok, it may never have the romance of Glenbuck Cherrypickers, but, I do love the idea of Flip the Mindset Women, who will entertain Nairn St Ninian's in the Women's Scottish Cup.

Flip a woman's mindset – how?

LISTENING TO Test Match Special during the lengthy rain break in the afternoon session of the final test at The Oval, I and the other listeners were treated to a wonderful half hour segment, of former England Captain Michael Atherton and his nemesis, Glen McGrath, talking to Jonathan Agnew. The reason for the segment, the fact McGrath has dismissed Atherton 19 times, the greatest success rate in the one v one history of cricket.

OK, I accept that cricket, by its very format, offers greater opportunity for one v one competition, within the framework of a team game. But, how come we never get these sorts of snippets in football comment.

Retired footballers operating in the media tend to be “characters”, more known for funny incidents, and more-often discussing such incidents. We seldom, if ever, get a serious discussion about facets of the game, or, where it is going.

For instance, elsewhere in the TMS coverage of the rain break, we had a group of the pundits selecting the England team for the 2027 Ashes series in England.

Yes, you got that correct – pick an international team to play four year hence. I just wonder what kind of mess the great brains of BBC Shortbread might make, if asked to pre-select the Scotland squad for say the 2026 World Cup. Would they even know the names of the young Scots who might emerge for that campaign?

How many of the current squad would still be there, particularly if Stevie Clarke was no longer leading Scotland?

Fitba coverage in Scotland has been dumbed down considerably in recent years, a fact which has allowed the stumble bums running our game to get away with murder.

It really is time for our mainstream media to get serious about the game.

FINALLY, Congratulations to one of the Best Guys ever to sit in a press box. I refer to the great Roddy Forsyth, who is hanging-up his mike and shutting down his lap top after the best part of half a century at the coal face.

Roddy's Parkinson's Disease has been a big factor in his decision to quit and he was invited up to the sixth floor corridor for a farewell presentation from the SPFL in recognition of his fine work in covering the game up here.

I now hope Roddy will write his memoirs, he has a terrific story to tell.

Enjoy a long retirement Mate.

 

Here We Go Again - A New Season But The Same Old Pish

(This opening paragraph should be read to Dvorak's New World Symphony in the background.)

EEH! When Ah were nowt burralad, we 'ad real summers: hot weather, sunshine, we'd go off down t' burn all day, and didn't 'ave ter come 'ome intil street lights came on. We also had sporting seasons; football stopped on 1 May, then we played cricket. When Wimbledon came round, we played tennis, then, with T' Open Golf, we played that. Only then, with the Claret Jug on its way back to America, or to somewhere in the Empire (white nations only back then) did our thoughts turn back to football.

But, these days are past and in the past they must remain. Saturday Football in Scotland has returned – sort of; with the opening group ties in whatever the League Cup is called this season. A mere 42 days – six weeks – had passed since The Scottish Cup Final, the supposed big finish to the domestic season – that's an indecently-short close season.

Of course, it was only the 'Diddy Teams' who were in meaningful action; the big guns – Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs don't have to bother themselves with domestic issues for another two or three weeks – most of them have the small matter of not embarrassing Scotland in Europe before they need worry about being embarrassed at home, a fate which befell St Mirren, St Johnstone and Dundee United on what passed for opening day of the new season.

Celtic don't kick-off their European campaign until September, since they have gone straight into the group stage of the Champions League.

Rangers kick-off their Champions League campaign at the Third Qualifying Round stage, on 8/9 August.

Aberdeen go into the Play-Off Round of the Europa League, which means their campaign will start on 24 August.

Hibs' Europa Conference League campaign gets underway this Thursday, 27 July, when they play their first leg against the Andorran club Inter Escaldes, who beat a Faroese club to qualify to host Hibs this week.

Hearts' Europa Conference League campaign doesn't start until 10 August, when they play their opening match in the third qualifying round.

Back when I was a boy, football didn't start until the second week-end in August. In those days, you were allowed to recover from your summer holidays before you were expected to turn your thoughts to fitba and the onset of winter.

Has this need for all-year-round fitba made us any happier? Ah hae ma doots, I certainly feel the quality of the game has gone downhill rapidly as the fixture demands on the players has increased.

Crowds haven't been great over the first two weekends; which, given how hard the Tories are currently making it for us lower orders to survive, isn't surprising. A family's financial cake can only be cut so-many ways, and when times are hard, something has to give – so why not subsidising the lifestyle of badge-kissing foreign imports who don't know the difference between St Mirren and St Johnstone, or East Fife and East Stirlingshire.

We really do need to have a serious look at Scottish football, and how to make it better. I appreciate, the game really needs root and branch reform, which means getting FIFA to take the lead in sorting-out a mess which is largely of their making, but, I am not holding my breath on this.

What can a wee country like Scotland do? Not a lot, I hear you say. However, we do have, for a small nation, a few things going for us when it comes to making a difference – not least our place on IFAB – the International Football Associations Board, the body which has a huge say in how the Laws of the Game are administered. That would be a good place to start, by lobbying for change there.

Even if we can do little to push through the necessary big changes, we can still, domestically, make the small tweaks which might, in time, make a huge difference.

For a start, if I can once again flog an old hobby horse of mine:

• WE MUST DO MORE TO ENCOURAGE YOUNG SCOTTISH TALENT

We could, I suggest, do this and boost the faltering League Cup by forcing the clubs to field Scots in this competition. For a start, the League Cup does not carry a European place in the following season as an incentive; so, how about:

• Making it mandatory for clubs to field Scotsmen in the League Cup.

If that is unacceptable to the clubs at the moment, well, as a starting point towards making it a Scots Only competition, why not:

• Enforce Chick Young's “Eight Diddies” rule, by insisting each club has eight Scotsmen on the park at all times during games.

I have a feeling, if they knew they were going along to support young, local talent, the fans would come out in increased numbers. Also, if the bigger clubs had to pick Scots instead of their foreign mercenaries, it might level the playing field even more.

Let's do something, because the current overall management model isn't working.

FINALLY – tomorrow will be a serious day for Scottish football, when we gather in the afternoon, in The Ayrshire Suite, at Ayr Racecourse to bid farewell to Craig Brown.

The Ayrshire Suite is a big venue, but, I expect it to be well-filled as we say our goodbye to one of the really good guys of The Beautiful Game.

 

Youth Development - A Scottish Footballing Oxymoron

 

The legendary Lost Boys of 1989
 

ENGLAND has just won the European Under-21 Championships, well done to them. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of the members of the winning team going on to have distinguished careers in English football. I might be wrong in this, but, given how, in the top-flight of the English domestic game, with most of the clubs now being foreign-owned and managed, English players are what is known in the animal world as “An Endangered Species” very few of these lads will go on to become household names I fear.

The win was England's first at this level since 1984. So, I thought I'd go back and have a look at what happened to that victorious team from 39 years ago. Back then, the final was a two-legged affair, as with this year: England v Spain.

England won the first leg, in Seville, 1-0; future Rangers star Mel Sterland scored the goal and the England team was: Hucker (Queen's Park Rangers); Sterland (Sheffield Wednesday), Thomas (Tottenham Hotspur), Bracewell (Stoke City), Watson, (Norwich City), Stevens (Brighton & Hove Albion), Callaghan (Watford), Gayle (Birmingham City), Hateley (Portsmouth), Hodge (Nottingham Forest), Brock (Oxford United). Sub used: D'Avray (Ipswich Town).

For the second leg, at Sheffield United's Bramall Lane, which England won 2-0, Gary Bailey of Manchester United was in goals, with Neil Pickering of Sunderland at left back, David Mountfield of Everton at left-half, while Danny Wallace of Southampton got 20 minutes off the bench.

So, England used 16 players in that two-legged final. Of these Bailey (2 caps), Bracewell (3), Hateley (32), Hodge (24), Sterland (1), Stevens (7), Thomas (1), Wallace (1) and Watson (12) went on to win full England caps.

To have 9 players from 16 used train-on to win full caps is a better than average result from an age group side – that's a 56.25% conversion rate, Iwonder how this current title-winning England side will measure-up by the time their careers are over, I would forecast, not as well.

What, I hear you ask, has sent old Socrates down that particular lane? Well, it followed a conversation I had this week with one of my fellow coffin dodgers. He spends a lot of his time just now watching his grandson's sporting progress. This youngster is the son of a former Scottish Schools Under-15 cap, who went down the road straight from school, but was back up it fairly-quickly. He did enjoy a reasonable career in the lower Scottish Leagues, but, he never achieved his potential.

With his father's experience to guide him, the kid is not apparently putting all his eggs in his football basket – he is also a nationally-ranked athlete. However, his grandfather tells me, he has had to move schools – the SFA now wants their more-promising youngsters “hot-housed” in regional Schools of Football. He is in the Academy of a Scottish Premiership club, but, like his grandfather Ah hae Ma doots about this system.

According to my informant, the club seems only interested in the two or three players in the group who are showing real potential, the rest are there to make-up the numbers.

Back in 1984, Scotland had qualified for the quarter-finals, where we lost to Yugoslavia. This time round, we finished fourth in our five nation qualifying group, managing just one win from our eight games, when we beat bottom side Kazakhstan.

I cannot honestly say we have gone backwards in the past 40 years, but, I reckon we have, at best, stood still over that period and we have to ask ourselves:

• Is this acceptable?

• Is it good enough?

Writing the above sent me back to the record book, to see just how Scotland has done in this particular championship, since the first, back in 1978.

Back then, we lost-out to what was then Czechoslovakia on goal difference, after we had tied at the top of the qualifying group.

We improved in the 1980s, when we were a power in Europe at this level:

• 1980 – quarter-finalists

• 1982 – semi-finalists, lost 1-2 to England

• 1984 – semi-finalists

• 1986 – failed to get out of the qualifying group

• 1988 – quarter-finalists.

The 1990s began badly, when we failed to get out of the qualifying group in 1990. This then became something of a roller coaster decade:

• 1992 – semi-finalists lost 0-1 to Sweden

• 1994 – failed to get out of the qualifying round

• 1996 – finished fourth, lost to France in the third/fourth play-off

• 1998 – failed to get out of the qualifying round

The 2000s have been a disaster. We have competed in 13 Under-21 Championships; we reached the play-off rounds in 2004 and again in 2011, otherwise, in 2000, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023 we have failed to get out of our qualifying group.

Overall, we have won 76 of the 192 games we have played in these championships, that's a winning percentage of 39.6%. We have also accrued just 47.4% of the available points.

I appreciate, taking it from just one tournament, between 1976 and 1979 is in many ways an unfair comparison, however, in that initial tournament, we had a 50% win record and accrued 58.3% of the available points – that's our base line.

We have contested 23 Under-21 Championships since that initial tournament and in only 8 of those have we equalled or bettered that initial 50% wins performance. In the 11 tournaments between 1978 and 2000 we posted a 42.9% winning record and accrued 49.6% of the available points.

In the 12 tournaments of this third millennium, we have won only 37% of the matches and accrued a mere 45.7% of the available points. We haven't reached the sharp end of the tournament in 27 years, indeed the last Scotland Under-21 squad to play a meaningful game in Europe – that third-place play-off against France back in 1996 was: Derek Stillie (Aberdeen), Scott Marshall (Arsenal), Jackie McNamara (Celtic), Steven Pressley, Christian Dailly (both Dundee United), Jamie Fullarton (St Mirren), Stephen Crawford (Raith Rovers), Charlie Miller (Rangers), Jim Hamilton (Dundee), Simon Donnelly (Celtic), Allan Johnston (Heart of Midlothian), Colin Meldrum (Kilmarnock), Stuart Gray (Celtic), Martin Baker (St Mirren), Stephen Glass (Aberdeen), Neil Murray (Rangers), Andy Liddell (Barnsley), Brian McLaughlin (Celtic).

Of these 18 players, only 8 (44.4%) - McNamara, Pressley, Dailly, Crawford, Miller, Donnelly, Johnston and Glass went on to win even one full cap.

Of the French squad which beat us – 11 players, including the likes of Patrick Vieira, Claude Makélélé, Robert Pires and Sylvain Wiltord (that's 61.1%) trained-on to win full caps.

So, quite clearly, we've been getting it wrong for years, which speaks volumes for the way Stevie Clarke has galvanised our big team, given the foundations are crumbling. However, if we are not bringing through the talent to replace the big names when they depart, I can see us continuing to stagnate internationally.

We've either been marking time or going backwards for years, is it too much to hope for enlightenment striking the numpties along the sixth floor corridor at Hampden and things improving for young, home-grown Scottish talent.

Which brings me back to the youngster whose grandfather got me thinking. Doesn't he and his contemporaries deserve a better shot at glory than they are getting?

I finish with what I think is an interesting aside on this. Scott Marshall and Neil Murray, from the 1996 squad which lost to France were also two of the legendary “Lost Boys” - the squad which Craig Brown managed to the 1989 FIFA Under-16 World Cup Final, where they were robbed of victory by a clearly over-age Saudi Arabia team. Only three members of that fantastic Scotland squad – Andy McLaren, Brian O'Neil and Paul Dickov trained-on to become full caps.

Scottish football: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.”