Come Off It Hateley - Yer Avin A Larff

MARK Hateley thinks (ok, far-fetched, but, live with it) Rangers should be fast-tracked back into the SPL, for the good of Scottish football. P - l - e - a - s - e: gie us peace Mark.

He goes on: "Rangers have done their time".

Mark son - yer avin a larff.

It's the continuing sense of entitlement from the great and good of the Rangers "family" which gets me. A combination of an unsustainable management method and downright crooked swindling brought down the institution which had been Scotland's most-successful team since professionalism was introduced in 1890. In any properly-run sphere of commercial enterprise, any new start-up following administration or liquidation would have had to start again at the bottom and work up.

The bottom in (semi-) professional football in Scotland is the juniors. The "Rangers" entity which Charles Green formed following administration should, at best, have started life in Central Division Two of the West of Scotland Regional Leagues of the Scottish Junior Football Association - NOT the Third Division of the Scottish Football League.

Yet, that league having been won, Hateley wants the club immediately promoted to the SPL - you couldn't make it up.

Yes, there are reasons - non-football ones - why the Rangers "brand" should be allowed to flourish - we have to have somewhere to be a focus of pro-Protestant bigotry in this country apparently. The fact that pandering to that bigotry makes money is a stain on Scotland, so, let's do it.

Aye right - not for me thank you.

HAD the SFA done the right thing post-Whyte, they would have told Green & Co to start in the juniors and used the other clubs' fear of losing the tainted money they make out of Rangers to force through real and sustainable change.

We'd have had our pyramid; they might well have brought in caps on the size of squads, salary caps, forced through legislation demanding that a high percentage of each squad should be Scottish-qualified.

They could have tried-out ideas which might make for a more fan-friendly and exciting league. But, that would have demanded men of ideas and vision and there are damned few, some might say no examples of such men around Hampden.

Scottish football has been failing for years. The Souness "revolution" which brought Hateley to Scotland in the first place merely helped hasten the failure rate.

We NEED change, but, it has to be sustainable change and fast-tracking the present incarnation of Rangergs into the SPL is most definitely NOT the type of change we need.

I HAVE to admit, reading wee Davie Leggat's daily rants in his blog LeggoLand is one of my secret guilty pleasures.

I have shared some laughs with the wee man in various press boxes and have long been aware that Davie is indeed the Lap Top Loyal's chief loyalist. Compared to Davie's love of Rangers, the late Malky Munro's love affair with Partick Thistle was as sham as Chick Young's St Mirren marriage.

Right now Davie has a new pet hate. For long enough he wasted no opportunity to vent his spleen at 'Odious Creep', as he has dubbed Graham 'Britney' Spiers. But, of late he has found a new target - Keith Jackson of what Leggo dubs 'The Daily Rhebel'.

Keith is, it has to be admitted, an easy target. He perhaps ought to have quit after his exclusive revelation that Craig Whyte's wealth was "off the radar", when the Carfin Con Man first surfaced in Scottish football. (Apologies to the good people of Carfin by the way, alliteration in play there, but, you've got the crematorium and Rangers were well-burned by him).

I have never rated Jackson, he is not a patch on his predecessors as the Record's top football man, such as 'Waverley', Hughie Taylor, the great 'Chiefie' Cameron and even - until he began to believe his own publicity, the very able James Traynor. His presence at the head of a pretty below average Record writing team merely helps illustrate how that paper has fallen.

I recall, some years ago, Jackson was  pontificating pre-match on Radio Clyde, a bunch of assembled hacks were listening in the Firhill press box, when one of our number, a certain Paisley Buddie named William Leckie erupted and wondered aloud what kind of shite that useless c*** Jackson would come up with next.

"Well Bill, whatever it is, it's your fault", I suggested.

"How come?" replied Mr Leckie.

"Well, you're the silly bar steward who gave him a job with the Record.

At which point Mr Leckie went awfully quiet.

Never mind Bill, we all make mistakes.

SPEAKING of mistakes, apparently the English Players Union made one when they hired Reginald D Hunter to speak at their Player of the Year bash.

I could ask what were they thinking - but thinking is not something we generally associate with footballers.

Mr Hunter's brand of humour is an acquired taste and I would venture that, for an audience of footballers - who let us never forget wear their IQs on their backs - his patter would, like the Wimbledon "Crazy Gang's" forward passes, fly over most of their heads.

Plus Ca Change.....Yawn, Yawn

THE thought processes of the people running the sports desks in the mainstream Scottish media never cease to amaze me. In the year since the last meaningful Old Firm game, they have been like lost sheep; then, last night, as the Under-17 sides from the best and third-best football teams in Glasgow squared-up in the Glasgow Cup Final, what did they do?

Did they send out their top football writers to cover the game, perhaps to give us a steer as to which of the two had the more-promising talent coming through the ranks, or to perhaps pass judgement on the respective youth development programmes (not that it matters, on current form and practices few, if any, of the players concerned will ever get to wear the hoops or the light blue consistently at first team level).

No, they left the match reporting to the great Craig Stewart - the Ayatollah of non-SPL football in Scotland - although, they did cover the off-field excitement as the respective lunatic fringes demonstrated the terrible effect the sight of the opposition colours within the same ground continues to have on them.

A plague on both their houses. I keep hoping the powers-that-be at even one of the clubs will say, soon: "We are going to clean-up our followers' act and this time, even though it will cost us money - we will do it".

But, as long as bigotry pays, this will not happen. Better to indulge in whitabootery and try to sweep it under the carpet.

Rangers, in SFL2 next season, certainly have more scope to blood the kids than Celtic will have in the SPL, but, I long for the day when both clubs are again going head-to-head in Scotland and consistently reaching the last-16 in the big European competitions, WITH MAINLY SCOTTISH SQUADS.

I FIND the Celtic-led calls for relaxation on the Licencing (Scotland) Act which would allow the consumpton of alcohol within grounds during games an encouraging one.

It has always struck me as strange that the erudite and funny guys who used to sit in front of the Firhill press box could enjoy a tincture with their rugger on a Friday night, but not when Thistle were at home the following afternoon. Same fans, different teams, different attitudes.

Of course the lunatic fringes, which are not, by the way, the exclusive property of the two best-supported Glasgow clubs, would have to be combed-out, which will take time; but, with proper and firm stewarding, the use of plastic containers and rigorous training of the bar and security staff, it could be achieved.

We have been scattered to the four winds by work calls, but, until recently I was one of a group of Scottish-based cricket fans who would make an annual trip to the Friday of the Leeds Test Match.

Five am start, breakfast at Scotch Corner; arrive in Leeds before start of play, on to the great West Terracing, there to enjoy the day. We had a designated driver, whose reward was the run of the a la carte menu at the hotel in Appleby on the way home; the rest enjoyed the day, with a good few swallies.

At Headingley, you can drink in your seat whilst watching play - they even provide containers which mean the guy going to the bar can carry eight pints at a time back to the seats, but, the "glasses" are all plastic.

There are two types of stewards - the salmon-jacketed ones, who direct you to your seats and try to make the day a pleasant one, and the taupe-jacketed ones. These guys are sourced from the packs of Yorkshire's Rugby League and Rugby Union clubs - and you DO NOT - if you wish to have a good day - argue with them. They tell you something once and if obedience is not immediate, you are in trouble.

I commend this system to the top floor at Hampden. It might be fun and games for the first season, but, in the longer term, more money would come into Scottish football and the atmosphere would, in time, improve.

WELL-DONE Kim Little, on winning the English PFA Women's Player of the Year award. Is it not typically Scottish and perverse that the two best footballers this nation, which invented the passing game, has produced in the last 25-years have both been women - Julie Fleeting and now wee Kim.

In fact, I reckon WGS could do worse than give Kim, Jenny Beattie (big Johnnie's sister, big John's daughter) and Ifeoma Dieke a run-out in his next squad - they couldn't be any worse than some we have capped of late.

Kenny Shiels - Surely the Ynaff Of The Year

THE BOYS doon at the ludge will not like this, but, I agree with Neil Lennon. Kenny Shiels is a wee, big-mouthed, opinionated ynaff.

If Shields managed Kilmarnock even half as well as he manages to get his name in the paper for some outrageous bout of verbal skitters, Killie would be in Europe, rather than in the bottom six of the SPL.

But, having said that, I again caution Mr Lennon - Neil son, haud yer wheesht. Don't give Kenny the oxygen of publicity; he seems to me to believe in the doctrine of that other oft-quoted Irishman, Oscar Wilde: the only thing worse than being talked-about is not being talked about.

FAR BE it for me to give unsolicited testimonials to other websites and places on the blogsphere, but the erudite Celtic fan who goes by the interweb name of Brogan, Hogan, Trevino and Rogan recently posted an excellent piece on Scottish Football Monitor, regarding the present state of affairs in Scottish Football.

I commend BHTR's views to the body of the Scottish Fitba Kirk; they are well worth reading.

KEN Smith's consistently-excellent Herald Diary had a couple of corkers today. I particularly liked the story about the guy who 'phoned up and asked if it was true that Wembley Stadium was currently covered in beach towels - that's subtle.

There was also, however, a Peter Grant story, about Billy McNeill encouraging him to kick Graeme Souness during an Old Firm game and not to worry about getting sent off, since Rangers would miss Souness more than Celtic would miss Grantie.

I have another couple of Grantie stories. One afternoon at Rugby Park, he was giving the big time Charlie-Loadsamoney patter to a Killie player, who simply replied: "Grantie son, I could buy and sell you".

Grantie then asked ex-Ranger Davie MacFarlane what the Killie player was on to think this; only to be told: "But Grantie, he could buy and sell you; he owns the biggest office equipment company in Scotland and that's his big BMW coupe in the car park".

Exit one chastened Grant.

Another time, again at Rugby Park, Grantie had a kick at Killie's Tam Broon, who flew about ten yards, then got up, marched over, nutted Grant and was sent off.

At time-up Grant's hopes of some sympathy from manager Tommy Burns came to nothing: "Grantie, wee Tam's a Govan man - you never kick a Govan man", he was told by Burns.

Remembering Bremner - But Omitting The Flaws

I HAVE just finished my bed-time reading for this week: Richard Sutcliffe's biography of Billy Bremner. I was disappointed in it. Sutcliffe, a Yorkshire journalist, produced a somewhat lop-sided view of the Wee Man. Sure, he spoke to some old team-mates: Peter Lorimer, Gordon McQueen, David Harvey and so forth, but, crucially in a biography - there were no differing views, it was like the Leeds United strip if you like - all-white, with little attention paid to the darker side of Bremner's character.

I suppose, deep down, we don't want to know about our idols' foibles - unless, as was the case with George Best, he was a serial shagger of beautiful women; so the top guys get an easy ride when it comes to recording their careers.

That Leeds United team which Bremner played in and captained, contained some of the top players of their era. If you were to name a contemporary team drawn from the English First Division (as it then was) players of the decade 1965 - 1975, while Bremner, Johnny Giles and Jack Charlton would get honourable mentions, they would not necessarily make the final XI.

Don Revie, like his successor Brian Clough, built one great team, a team which probably amoun ted to better than the sum of tis constituent parts, but, like Clough, he failed to build a lasting legacy in the way Bill Shankly did at Liverpool, Bill Nicholson did at Tottenham or Sir Matt Busby did at Manchester United.

Revie's managerial style was flawed, as was Clough's and Bremner's captaincy and playing style was flawed.

Back at the time of the Millennium, the Daily Record came up with an ide - to allow the Tartan Army to select a Scotland Team of the Millennium, the best of the best as it were. Bremner was named as captain.

Just this year the Herald came up with its list of the 50 Greatest Scottish Players of All Time - Bremner didn't make it into the Top 11 and, even allowing for that elite group containing one or two players who played in the same position, he wasn't in the Greatest Team, assembled by picking the top-rated player in each position.

And, he wasn't knocked off his lofty perch by successors, but by re-examination, without the hype, of his record.

Sure, he was a superb player - I still re-call an absolutely flawless demonstration of the sweeper's art which he gave in a European game against Hibs at Easter Road in the late 1960s. He gave his all and led from the front in West Germany in 1974, but, had the SFA committee grown a pair between them, after their misbehaviour in the lead-up, neither he nor the easily-led Jinky Johnstone would have played (not that Jinky did and I feel the then anti-Celtic SFA quietly made an example of him but let Bremner off the hook).

Just maybe, their absence could have been the difference between glorious failure and getting into the second stage, had the rest thought: "Hell, we'd better play here or we're out too".

Bremner was a working-class Scot, so perhaps pre-programmed to go off the rails easily. The biography mentions his liking for a drink, the anti-establishment side of his character, but these failings are mentioned in passing - a proper biography calls for greater depth.

We learn nothing we didn't know about the Copenhagen Affair. I'd like to have learned a wee bit more about his relationship with Bobby Collins or how he got on with Jackie Charlton and John Charles. We learn nothing about his Raploch background; Alex Smith has almost made a career out of being Bremner's Best Buddy - he's not mentioned in the biography for instance.

Naw, the book is a wee bit like Bremner, good, but not as good as it would like to be.

I sometimes feel, had the young Bremner picked his boyhood heroes Celtic, and come under the influence of Jock Stein as a boy; or, on getting his first Scotland call-up in 1965 aligned himself with John Greig, Billy McNeill or even Denis Law, rather than Jim Baxter, Scotland might have had a better record than the admittedly good one they amassed over the next decade - and Bremner himself might be on an even higher step in the pantheon of our football heroes.

An Abysmal Slap In The Face - No Neil: Credit To You

NEIL, Neil, son - haud yer wheesht; stop and think; engage brain before opening gob.

Yes, what you see as a slight on your players might not be that; just have a think about it.

Without touching the heights of the two games against Barcelona, your Celtic team has romped away with the SPL title. OK, they were everybody's tip to win and the hottest of favourites for the crown. However, as generations of punters can testify - sure things don't always win. Your guys did, they delivered.

But, I suggest the lack of a Celtic player in the short-leet for SPFA Player of the Year is no slight on your squad, rather, it is testimony to what a good squad you have built and to your prowess as a coach.

Clearly, in the eyes of their peers, this Celtic squad is arguably better than the sum of its parts. This current Celtic squad lacks a Johnstone, or a Larssen or a Dalglsh, but, as a team it is unquestionably the best in Scotland.

It must be great to be the coach of such a squad. Look how ordinary Barcelona can look with the mesmeric Messi; without Van Persie, would Manchester United have won their 20th English title? Probably not; but, Celtic can still function in Scotland without Scott Brown, or James Forrest, or Kris Commons, or Joe Ledley.

These Player of the Year awards serve a purpose, but, football is a team game. At its best it is all about 11 separate guys coming together to form a great team. The current Celtic squad is definitely not a great CELTIC team, but, it is a winning one. For that, the coach should take great credit and even without a PotY winner in the ranks, he has much to celebrate.

So Neil - shut up,take the kudos and win the Scottish Cup - that ought to guarantee you the Manager of the Year crown, although, for me, you've done enough already.

NOW, to the big question. Will Cousin Vinny DARE to sanction WGS for his four-lettered comment on Neil Lennon being banned for three games?

If you had to share a building with the wee man - would you?

And, if he doesn't - will Neil Lennon report WGS?

ABOVE, I mention Neil Lennon as Manager of the Year. Managerial Prat of the Year has already been won - by Mr Rodgers of Liverpool, for his ridiculous attempt to defend the boy Suarez following his ten-match ban for biting. Pathetic.

I sometimes get the impression their is a generally-held belief in the upper reaches of the English Premiership that players, managers and directors, they all feel that normal laws and rules of decency and good behaviour do not apply to them.

A YEAR ago, when it all really began to unravel at Ibrox - I suggested that it might be in the best interests of Scottish football, were Rangers to be put into abeyance until all the unanswered questions about who owns the club, Ibrox, Murray Park, the St Etienne bike and everything else was sorted-out.

I suggested this was such a horrible can of worms is might take years to get to the bottom of the whole nasty business.

Watching this week's events from afar, I fear I was maybe being too-optimistic.

I suppose we could always go for the Dallas option - give Rangers back to David Murray and pretend the last 18 months or so was a dream.

The alternative is to leave it to the lawyers and the accountants to sort out; and I, for one, object to that bunch of over-paid boils on the arse of humanity making any more money out of fitba.

But, I suppose we will have to thole it.

FINALLY, this week: around 90,000 Germans invading London to trumpet Deutschland uber alles before, during and after the Champions League final - isn't it a wonderful prospect - I suppose the Tartan Army really ought to join in and travel down to show our support for our Teutonic allies.

And, unless Messi and CR7 can inspire come-backs of Kilmarnock proportions (look it up in the football history books), it could happen.

The Scots - Great Fighters, Among Themselves

IT HAS to be something in the water, this thing which makes us Scots the most-crabbit, greetin-faced, flytin besoms in the world. Nae wonder that puir wee Thatcher wummin was never liked up here.

Her first words on entering Downing Street were from St Francis of Assissi - all about peace and love and understanding; up here it's a case of: where there is conflict, let's get tore right in there and make it worse.

Look at the way the names Macdonald and Campbell can still cause ructions in some parts of the Heilans, while there are noble Scottish families still tainted by whichever side they took back in the days of Wallace and Bruce or the Stuarts and the Hanoverians.

Tainted - there's a word I used in the last paragraph, which is being tossed around a lot this week, apropos Celtic's latest title success. The cries of: "tainted title" are, naturally, coming mostly from the followers of the club which has just won the Scottish Football League's Third Division title; this makes that club Scotland's 33rd best side, while Celtic is Scotland's Number One one.

I find it somewhat ironic that the followers of Rangers, the heirs to the working-class followers of the old "Orange" Scottish Unionist Party, the Tories who in both votes cast and parliamentary seats gained in 1955, are today, like the Scottish Labour Party when it confronts the SNP government, crying foul and denegrating the work of the hated enemy which has usurped their "right" to govern.

IF Celtic's 44th domestic league title is tainted, that taint comes not from the lack of a challenge from Ibrox, but from the lack of a meaningful challenge from the rest of the SPL. Celtic won the title fair and square. Should the unthinkable happen and Neil Lennon's squad fail to garner another single point between now and the trophy presentation, none of the other 11 clubs will still be able to catch them. And this, remember, is, when compared with the Lisbon Lions, a middling Celtic team.

That's the taint about the SPL in season 2012-13, the fact that, from being the two-horse race which the SPL had been since its inception, it has slithered down to being a one-horse race - with no sign of a challenge on the horizon.

So, we must wait until September, 2015, the earliest date on which Old Firm warfare can return to Scottish league football, before we see a significant challenge to the men in green and white hoops. Is that the message to the fans?

If so, we are all doomed.

Let's not forget, with all the digging which highly-paid lawyers and accountants are currently undertaking around the corpse of oldco Rangers and the continuing uncertainty over the financing and ownership of newco Rangers, there is a possibility, albeit a remote one, that "Rangers" will never return to the top flight.

This will mean Celtic success until such times as they decant for the European League which is surely coming, or the death of Scottish football - whichever happens first.

No, the taint is in the lack of challenge to the last giant standing; the failure of the other clubs' directors to insist that their highly-paid players and managers get out there onto the training pitch to hone their skills and develop the tactics which will bring down Celtic.

The last time Scottish football was effectively a one-horse race was during (Sir) Bob Kelly's early years as Celtic chairman, when he would over-rule manager Jimmy McGrory and pick the Celtic team.

Between 1938 and the arrival of Jock Stein in 1965, Celtic won just two league titles. Sure, they had the odd cup success, but, for that quarter of a century, they barely-troubled Bill Struth's and Scot Symon's Rangers teams.

However, the Hibs of the Famous Five, the Hearts of the Terrible Trio, Willie Waddell's great Kilmarnock sides and Bob Shankly's wonderful Dundee team of 1961-63 ensured that Rangers had to fight all the way to their titles.

Back then, Scottish football mattered. It was successful - we produced great players whom the top English clubs wanted to buy. Celtic maybe weren't winning leagues regularly, but they were still able to sell-on the likes of Tommy Docherty, Bobby Collins, Willie Fernie and Bertie Auld to England. Hibs could sell Bobby Johnstone to Manchester City and still reach the semi-final of the European Cup the following season. Hearts could produce sellable assets such as Dave Mackay, Alex Young and Ian Crawford, see them depart to England and still compete. Dundee sold Danny Malloy to Cardiff City, then brought through Ian Ure, whom they sold to Arsenal. They produced Alan Gilzean. Scottish football was vibrant.

Today, it's rubbish. That's not Celtic's fault. It's to an extent oldco Rangers' fault - Souness convinced the rest of Scottish football our home-bred players were rubbish and not a patch on imports, the rest blindly followed him - a quarter of a century on, we're deep in doo-dah - and the management model which Souness and Murray followed is discredited and broke.

It's time we got back to basics; Scottish players, playing the Scottish-style passing game and, just maybe, we might get back to having a competitive league and a competitive Scotland team.

But, moaning about tainted titles and doing nothing might be the Scottish way, it is, however, not the way forward.

Well Done Celtic - The Best By Far Of A Bad Bunch

IT would be churlish not to congratulate Celtic on winning the SPL title. Yes, as soon as Rangers (oldco) began to implode, it was obvious that for the immediate future the title and the trophy would take-up near-permanent residence in Kerrydale Street, but, even to achieve a walk-over, the course has to be, at least, partially walked.

If one was being really negative, it could be said that Celtic ought to have won the title sooner and more emphatically. But, that would be mean. It is not Celtic's fault that the other 11 teams lack the ability to mount a concerted challenge to them, or the industry and coaching nous to overcome the financial edge which Celtic enjoys.

By no means is this a great Celtic squad, but the fact they have wrapped-up the title with games to spare merely reinforces the depths to which Scottish football has sunk.

MEANWHILE, across the city, Rangers (newco) lurches from crisis to crisis; the latest being the search for a new Chief Executive to replace the disgraced and disappeared Charles Green.

I said as soon as things began to really go wrong - the best scenario for everyone would have been for Rangers not to have played this season; or until such time as all the issues concerning the Craig Whyte ownership had been resolved.

However, so desperate was the Scottish football body politic to keep some sort of "Rangers" involved, they tossed aside their own rules and allowed the Green Machine in - ill-prepared though that entity was.

A half-decent full-time Rangers squad ought to have scampered through the SFL's Third Division, winning every game comfortably. The fact they have not and have lost a handful of games surely shows: if he was guilty of lies, misinformation, hyperbole and deceit, at least - when he described the current squad as the Worst-Ever Rangers Squad, Charlie boy was correct.

It is perhaps just as well Rangers are not being fast-tracked back to the SPL, they really need all the time they can get to sort things out on the field, as well as off.

HOWEVER, there are still some areas of Scottish football on which one can rely. I refer to the much-maligned juniors, where this season's Emirates Scottish Cup Final promises to be a cracker.

In the almost inevitable Auchinleck Talbot and Linlithgow Rose, it will feature the two best teams in the junior ranks and this is one match to look forward to. Roll on the big day.

Luis Suarez, what can we say? Only this, had he bitten any Auchinleck Talbot defender, he'd have needed the services of an undertaker, far less a spin doctor to appease the critics.

FFS, Willie Woodburn got a sine die suspension for less.

Gee We're Gonna Miss You - Everybody Sends Their Love

SO FAREWELL Charles Green - or is it? regardless of today's announcement from Ibrox, I'd be surprised if we have heard the less of Charlie boy. If we have, Scottish football will be a much duller place without him. However, we thought we were well rid of Craig Whyte and look what has happened there.

Actually, IF Green has indeed gone, good news though that might be for Ally McCoist, I fear it could be bad news for Rangers. Because, whatever his many faults, Green previously demonstrated, at Sheffield United, that, he knows the value of working within a strict budget and not over-spending.

He just might have been able to, finally, bring strict financial management to a club which has been guilty of over-spending for years. If Walter and Co are left in charge of the cash, I foresee the flagrant over-spending, recruiting of over-priced and under-talented non-Scots and living beyond the clubs means resuming.

As with the Green days, it could all end in tears.

MEANWHILE, across the city, wee Neil Lennon cuts the moral high ground from under Celtic with his dummy spitting after getting his three game suspended touchline ban activated after his "wee swearie" at Jim Goodwin.

Let's be honest here - this was a storm in an egg cup. Manager swears at opposition player; FFS when has this been new in Scottish football? Anglo-Saxon is football's default language; we all know this.

As I have said before; wee Neil being cited for that, was, to my mind, a case of the power-brokers on Hampden's sixth floor desperately trying to prove that Cousin Vinny Lunny is fair-minded. Whereas we mostly suspect, his appointment is a case of the long-established Masonic conspiracy at the head of Scottish football being displaced by a Knights of St Columba conspiracy.

If only wee Neil had said nothing, taken his medicine and got on with life, but no. He rants about Scottish football being petty and small-minded; then, in a petty and small-minded retaliation, reveals he will be reporting any opposition manager who comes out with a wee swearie to the SFA.

If that isn't being petty and small-minded, what is?

I feel he was hard done by. But, after his rant today, all sympathy has evaporated.

JUST a thought, after reading my bit above about Charles Green and his efforts to get a club's finances right. Might he be the independent honest broker to sort-out the league reconstruction impasse?

Or, given the level of hatred and war fare, isn't this another diplomatic job for Tony Blair?

The SFA As Honest Brokers - Don't Make Me Laugh

FROM this, they could attract a global television object and perhaps make money; it certainly promises to be more-entertaining than recent televised matches involving Scottish teams.

I refer, of course, to the suggestion that the SFA should be called-in to knock heads together in the civil war now engulfing the SPL and the potential future amalgamation war with the SFL.

So, we could see Peter Lawwell, wearing his hat as a member of the SFA's Profession Game Board, pittin the heid oan Peter Lawwell, wearing his hat as one of the movers and shakers in the SPL.

This "Get the SFA involved" suggestion conveniently overlooks the reality - the SPL effectively runs Scottish football in any case. The Professional Game Board is ten-strong: Chairman Rod Petrie (Hibs), Jim Ballantyne (Airdrie United), Neil Doncaster (SPL), Peter Lawwell (Celtic), Alan McCrae (Cove Rangers), Campbell Ogilvie (ex-Hearts/Rangers), Stewart Regan (SFA), Sandy Stables (Highland League) and Ralph Topping (SPL).

Five of the ten are either SPL appointees, or associated with an SPL club - a lot of independence there then.

The full 34-strong SFA Council contains 17 members who are attached to either a club in the SPL or the SFL, so, whilst undoubtedly less tied to the two main leagues, this body too is compromised when it comes to acting independently.

Since FIFA regulations prohibit government involvement in football, the Scottish Government, the obvious honest broker in the current dispute and perhaps our best hope for a swift resolution to Scottish football's current problems, would seem to be ruled-out.

This leaves us, perhaps, looking at somebody from UEFA or FIFA coming in to sort us out. This might be no bad thing, provided, of course, they realised Scottish football isn't all about the first and third-ranked clubs in Glasgow.

EUREKA - brainwave; Why don't we ask Jimmy Hill to come up and sort things out?

FOR all the abuse he gets from Celtic fans, and supporters of other Scottish clubs, and from large sections of the Rangers support - today, I think, Charlie Green got something right. Kenny  Miller isn't the answer.

Ally McCoist, please note.

If McCoist had to bring back a former hero to score goals for his club, he should have signed Kris Boyd. In SFL2 next season and SFL1 in 2014-15, Bydie would have scored an awful lot of goals, ensuring a rapid and relatively painless return to the top flight for the Ibrox club.

But, the Tarbouton Toerag is now back at Rugby Park. Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised to see him back at Rangers come September, once their signing ban is lifted.

If he survives the independent enquiry into his conduct, and I feel he will, Green will be in an even-stronger position to impose some reality into Rangers' signing policies and cost structure, and that will be no bad thing after the long years of excess.

His long-term strategy of raring from within with a degree of signing of outside players who can be improved and sold on is such a divergence from the management policies of the past 30-years, is the right one.

I do not, however, think Alistair McCoist is the right manager to work under such a policy.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Stuart Milne - Hoisted By His Own Petard

OH YES, it was beautiful: wee Stuart Milne hoisted by his own petard. That, for me, will be the defining image of the SPL all-change train hitting the buffers.

The wee shilpit, baldie one came out of the Hampden meeting and spat the dummy big style. Screaming about: "what was St Mirren's agenda?" Meglomaniacs like oor Stuart don't do irony, or he might have shut-up. After all, had Stuart Milne not sided with Celtic back in the summer, when the rest of the SPL sides tried to change the 11-1 majority needed sections of the SPL constitution to 9-3, thereby scuppering that move - the re-organisation vote would have gone through this afternoon.

Also, what was Peter Lawwell thinking? The Cardinal Richlieu of Scottish football, realising threats and bullying hadn't worked with Stewart Gilmour of St Mirren and Roy McGregor of Ross County, made "a major concession" and declared himself supportive of a change to 9-3, before they voted on change.

Did he really think Messrs Gilmour's and McGregor's heads buttoned up the back? This beggars the other big question: exactly WHY does 12-12-18 have to come in now?

I suppose a Plan B will be concocted, probably along the lines of starting an SPL2, hoping the likes of Dundee, Morton, Falkirk, Hamilton Academical, Livingston, even Dunfermline, will bite, walk away from the SFL and join-in.

They will surely want Rangers in SPL2; but, will Charles Green bite? That's the $64,000 question (assuming the TV rights to Scottish football are worth even this little).

Green is in a difficult position. His Rangers Newco is only an associate member of the SFA and the SFL. They need the support of the other SFL clubs to have that associate membership made permanent. Without this, they have no voting rights and are unable to influence matters within the council chambers.

He believes, Scottish football needs Rangers, playing at the highest level, but, he also realises better to fight their way back through (hopefully) back-to-back promotions in 2013-14 and 2014-15 than by clutching the SPL2 place they will clearly be offered should the breakaway happen.

Then, there are those public statements about having nothing to do with the SPL. Chuck has some big decisions to make.

I have always been against 12-12-18. It's a hurriedly-concocted plan, which does nothing to address the really big failings of present-day Scottish football. It's a perfect example of badly-thought-out and hurried change being forced through. However, thanks to Messrs Gilmour and McGregor, this hasn't happened. Let's hope the clubs make good the escape.

We have too-many clubs; too-many levels; the senior game is stagnant; we have too-many over-paid, over-rated, under-talented foreigners preventing young Scottish players from coming through. This cannot continue.

Ranked Rotten

THE latest FIFA rankings were announced this week, with Scotland having fallen to 77th. I am no great fan of the rankings system as worked by FIFA - I believe the UEFA system, which only counts competitive games, is superior to the FIFA one which counts every game - even those meaningless friendlies in which national managers are clearly experimenting, but, I don't make the rules, FIFA does.

Also, the rankings take no cognisance of the relative strengths of the various FIFA confederations, so that a reasonable team in a confederation of minnows will have an artificially high ranking.

When ever I view the latest rankings, I prefer to have a look at where we are within Europe. Right now, we are ranked 35th; in effect, we are the Peterhead of Europe, since that team is currently the 35th best in Scotland. Or put it another way, we are nearer to the foot of what will be pot four for the draw for the 2016 European Championships than we are to getting out of that pot and into three.

Nae pressure on WGS then.

Actually, a somewhat significant anniversary was allowed to pass unnoticed this week. Tuesday was the 50th anniversary of 'Baxter's First Wembley' - 9 April, 1963, the day 10 Scots beat 11 Englishmen on their own ground, with the Slim One with a wand for a left foot scored two goals, after Scotland captain Eric Caldow was carried off with a broken leg after scant five minutes.

Of course, the reality was slightly different. Ten didn't beat eleven, our ten men beat ten and a half Englishmen, because Bobby Smith, the Spurs centre forward whose clumsy challenge ended Caldow's stellar Scotland career was also carried off, only to resume and, hirpling on the left wing throughout the second half in those far-off days of no substitutes, be England's most-dangerous forward in that period.

Not that that prevented the Fans With Typewriters of the Scottish Football Writers Association from going over the top at our first Wembley win since 1951, but a read of the contemporary match reports indicates that, for instance, Jimmy Greaves, who couldn't miss two years previously, squandered more chances in that single game than in the rest of his outstanding England career.

But, let's not allow the facts to get in the way of a good story.

Anyway, that season 1962-63 was arguably the high point of post-World War II Scottish international football. I concede the legend states 1967 was our golden year, but a comparison of the two seasons shows us different.

In 1962-63, Scotland played 7 internationals, winning 5, losing 2, surprise losses 3-4 to Norway and 0-1 to the Republic of Ireland on an end-of-season continental tour. Prior to those defeats, which came inside five days, that season we beat Wales 3-2, Northern Ireland 5-1, England 5-1, Austria 4-1 (in a game abandoned after 79 minutes) and bounced back from the two losses to countries we then considered "minnows", to beat Spain 6-2 in the Bernabau.

Denis Law scored 11 goals in 7 internationals that season - it took Kenny Miller, our current top gun 40 games to score that many goals for Scotland by the way.

In 1962-63, we won 71% if our internationals, and, at 3 points for a win and 1 point for a drew, we won 71% of the available points. In 1966-67, we drew 1-1 with Wales,beat Northern Ireland 2-1, then came 15 April, 1967 and suddenly we were unofficial World Champions after hammering England 3-2, then, being Scotland, we lost 0-2 to the USSR, in spite of fielding six Lisbon Lions. That meant we only won 50% of our games that season, and 58% of the available points; so, definitely not as good as 1962-63, which was actually our best international season since 1950-51.

Back in 1963 we were definitely one of the four or five best sides in Europe; Scotland didn't sully its golden reputation by playing in the still infant European Championship back then, but that Spanish side we beat - nay hammered at home, would within a year, be Champions of Europe.

You have to wonder at the faffing about and incompetence which could, in half a century take us from those heights to our current place among the bottom feeders of European football.

I don't subscribe to the theory that we have lost our way and are no longer producing the players. Sure, back then we had Law, Baxter, Dave Mackay, Caldow, Ian St John, John White and Willie Henderson and Davie Wilson on the wings, while by 1967 Billy Bremner, Jimmy Johnstone, Bobby Murdoch, Bobby Lennox and John Greig were in our squad. But, believe it or not, in season 2011-2012, you remember, just about the time it started to dawn on the great thinkers of Scottish football that, just maybe, Craig Levein wasn't the answer, we actually matched the performance of 1967 - winning 50% of our internationals and 58% of the available points.

From that statistic, I reckon we can conclude - we have gone backwards in the past 50-years, whilst most of the rest of Europe has got better and overtaken us.

Can somebody please tell the SFA, they don't pay any attention to me. But, as I have hopefully shown above, reality bears scant relation to Scottish fitba's view of itself and its place on Planet Fitba and rarely has.

We are now in our eighth decade of football since the end of World War II - in none of these decades has Scotland won over 50% of the internationals played; in fact, our most-successful period was the 1940s, during which we won 47% of the internationals and garnered 51% of the available points (at 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw).

Next most-successful decade was the 1990s: 45% - 53%, followed in descending order by - 1950s: also 45% - 53%, 1960s: 44% - 60%, 2010 - 2013: 43% - 49%, 1970s: 42% - 42%, 1980s: 40% - 49% and finally the noughties (2000 - 2009) 32% - 40%. Since 1946 our overall figure is 43% of internationals won and 51% of available points garnered.

Amazingly, given the popular conception of where we are today, our form in the current decade since 2010 is at 43% - 43%, just about average. I think the explanation for this is, in business management speak: "managed decline".

Aye, we've declined, but nobody at the top has managed to notice.

Come On Guys - Give Us A Lead

I AM becoming increasingly concerned at the news values of the men piloting the sports desks of our national daily newspapers. In particular, I am concerned about two guys, Donald Cowey at the Herald and Colin Leslie across at The Scotsman.

Both are splendid guys; I may occasionally shake my head in wonder at some of the stuff they page, but, both are doing a difficult job well, in hard times for the good old print industry. It is not their fault that they are in situ at a time when print journalism is going through perhaps the worse crisis in its long history; newspapers, theirs as much if not more than any, are leeching readers and the guys on the executive floors at Renfield Street and Holyrood Road, like their counterparts elsewhere, seem at a loss as to how to stem the flow and react to the rise of new media.

However, at a time when Scottish football is lacking any kind of talented leadership from Hampden's corridors of the clueless, I might have hoped that Scotland's two broadsheet papers could have given a lead as to where we go next.

Instead of this, what do we get? Acres of newspaper space devoted to the fall-out from an ill-judged interview by Charles Green. FFS, there are more-important issues than how Chuck addresses a fellow Rangers director in private.

The fact that the SFA, under Regan, has chosen to become involved demonstrates two things to me - how beholden we now are to the unco guid of the race relations industry, and, perhaps - were I to be, like David "Leggoland" Leggat - a believer in an anti-Rangers conspiracy.

If calling a co-director of a club "My Paki Friend" is bringing football into disrepute, meriting a visit to a Hampden disciplinary board - what would be the correct punishment for some of the decisions made by the Hampden "blazers" in recent years, particularly vis a vis re-organisations?

Many of the "blazers" would be nane the waur o a guid hingin, in my view.

So, come on Donald and Colin - give us a lead in properly discussing the big issues, not some currently popular witch hunt.

By the way, the apparent "leaning" on Ross County's Roy McGregor to get him to support the 12-12-18 re-organisation plans is a disgrace; and, from what little I know of the Ross county chairman, doomed to failure.

When it comes to saying: "No", Highland Christians such as McGregor - who is, I understand a Wee Free - could give Lord Paisley lessons in being negative. Although, in this case, saying no would be a positive step for the game in Scotland.

REGULAR readers of this blog might recall my distress a week or two back, when the Ayrshire Cup clash between the mighty Lugar Boswell Thistle and some upstarts called Irvine Meadow was abandoned after some 70 minutes, with the 'Well cruising to victory.

The tie was replayed on Saturday, and, just as I forecast, the Medda scored a handful of breakaway goals to win 5-0. Snofair.

UNLESS my squaw Five Horses demands otherwise, I may well find myself at Beechwood Park on Saturday, looking to see real fitba, as Auchinleck Talbot "entertain", if that is the correct word, Rutherglen Glencairn in the Emirates Scottish Junior Cup semi-final, first leg. This promises to be a good game.