Socrates MacSporran

Socrates MacSporran
No I am not Chick Young, but I can remember when Scottish football was good

Friday 26 February 2016

Not A Bad Start, But, Can He Do It At Stoke On A cold, Wet, Tuesday Night?

Marcus Rashford - What A Debut

AS "Dream Debuts" go, young Marcus Rashford's first-team bow for Manchester United in the Europa League last night was right up there with the best.
 
The go-ahead goal on the night, then the go-ahead goal in the overall two-legged tie was a brace to brag about. Now, let's be clear, probably more United debutants have failed to kick-on from early promise than ever progressed to become star performers at the "Theatre of Dreams". Consistent success is not guaranteed to the teenager, but, we wish him well.
 
He is fortunate to have, as the Academy Director at the club, NIcky Butt, one of the legendary "Class of '92". Nicky will surely keep Marcus's feet on the ground - the kid has a chance.
 
 
 Memphis Depay - a "Rolls Royce" player - not

Mind you, I only saw the second-half at Old Trafford on TV, I switched over at the end of the Glasgow Warriors' rugby match. The Red Devil who really excited me was Dutchman Memphis Depay.

The boy has a reputation as something of a "Flash Harry", all flicks and tricks, but, not always delivering end product.Last night he delivered, while producing some of the best dribbling seen at Old Trafford since Messrs Best, Giggs and Ronaldo were in their youthful pomp.

He might drive a £250,000 Rolls Royce, but, Depays is far from being a "Rolls Royce" player. Yes, he can be tantalisingly unstoppable, as he was on Thursday night, but, not often enough. However, if the suggested one-to-one mentoring from Giggsy works out, United will have one helluva player on their hands.
 
Since the Busby Babes of the 1950s, we have expected greatness from Manchester United's young players. They haven't always delivered on early promise, let's hope young Marcus turns out to be the real deal.
 
 
Mark Warburton -  says plastic is not fantastic - while Ronny Deila is a fan of artificial surfaces
 
 
I SEE "the stenographers" (thank you for that one PMGB) are trying awfy hard to drum-up controversy between Mark Warburton and Ronny Deila - this time over artificial pitches. My own view is: I'm with Ronny on this one, I would aways good for a top-quality grass pitch, but, failing this, a good artificial one would be my preference.
 
Given the climate and normal winter weather in Scotland, I can see ever-more football being played on plastic in Scotland in years to come. It makes sense.
 
When I was a boy, the best football surface in Scotland was at Rugby Park. Back then, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the park was a wide-open bowl, the prevailing wind, blew in from the Dundonald Road end, unimpeded by buildings. The groundsman was a magician - Rugby Park was playable when every other ground in the West of Scotland was off.
 
Then Bobby Fleeting built stands behind each goal and, the pitch deteriorated to the extent the club more or less had to go plastic. Back then, Celtic Park and Ibrox had better pitches than they now have - those massive stands at each end have had an adverse effect. Because Hampden is still more open than the other Glasgow grounds, its pitch stands up better to the winter weather.
 
Murrayfield used to have, arguably, the best surface in Scotland, then the SRU built-up the grounds and the surface suffered, before those pesky worms finished it off. Now it has a hybrid grass/artificial surface, it is back to being a fantastic surface.
 
Warburton is English, a nation programmed from birth to resist change, in this affair - I feel he will have to give-in. Deila 1 Warburton 0.  
 
 
 

Thursday 25 February 2016

Good Things Come In Threes - And, Here Is Proof

Best, Law and Charlton - the United Trinity


TIME goes by, and the certainties are no longer so-certain. For the best part of 50-years we have believed, George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton were the greatest trio of forwards ever to be seen together in one team.
 
 
 
Conn, Bauld and Wardhaugh - Hearts' "Terrible Trio" of the 1950s
 
 
I know, at this point, some Heart of Midlothian fans will be saying: "What about Conn, Bauld and Wardhaugh - the Terrible Trio. Aye, in a Scottish context, they were good, but, come on, get real here.
 
 
 
The New Kids In Town: Suarez, Messi, Neymar

Today, to quote the Eagles, we have some New Kids In Town, the Barcelona front three of Suarez, Messi and Neymar; and, on the evidence of their play in Barcelona's 2-0 Emirates win over Arsenal in the Champions League this week: they just might be better than their illustrious Old Trafford predecessors.
 
Time to feed-in a Tommy Docherty one-liner here: "Maybe so, but, you have to remember, George is dead and Denis and Bobby are both in their seventies".
 
Arsenal are a good team, but, Barcelona are a VERY good team, with much of the difference coming from that talismanic front three. The opening goal, for which Neymar and Suarazev ran so unselfishly to provie the opening for the sublime Messi, well, that was a fantastic example of swift and deadly counter-attacing: 16 seconds from Pique heading the ball out of the Barcelona penalty area, to Messi sticking it behind Peter Cech, five passes later.
 
When, I wonder, will Barcelona FC erect a statue to this, their 21st century heavenly Trio?
 
For as long as we Scots have access to BT Sport TV, to watch such brilliance, Scottish football will struggle to persuade the fans to come out to watch the dross which passes for the best of the SPFL.
 
Twenty-four hours later, I was able to watch Manchester City score a terrific win at Dynamo Kiev, in their Champions League game. It really is a sair fecht for Scottish fitba, having to compete with such brilliance. 
 

Monday 22 February 2016

All-Change, It's Celtic's Turn To Hog The Papers

ONE of the unbreakable rules of football coverage in Scotland is - if the Blue Bigot Brother gets all the column inches for a few days, then, the Green Bigot Brother has to get his turn immediately afterwards.
 
So, even before Mark Warburton had thrown all his toys out of his pram and established a new British All-Comers dummy spitting record, apropos the Rugby Park artificial surface, the backlash from across the city had started.
 
Cue James Forrest, who has refused a new contract and is heading for pasgtures new when his Celtic contract expires. Given his recent form, can I wish Forrest's agent all the best - because, to be frank, his recent form will make him difficult to move-on to a worthwhile club.
 
When Forrest first exploded onto the scene, he excited me. He was, even then, no Jinky Johnstone, but, I thought: "This kid could go places". I accept, he has had more than his fair share of injuries, but, James Forrest has not "trained on" to make the switch from promising boy to established star - and, sadly, this has been a long-standing problem with Scottish football in general, and the Old Firm (deny it all you like, but, the Rangers Tribute Act is still, in media terms, one half of an Old Firm) in particular.
 
My first Old Firm game was at Celtic Park, on 8 September, 1962. Rangers won 1-0, a very young Willie Henderson, who had hitherto been anonymous, switched to the left wing to score an 83rd minute winner. Weeks later he won the first of his eventual 29 Scotland caps, a total which would surely have been greater but for a bizarre injury - a troublesome bunion.
 
Henderson "trained on", Jim Forrest, who scored two goals in a comprehensive 3-0 Rangers win at Celtic Park on 10 August, 1963 - didn't. The young Forrest scored goals for fun, he had strength, pace, a great eye for a goal, but, he failed to build on his early promise, was off-loaded in the wake of the Berwick disaster and accrued a mere five Scotland caps. But, for Rangers, Forrest scored goals at the rate of 0.88 goals per game - and that is class in any language.
 
Speaking of Berwick, that disaster hastened Sandy Jardine's breakthrough at Ibrox, but, he had his dark spells before finally getting recognition as one half of arguably Scotland's greatest full back partnership, with Danny McGrain.
 
There's another player to break into the Celtic team early, suffer injury, but battle back to achieve legend status. But, for every McGrain, Hay or Dalglish who became a legend - Celtic have had two or three like a Victor Davidson or a Paul Wilson, or, more-recently, a Mark Burchill, or a Craig Beattie, who didn't train-on to amass a double-digit tally of caps.
 
At Ibrox, it has been even worse. Since "The Souness Revolution" it might be said, only Barry Ferguson has come through the ranks from age 16 to become a Scotland regular. Others, Charlie Miller and Charlie Adam flattered to deceive, while others such as Greg Wylde were probably over-hyped, maybe began to believe their own publicity and faded.
 
I accept, the absolute NEED for these two clubs to win every game tells against young players. OF Managers are always loath to throw youngsters into the cauldrons of such games. For sure, if you get into either first team at an early age, the Under-21 caps will follow, and, the two clubs' cheer-leaders in the media will immediately start a "cap them now" campaign.
 
But, since the Souness days, increasingly, young home-bred Scottish talent has not been properly nurtured at what should be our two top clubs - the clubs with which they are most-likely to gain the experience of facing quality European sides, so-vital in the international side. And, this has hit Scotland, perhaps even more than it has hit the two clubs.
 
For the sake of the international team - we really MUST come up with a development system which is unlikely to be compromised by the "must win" needs of our top clubs. A system which allows the good young players we have to "train-on" to become established internationalists.
 
Our club game isn't doing this job, we have to amend our game to make this happen. And to help the likes of James Forrest to really develop better.
 
 

Wednesday 17 February 2016

No No No Lee - Let's Climb Out Of The Basement Before We Speak Of Scaling The Peaks

New Kilmarnock manager Lee Clark
 
 
 
A KILMARNOCK fan of over 50 years' standing, I wish Lee Clark well in his appointment as our new gaffer. But, his will be a difficult job to fill. I know he was, in a way trying to rally the terracing troops and sound positive in his post-appointment statement about getting into Europe and so-forth.
 
However, I wish this particular Englishman had taken his approach from the supposed greatest of Englishmen and offered us desperate Rugby Parkers nothing other than blood, toil, sweat and tears.
 
Killie are not in a desperate hole - no, Dundee United are in that situation, indeed, while I have sympathy with the travails of the Arabs as they contemplate at least a season in the Championship - I cannot see them making up the deficit twixt themselves and us. But, with Hibs in a rich vein of form and growing in confidence, I wouldn't fancy our chances against them (or the RTA should the wheels fall off their band-wagon) in the end-of-season promotion/relegation play-off.
 
So, rather than giving us currently impossible dreams of European football, I wish Clarkie had simply said something like: "My immediate priority is getting us out of the play-off place and further up the table; then, at the end of the season, we can re-assess where we go from here".
 
Such a statement of reality, I would buy into more-readily than into any talk of European football. That's for next season, at the earliest, let's start walking tall first, before we look to run.
 
It's not as if climbing the table isn't beyond the current squad. They went to Motherwell and won last week. If they can win, there, then why not at Partick or Hamilton, the clubs we should be looking to overhaul between now and the end of the season.
 
To date, Killie have accrued an average of 1.04 points per game; Hamilton and Motherwell have each garnered 1.12 ppg, while Thistle have been gathering points at the rate of 1.22 pr game. This means, the two Lanarkshire clubs are only 7% ahead of Killie. The "new boss bounce" is surely going to be enough to help Killie overtake Accies and the Steelmen, while it ought to also get us upsides with the Jags.
 
Indeed, should Clark and Lee McCulloch - who has done well while in temporary charge, successfully mount a charge, Top Six is not yet beyond Killie this season. Or, am I getting ahead of myself there?
 
 
 
Zlatan Ibrahimovich - pure class
 
 
 
I WAS delighted to see PSG beating Chelsea in the Champions Cup this season, for one simple reason. In scoring the opener, my favourite current player, Zlatan Ibrahimovich flicked yet another "vicki" at the serried ranks of the English Premiership's media cheer-leaders.
 
He may have an ego the size of Jupiter, but, you cannot doubt, when the chips are down the Swedish Slav usually delivers. Yon back-heeler of his against for Sweden against the Lillywhites some years back, why it's right up there with the Joe Jordan header against the Czechs and wee Archie's goal in Argentina among my favourite international goals.
 
Zlatan gets pelters from the English media, mainly because he has never deigned to honour his career with a spell in "the Greatest League in the World" - I don't think he rates the Premiership too-highly; but, to deny he has been one of the outstanding players of his generation, as so-many English commentators do, is to merely demonstrate the depths of their xenophobia.
 
He is on the down slope of a great career, but, the big man remains a class act.
 
 
 
HERE in God's County of Ayrshire, we enjoy Killie's occasional triumphs. We all would like to see the Honest Men of Ayr United playing at a higher level, but, what really floats out footballing boats is success for our separate village teams in the Juniors.
 
And, right now, things are going rather well for the Ayrshire Junior teams, not least in this season's Scottish Junior Cup. Six of the last eight teams are already known, and four of those six clubs are from Ayrshire, with Beith, Hurlford United, Kilbirnie Ladeside and Kilwinning Rangers already in the quarter-final draw, along with Arthurlie, from just over the County line in Barrhead and Pollok.
 
There will surely be a fifth Ayrshire team in the last eight. it is well-nigh impossible to see Carnoustie Panmure, even with home advantage, beating cup-holders Auchinleck Talbot in their much-delayed Fifth Round clash, due to be played on Saturday. I say well-nigh impossible, because, well, difficult though it might be to comprehend - Talbot are in something of a crisis - they have LOST their last two matches, to Kilbirnie and Pollok.

To add to Tucker Sloan's problems, they haven't had too-many games lately, so are perhaps rusty and in danger up on Tayside. But, from long experience, I reckon a wee bit of adversary usually brings the best out of the Beechwood Boys, and I still think they will claim their expected place in the last eight.

If they do, it will leave the winners of the other undecided Firth Round tie, between Camelon and Kelty Hearts as the only quarter-finalists from outwith the West of Scotland Superleague.

Talbot Boss Tucker Sloan







 
 

Tuesday 16 February 2016

I Very Firmly Feel Willie's Not An Asset To Refereeing

We Need To Talk About Willie

 

Willie Collum

I HAVE often defended Willie Collum, on the all-too-frequent occasions when, instead of being the largely-anonymous 23rd man on the park, he has been the story. He was the story again last night, when he gave a totally unsatisfactory performance in officiating at the Inverness CT v Aberdeen game.
I watched the BT Sport coverage of the game, from my home, over 200 miles from Inverness, but, the stench of Willie's poor performance was all too obvious from where I was sitting. Now, I will not go as far as to say, but for Willie, Aberdeen would have won. In truth, after they got such an early, and well-worked opener, they seemed to think it was job done, and seldom threatened again.

But, for those who believe Scottish referees are trained from an early age to ensure the same two Glasgow clubs win the league year after year, well after last night, when the result suited Celtic more than anyone else, I reckon the number of conspiracy theorists grew.

I also cover rugby, where Scottish referees are supposedly hopeless. Well, if the Willie Collum who was on-duty at the Tulloch Stadium on Monday night is the best referee in Scotland, the football officials are in a mair rauch state than the rugby guys.

One wee unintended consequence of Collum turning into Gollum was that he apparently trended on Twitter. Imagine all the Twitterati in England and elsewhere, scratching their heads and asking: "Who is Willie Collum"?

What a pity he is unlikely to get an England game at the upcoming Euros - then they would be all-too-aware of just who Willie Collum is.

  
Mark Warburton
 
IT HASN'T taken Mark Warburton long to realise, whatever he says, no matter how outrageous, it will be delivered, as if on tablets of stone, to the waiting Scottish public, by the "stenographers" (thanks for that one PMGB) of the Scottish Football Writers Association.
 
Take his latest voicing of his "concerns" regarding the proposed changes to the Champions League, which, if implemented, would that competition move one step closer to being what, for the good of the game, it ought to be - a European version of the NFL.
 
Aye, we've all got views on that, but, as Manager of the Rangers Tribute Act, it would perhaps suit Mr Warburton better to maintain a dignified silence, as befits "Dignity FC", before opening gob and generating column inches.
 
As things stand, managing the 13th best club in the 25th best league in Europe, or, if you like, the 269th ranked club on the continent, is unlikely to have your opinions considered by  Karl-Heinz Rumminage and the other power brokers of the club game in Europe.
 
Mr Warburton would be well advised to shut-up, get his team into the Premeirship, then into Europe, then into the knock-out rounds of at least the Europa League, before he begins pontificating. (I assume, given the derivation of pontificate - the High Heid Yins at Ibrox are allowed to to that).
 
By the way, the UEFA club coefficients, as they effect Scottish clubs are:
Celtic - ranked 51
Motherwell - 221
Hearts - 222
St Johnstone - 226
Aberdeen - 247
Dundee United - 268
Rangers - 269
 
You can argue all you like about New Rangers, Old Rangers, continuing Rangers, whatever - the RTA does, however, show one common factor with the 1872-2012 club, a sense of entitlement.
 
 
 
 

Friday 12 February 2016

Bring On A European Football League

I SEE wee Neil Doncaster has been getting a tad worked-up, about suggestions from the European Clubs Association, that the Champions League might be re-vamped, to guarantee annual competition to the "top" clubs from the "top" leagues - England, Germany, Italy, France and Spain beint the leagues most-likely to be involved.
 
Regular readers of this blog will be aware, I have long advocated a proper European League as being the way forward; the Manchester Uniteds and Cities, the Bayern Munichs, the Inters and ACs and the Reals and Barcas of this world really should be playing each other on a regular basis. But, this would, I have long suggested, be best achieved, by a European equivalent of the major North American professional sports leagues.
 
Doncaster, from what I have read, appeared to be supporting the claims of the likes of the Bigot Brothers, and other mid-to-big European clubs such as Ajax, Porto and Benfica - clubs with long and proud European records, but, likely to be excluded from the proposed new big league, because they don't currently play in a big league.
 
Well, all is not lost. I happen to know a wee bit about the history of the North American major leagues. There hasn't always been one NFL, of Major League Baseball. Not that long ago, in baseball, the National League and the American League were self-governing, competing bodies - who only came together once a year, when their respective champions met in the World Series, to settle an overall winner. The same situation applied in American Football. Pror to them amalgamating to form the NFL, there was the NFC and AFC - the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference.
 
By the way - the "World Series" is not thus dubbed because it is the World Championship of Baseball, but, because, it was initially sponsored by the now-defunct New York World newspaper.
 
OK, suppose the five European big leagues go off and form their own Champions League, with or without UEFA's permission. Given they have the bigger TV draws, they will probably get away with it, and the major TV companies will fall over themelves to throw cash at the new league.
 
Well, the likes of the Bigot Brothers and the others should take a leaf out of the old North American play-book and form their own rival league. The TV companies which lose out on showing say Manchester United v Barcelona and Bayern v Real, will surely find an audience willing to watch the games they put on.
 
Cross-league games will follow and, maybe in five to ten years after the new super-duper league(s) kick-off, we will have our EFL (European Football League).
 
And, since crowd-pulling and potential TV audiences will drive this EFL, you can bet your bottom dollar, Scotland will have two clubs involved, and, we know which two.
 
Meanwhile, without the Bigot Brothers, the "diddy" teams will probably produce a really-competitive and exciting league, which it will not cost us poor saps in the cheap seats an arm  and a leg to watch. I call that a win-win situation, more-so if we see more young Scottish players coming through.
 
 
 
OH! the irony, Mark Warburton complaining about Alloa narrowing their pitch for the visit of the Rangers Tribute Act. Ask Graeme Souness about this please Mark.
 
This is possible, because, unlike a lot of other sports, football does not insist on a common size of playing surface. Andy Murray knows, when he steps onto a tennis court, any tennis court, it will be of uniform dimensions. Usain Bolt knows when he goes to his starting blocks, he will have to run 100 metres, whether he be running in London, Bejing or Sydney; it's not 100 metres here, 101 metres in the next city, and 98 in the one after that.
 
Why should football get away with varying pitch sizes? One of the few remaining perks the SFA enjoys for being one of the pioneering governing bodies in the Beautiful Game is its membership of IFAB - the International Football Associations Board, the body which makes the Laws of the Game.
 
Flex your muscles SFA, if only to stop poor wee Mark having sleepless nights. Why not, at the next IFAB meeting, table a motion calling for uniform dimensions to be set-down for football pitches? That way, Mark could park his petted lip.
 
Or, is that too simple?
 
 
 
I HAD a wee minor triumph this week. I have been searching, for the past decade, for a former Scotland football internationalist, who took himself off to the Antipodes soem 60-years ago.
 
My search had grown rather desperate, since, according to the official records, including the SFA's own website, said former cap was due to turn 90 next week.
 
This morning, I spoke to him by telephone, at his home on the other side of the world, and he was in great form. Sadly for me - the official record is wrong; he does not turn 90 until December, so the birthday piece I was planning has had to go on the back burner.   

Still, it is good to know he is in fine fettle, I heard later this morning of another of the Golden Oldies who has joined the too-long list of veterans suffering from Dementia.


 
 
 
 

Monday 8 February 2016

The SFA Couldnae Run A Gird And Cleek

BACK in the day, when he still had a future in the mad world of fitba writing, Graham Spiers used to write-up on a regular basis, the foibles of the Ayrshire Region of the Scottish Junior Football Association's Disciplinary Committee.
 
These much-anticipated pieces were based on the eye-witness reports of Graham's Ayrshire Correspondent - Me; who, Graham asserted: viewed matters from a dank cave, which looked down on the putrefying plains of Ayrshire Junior Football.
 
It says a great deal for then Ayrshire secretary Matt Spiers, a lovely gentleman, thankfully still with us in his ninth decade and no relation to Graham, his staunch right-hand-man, the Treasurer, John McMurtrie and the various elected officials, that they allowed the press into the room while they conducted their deliberations on the various cases of Assault, Serious Assault and Culpable Homicide which passed for tackles in such fixtures as Auchinleck v Cumnock and Irvine Meadow v Kilbirnie Ladeside.
 
I got some belting stories to pass-on to Graham, but, what remains with me concerning those far-off days of watching justice dispensed in the raw, was how often the committee got it absolutely spot-on.
 
Another thing I recall of those days was how, after bringing the latest Beechwood Park or Townhead Park riot to the attention of the world beyond God's County, Graham would seek a comment from "Uncle" Joe Black, the ex-polis who ran the SJFA at the time. Inevitably Graham would be able to tell us: "The SJFA will hold an enquiry into the affair".
 
Well, after the fiasco of yesterday's William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final draw, maybe the apparatchicks on the sixth floor at Hampden should call Uncle Joe out of retirement, to spearhead an enquiry into the affair.
 
Joe is the sort of old-fashioned Scottish official we have lost. He would have had the Rangers ball heated-up, the Celtic ball stuck in the freezer for a week before the draw, and the whole thing would have been conducted with dignity and decorum.
 
I barely caught the embarrassment of the TV pictures of the whole sorry incident - I was too busy laughing. Wee Alan Macrae the SFA president, did a more than passable Captain Mainwaring impression as thing unravelled before him. His petulant summoning-in of the typists to sort-out the mess was a thing of beauty.
 
The Scottish Football Association - couldnae run a draw, far-less a gird and cleek - priceless.
 
 
 
AS I have written on here, several times, I do not do Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram of any of the populat forms of "social media" - I leave that to my gormless daughters and my highly-annoying grand-daughter.
 
But, while I have every sympathy for Leigh Griffiths, in his current travails on Twitter, where apparently he is being "trolled" relentlessly by dummies with more time on their hands than functioning brain cells, can I offer a word of advice to the talented Mr G and, more-importantly, the High Heid Yins at Celtic Park.
 
Leigh - get off Twitter. Celtic - order your players off Twitter. That way, you aint gonna be bothered by the loonies, simples.
 
 
 
SO, the Tartan Army WILL be in France this summer, with Scotland down to be France's warm-up act, prior to the big show. Aye well, if going there, seeing all the bunting and banners going up, but, realising, we will not be there when things get serious inspires players, management and officials to make certain, Euro2016 is the last big show we miss out on, it might be a worth-while exercise.
 
Old cynic that I am, however, I see the trip as a step back in time, to the period between 1930 and 1950, when the SFA seemed to arrange an annual end-of-season Parisian trip for the SFA Council, plus a few players.
 
Hughie Gallacher famously went totally overboard on a couple of trips, to the extent the selectors wouldn't pick him for a time - let that be a warning to Leigh Griffiths!!
 
Mind you, I always reckoned the best story to come out of Scotland's French farces was the 1948 trip, when Morton's Billy Campbell split the toe cap of his Manfield Hotspur boot, there wasn't another boot the same size to be found and thus, Sammy Cox got his first cap.
 
The rat pack of reporters from the red tops, who now follow Scotland everywhere, didn't venture beyond Wembley back then, so, it was duly reported back to Scotland, probably by Reuters' Paris bureau, that Charlie Cox of Hearts had won his first cap in that game.
 
Charlie went to his grave still embarrassed at being "capped". It took years for the Wee Red Book to correct the error. Indeed, when the Rangers's Cox was named in the Scotland team to face England, in what became known as "Jimmy Cowan's Match" in 1949, even the mighty Waverley of the Daily Record reckoned it was Sammy's first cap.
 
Scotland lost 3-0, but, as I think we all know, Paris in the spring doesn't really suit Scotland. I am a wee bit worried about this game.
 
 
 
BACK to the Juniors to finish. I see Rossvale, the newest club in the West Region of the SJFA, and, a club with, I believe the right approach to being a true community club, has signed ex-Celt Bobby Petta.
 
Welcome to the world of real fitba Bobby, but, pack your shinguards, you will need them.
 
Bobby is not the first former Old Firm star to dip his toe in: "the fetid waters of junior football", (copyright Graham Spiers). Robert Pritz did a good shift for Pollok some years back, while I recall the late Colin McAdam coming off the field after his Irvine Meadow debut, at Kilwinning's Abbey Park and saying: "I think you could play an entire season in midfield in this league and never kick the ball".
 
Bobby, however long it lasts, your time with Rossvale will make a terrific chapter in your autobiography. 

You Can Keep Your Superbowl

ONE of the side effects of growing old is, you do not apparently require as much sleep as you do when younger. With my 70th birthday approaching faster than a North Korean missile, I now find myself seldom getting more than four hours continuous sleep per night.
 
One of the methods I have adopted, in an effort to get the maximum amount of sleep at one time is to stay up longer at night. No longer do I turn out the light and turn over once the late night showing of Reporting Scotland has finished; now, I look for something else to watch, before reading a chapter or two of whatever book I am on, then going to sleep.
 
Thus, on Sunday night, I watched the BBC2 coverage of Superbowl 50. I know, total dereliction of duty, I should have been on BBC Shortbread, watching their pathetic coverage of Scottish Fitba, except, as I said, I was trying to delay going to sleep.
 
Mind you, on reflection, that might have been better than watching the American brand of fitba. This involves watching and listening to talking heads who make Mickey Stewart and Pat Nevin look like Mastermind finalists, their inane chat occasionally interrupted by a frenetic burst of action, which leads to a mass changing of the playing personnel, umpteen action replays, more inane chat and, after what seems like an eternity, another short burst of action.
 
I realise, with 30 seconds per substitution, plus time added-on for that lost due to bookings and arguments with the referee, Scottish fitba now lasts a great deal longer than 90-minutes, but, honestly, would even the massed ranks of Ra Peepul and the GFITW stand for a match which lasted over three hours?
 
Thought not, that would cut too much into bevvy time.
 
However, all was not lost on Sunday night. We had the strange sight of Martin O'Neill, wearing a pair of earphones two sizes too big, pontificating on American Football, a game about which he clearly knew very little.
 
 
 
This strange appearance was, for the good of the Blessed Martin's reputation as a serious football man, thankfully short; but, it did spark off what I understand is known as "aTwitter storm", as various saddos rushed to tell the world, in 140 characters or less, how unimpressed they had been by MON's contribution.
 
The team sporting the red, white and orange colours won, with a wee bit of help from a referee, possibly Willie Collum's American cousin; who failed to spot that a fair catch by one of the opposition had indeed been good.
 
Ah well, clearly fitba's the same the whole world over, even if, in the good ol' US of A, they play football mainly with their hands.
 
 
 
MEANWHILE, having imported a lot of useless foreigners - and, to be fair, Alexei Eremenko - the high heid yins at Rugby Park are now reported to be considering Lee Clarke as the permanent replacement for the departed Gary Locke as manager.
 
Let's be thankful for small mercies, the talk of Souper Ally returning to Rugby Park seems to have been kicked into the long grass, but, I fear an Englishman who has won nothing of note  doesn't strike this Killie fan as a good move.
 
If we are bringing someone up from the south to run the club, I'd prefer we maybe enticed another Clarke, Stevie, back to his native Ayrshire. I know, we probably could not afford him, but, if you don't speculate, how can you expect to accumulate.
 
Stevie Clarke


RECEIVED wisdom tells us, the League cannot be won in February, but, for all that, there are some intriguing fixtures coming up this weekend. I honestly do not believe Celtic's title challenge is as fragile as some over-hysterical pundits would have us believe, but, Ross County are just about the last opponents they will fancy arriving at Celtic Park right now. Still, that's who they face on Saturday.
 
And, that's just one of several intriguing clashes. The bottom four teams are in head-to-head action in Lanarkshire, with third-bottom Motherwell entertaining Kilmarnock, and fourth-bottom Hamilton playing host to basement boys Dundee United.
 
At the other end of the table, Aberdeen will head up the A96 next Monday night, to take on Inverness CT, opponents who traditionally give the Dons a hard time on the shores of the Moray Firth. This season's title race is heating up nicely.
 
 
 
 
 

Sunday 7 February 2016

Gie It A Rest - Celtic Won, End Of

THE purity of football as a sporting activity is pretty-well summed-up right at the start. The object of the game is to score more goals than the opposition - do that, you win.
 
Even with an objective as straight-forward and obvious, you get argument. Just imagine how bad things would be if you had judges had involved, and you got additional points for "tchnical or artistic merit", "content of programme", or, as happens in boxing, if you do not knock-out your opponent, your fate is in the hands of the judges.
 
But, as I said in the last paragraph, even with football's simple premise: "score the higher number of goals - you're the winner", you get arguments. Take, for instance, this afternoon's East Kilbride v Celtic Scottish Cup tie.
 
Celtic won 2-0, but, would you believe it, some are complaining about Leigh Griffiths' opener for Celtic. The ball appears to have hit wee Leigh on the hand en route to the EK net. I think I saw the contact when watching the TV pictures, but, I cannot be sure. In any case, even if Leigh was hit on the hand by the ball, it looked to me to be ball to hand, which is legal, rather than hand to ball, illegal.
 
Any way, suppose the referee had decided to chalk-off the goal, it would still have finished in a Celtic win, but, 1-0, rather than 2-0. Therefore, arguing is spurious and a waste of time.
 
It is not as if Celtic lost goals for not entertaining. (slightly off-topic - has any Scottish club paid an "entertainment bonus" since yon day, decades ago, when Jim McLean fined his players their "entertainment bonus" after one less-than-sparkling victory).
 
Sure, Celtic, top of the SPFL, were expected to hammer their non-league opponents. However, as we have long known in football, a determined and well-organised lesser team is always capable of thwarting the goal-scoring aspirations of their opponents.
 
It is one thing saying: "On paper, Celtic should win" - (glib aside here), another to reveal: "football is played on grass (or artificial surface), not on paper". Ah didnae ken that!!
 
Old cynic that I am, I reckon the lack of credit for winning a match they were always going to win, which has gone to Celtic is down to one thing - the media wanted an EK victory to boost their pathetic "Deila Must Go" campaign.
 
Celtic were supposed to win - they did win; job done, move on.
 
 
 
ELSEWHERE, Scotland's third-most-hard-fought Derby, the Edinburgh one between Hearts and Hibs, finished all-square. Again, I am not that surprised, Hibs are a Premiership team serving time in the Championship, Hearts are not that far ahead of them - add the chuck the form book away thing around any Derby and, the draw was always likely.
 
It will be interesting to see how tomorrow's quarter-final draw pans out.
 
 
 
WELL done Aberdeen, controlling their nerves enough to beat St Johnstone and maintain the pressure on Celtic at the top of the table. If they can put together a good run of results, things will get really interesting once the split happens. You kind of expect Aberdeen, having got themselves back into a challenging position by beating Celtic, to immediately lose ground, so, well done to them for not doing so.
 
 
 
LAUGH of the weekend for me was Mark McGhee's reaction to that late Inverness CT winner in the cup tie ar Fir Park. Nobody does the we wuz robbed, petted lip quite like the bold McGhee. And no, I didn't think Roberts fouled Gomis as he won possession, before going on to fire home a fantastic late winner.
 
And, as far as the other big talking point of the cup ties is concerned; this Killie supporter thought the ref was right to red card Higginbottom. That one was not an Orange/Masonic conspiracy at Ibrox.                                   

Saturday 6 February 2016

Shhhhh!!!!! We Are On The Rise - But, Don't Tell Anyone

SCOTLAND has suffered terribly this past month - rain, high winds, even heavier rain, higher winds, mair rain, hurricane-strength winds. What we need is a wee bit of good news, something to take our minds off the misery of winter here in God's country.
 
OK, to many of the population, Celtic's on-field and the Rangers Tribute Act's off-field travails have offered some light relief, it is always good to see those with delusions of an  entitlement to rule over us suffering. However, given how the corporate media is ever-so-deeply embedded in the pockets of the Bigot Brothers, they have concentrated on these little local difficulties, and missed a gleam of sunlight through the midwinter gloom.
 
The latest FIFA rankings were announced on Thursday, and, would you believe it - Scotland are on the up. We have risen from 52nd to 46th, a rise of six places and are back among the top 50 football nations on this planet.
 
 
Now, why wasn't Wee Gordon Strachan (above), led by the massed pipe bands of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, paraded from Hampden Park to Pacific Quay, to announce this momentous feat, live to David Currie on Reporting Scotland? Why wasn't he then paraded through the streets of Glasgow, to George Square, there to take the acclaim of the massed ranks of the Tartan Army, as we celebrated? Come on SFA, you missed a trick there.
 
Of course, this rise in the rankings was all down to one cunning plan, a ruse so amazing, it was worthy of the great Baldrick himself. We rose six places, because, we didn't play any games. We sat back and let some of the teams above us lose games, and slip beneath us.
 
That's the plan - we stop paying internationals and, in jig time we will be a top ten nation and back in the World Cup. Might it not work?
 
However, we must dump a daud of cauld kail on the feel-good factor. For all our ascent to the stratospheric heights of the Top 50, Scotland remains the 29th-ranked nation in UEFA and, and this really hurts, the fifth of the five FIFA member nations within the British Isles.
 
Jings, reality hurts.
 
 
 
MY big mate Shuggie MacDonald, in his must-read Saturday column in the Herald, has written a funny, but serious piece on the absurdities of football's transfer market. I commend it to my reader.
 
I have long held, when I get a Weir-sized cheque from Camelot for a Euromillions win, after I have secured the futures of my amazingly-annoying daughters, and my nere-do-well grand-children, and sent "Management" off on  her once-in-a-lifetime shopping spree, I would set-up and run an Ayrshire sports team to rule Scotland, and, given time, the world.
 
One of the things my Head Coach, because I would be El Presidente, Director of Football, Honcho, High Heid Yin and, basically, he who must be obeyed, would have to understand, would be - there will be no transfer fees paid, and definitely no agent's fees.
 
Our colours will not be sullied by badge-kissing foreign mercenaries, recruited via grossly-inflated transfer fees. My recruitment style will be, the bulk of the squad will be local kids, brought through a grass roots development programme, from which only the very best will advance to my first team squad. And, IF we do have to recruit outside assistance, these players will be brought to the club on "Bosmans".
 
The first Scottish club chairman who goes down this route, will have my fullest support. We simply cannot in Scotland afford to squander squillions on transfer fees - when will this fact of  life hit home?
 
 
 
IN looking at today's William Hill Scottish Cup ties, I find myself torn when it comes to one particular game. As one brought-up in the Juniors, I would love it if Linlithgow Rose could go to Victoria Park, Dingwall and put out Ross County. However, I love the town of Dingwall; "Management" and I have an old friend who lives on the Black Isle and we spend a few weekends each year up there, and visit Dingwall a lot when we do. Also, having kent Wee Billy Dodds (below) since he was a very annoying wee ynaff of a teenager, I want him and his brilliantly-run club to do well.
 
 
 
Then, if a Junior club is really to go far in the big Scottish Cup, surely history demands that club be the mighty Talbot - I hope to be around when, as they surely one day will, they put out one of the Bigot Brothers at Beechwood.
 
Also, I feel for Ronnie Deila, anything less than a ten-goals-plus hammering of East Kilbride in tomorrow's match and the screams for his head will intensify. Definitely a no-win occasion for the Norwegian. And, should the unthinkable happen, surely Peter Lawwell will hand him a bottle of whiskey, a gun and usher him into his office - to do the decent thing.
 
Should the unthhinkable happen, and Deila not do the decent thing, I fear he may, on exiting Broadwood tomorrow, be torn limb from limb by the outraged GFITW.
 
 
 
Finally, I commend to any other football bloggers reading this: get yourselves onto the Lallands Peat Worrier blog and read what is written there. Having already done so, I shall be making no comments concerning an on-going legal case, with a connection to the affairs of a certain Glasgow-based football club.
 
A wee spell as a guest of Her Majesty does not appeal at my age and, the Contempt of Court Laws are one minefield I have no interest in entering.