Aye aye all, it’s Wednesday (if only just), so just time for a quick update. This week we have news of another disastrous week of European football for the only Scottish team left in the Champions League and the third managerial casualty of the season tries to make ends meet with his Giro. We begin though with a team that gets regular billing on Inside Left.
As regular readers will know, we’ve been following the developments at Highland League outfit Fort William for some time now. The Fort, arguably one of Scotland’s worst senior league teams will be taking part in a revolutionary reality show called “America’s Team”, in which a selection of American players, chosen by the subscribers to the show will become part of the team and work towards improving the clubs results. It’s a similar setup to the one currently going on at Ebbsfleet United in England, where members get a vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions.
This week, Paul McDonald, who owns the media company behind “America’s Team”, PMAC Tonight Entertainment, was in the town to watch the side take on Skye outfit Ballachulish in a friendly game at the fantastically situated Claggan Park. The Fort ran out comfortable 9-3 winners and cameras where on hand to record the events.
For more information about the goings on at Fort William, check out the official site, www.AmericasTeamFC.com.
While all this was going on, Dundee manager Alex Rae was having a much less entertaining afternoon. On Saturday, his side went down 2-1 at home to Ross County, a defeat which led to the board relieving the former Rangers player of his duties, despite getting assurances from the board the previous week that his job was safe. Assistant manager David Farrell will take care of first team duties until a successor has been appointed. Favourites for the vacant position at Dens include Queen of the South manager Gordon Chisholm, Billy Dodds, Airdrie United’s Kenny Black and Jimmy Nicholl, presently assistant with Aberdeen.
Dundee take on another team struggling with form this Saturday when they travel to Greenock to take on Morton. The Ton manager Davie Irons is another manager who should be worried about his job – Morton are bottom of the First division and won only their first home game of the season on Saturday against Clyde, the team directly above them in the league. The victory, courtesy of a James Grady goal probably saved Irons his job.
Alex Rae’s sacking, no doubt prompted by the title-challengers slide down the table from 1st to 8th, follows on from that of Stephen Frail at Hearts and Jim Weir at Montrose earlier this month. This got us thinking about other managers under pressure in the SPL currently. Here’s who we think might be in trouble if things don’t start improving soon.
Jimmy Calderwood, the Aberdeen manager, is in his fourth season at the club and while there’s no denying that the general trend has been one of slow, if not stellar improvement, this season has been pretty horrendous so far. Still without a home win, the Dons picked up their first win in six attempts last week against Falkirk. While the squad is strong, on the field things are just not quite coming together, making many wonder if Calderwood has enough experience to make the changes required and get the Dons back to a respectable position. Given that love-hate relationship that the supporters have with the manager, affectionately known as ‘Tango’ to most supporters, it wont take much more to make the calls for his sacking that bit louder. The Dons play Hearts and Kilmarnock next – defeat in both those games, and the knives may well be out.
John McGlashan, currently manager at Arbroath. The Red Lichties are bottom of the Second division, with one win in ten games; they squandered a deserved half-time lead in their 2-1 defeat at Alloa. Without a win since the 2nd of August, the team look to be heading down from whence they came.
Robbie Williamson, manager at Third division Elgin City. Saturday´s surprise win over league leaders Stenhousemuir may have kept the former Clachnacuddin manager in job for a wee while longer, but a poor result is never far away for the Black and Whites. A series of heavy defeats, not mention a dreadful disciplinary record that has seen the team lose 7 players in 10 games (including three in the 6-1 defeat to Albion Rovers), not to mention more yellow cards than most teams get in a full season suggest that problems are abound up at the Moray club. There´s no relegation of course in the Third, but with all the rumblings about opening up the leagues to a ´pyramid´ type set-up, Elgin would want to sort out their form and their discipline before they find themselves back in the Highland League in a few years time.
Lastly, Celtic did the nation proud by going down 3-0 to English and European Champions, Manchester United. The goals, two of which where offside, where scored by new signing from Spurs, Dimitar Berbatov, and England international Wayne Rooney. Though we didn’t see the game, we’re reliably informed that Celtic where unlucky, but gash. The best the Parkhead side can do now is beat Aalborg and end up in the Uefa Cup. Hey, it’s better than nothing though, right?
The defeat was not unexpected, such is the gulf between the Scottish and English top divisions. Considering that ManYoo spent about as much on one player than the entire spending on transfers in all of Scotland over the summer (possibly) it’s not hard to see anything other than a mauling being the end result after 90 minutes. And alright, the referee had a shiter of game, but not as much as Celtic who where (according to most pundits) pretty shite themselves.
In any case, Scottish representation in Europe has been pretty laughable and the sooner it’s all over, the better; I mean, Hibs getting turned over by a Swedish side, Rangers by a Lithuanian team, Queen of the South to a Danish team and Motherwell to some third-rate French mid-table arsefest. None of this is particularly impressive when viewed in the cold light of day. A while back we had an article about how Motherwell and Celtic had to win their respective European cup competitions to avoid Scotland sliding down the Uefa rankings (that determines the number of automatic European qualification places allocated to each member country). Well, the new updated rankings are not out just yet, but you can bet your last 50p piece that finishing in top four this season in the SPL will mean First round qualifiers in places such as the Faroe Islands, Liechtenstein and San Marino.
Imagine Rangers getting drawn against a Vatican City XI in the first round of the Uefa Cup. Christ, thanks to Celtic, it might just happen.
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Tags: Midweek Update, News
Well, I hoped and prayed that we wouldnt go down as easy as all that.
I’m only counting it as a 1-0 win though, cos Berbatwunt cheated. Twice.
We’ll hop into the UEFA Cup, and win it, just to get one over Castle Greyskull.
Mark my words.