Posts Tagged ‘Scottish football’

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Fuck it all, doom merchants (that’s you by the way)!

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Right. So that’s me back from international duty – time to catch up on all that’s been happening while I’ve been away not paying too much attention to events concerning our beautiful game.

Let’s see.

Our clubs are out of Europe (well, not quite. Ah no – wait), Hearts have a new manager, Scotland are pretty much out of contention for the Euro’s next year, Colin Calderwood is still somehow manager at bottom-of-the-table Hibs, and Aberdeen are doing their level best to justify building a new stadium next year that they couldnae fill based on our ongoing run of ‘form’. Rangers continue to have problems with the taxman, Dundee United continue to cling on to their past (#lolquote “following consultation with McLean”) and Henry McLeish (mind of him?) is just coming around to the fact that the only contribution his report has made is to the share prices of companies in the paper waste disposal trade.

So to summarise: I appreciate we’re only six games in, but it doesn’t look like I’ve missed much. Apart from Motherwell being second in the league and St Mirren seven thousand points above my beloved Aberdeen FC (fit the fuck is that ah aboot min?) everything seems to be the way it should be.

And that’s a comforting thought in these days of economic Armageddon, recreational rioting and drunken elks in trees. It’s good to know that some things at least don’t change.

Predictably the laptop emo boys have been slicing their forearms open in self harming despair at it all, but I say: fuck it. Fuck it all totally. Cram it with walnuts. Be happy with what you have, sadsacks, because for all its flaws, it is still the best game in the world.

Aye. It’s true. I used to be a hater, but now I’m a player. I’ve become zen-like in my thoughts and feelings on the game. I’ve decided that Scottish football is like the buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg that Morrisey spent his summers writing to. Sure, she ain’t pretty, but at least she’s there.

So, I’ll no longer hear talk of the state of Scottish football. You see, I’ve come to the conclusion that the mince-like state (@oxford_dictionary can we have the word “minceness” in the dictionary next year please?) of our game is very subjective and really only appropriate when comparing it to other nations.

For example, there’s no point in comparing our game to the fancydans of the EPL. Or with that of Spain, a league that’s about as uncompetitive as this lot. We’re not Brazil (sit down Cowdenbeath. We’re not the Bundesliga with their sensible approach to football finance. We’re not Holland with its youth setup designed to fuel the export market in Dutch ‘talent’.

Instead, take your average SPL game and compare it to your average EPL game between two sides that have less than hee-haw chance of winning the league. For example, this weekend’s fixtures between Kilmarnock (great pies by the way) v Dunfermline and Norwich v West Brom. Stick it out long enough, and you’re not going to see much difference (apart from fuller stadiums). The football is the same – pass, pass, misplaced pass, moment of silky skill, refereeing mistake, a hoof up the park and dodgy goal (possibly offside). Repeat for 90 minutes (or 96 if you’re Man United or an Old Firm team).

My message: stop comparing Scottish football with that of our neighbours. The grass may be greener on the other side (it’s probably astroturf anyway), but dig beneath the surface and the problems are all the same.

English football may be “the best in the world”, but since the EPL came into being, ticket prices have been rising above and beyond the rate of inflation to pay for the excesses in the boardroom forcing out many fans that used to fill the terraces for generations in favour of corporate fans and sponsors.

Italian football might have given us some of the greatest names in the sport, but their league is one of the most corrupt on the planet. French football is dull as dishwater and Spanish football is (like most sports leagues these days) becoming uncompetitive as the money pours in.

See? Scottish football is not  much different, is it? Just fucking enjoy it, whatever games you’re going to this weekend.

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A history of the Old Firm

Friday, March 4th, 2011

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Mince and Tatties 12 // T’was all a dream

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Oh, you want more.

Right, so the other week I was chatting to an ex-colleague of mine about football in general, and Scottish football in particular. He, being from the other part of Britain, launched into the moral high ground familiar to us long suffering fans of the game north of the border, the one about shit teams, shit players, uncompetitive leagues and comedy league structures and so on, and that nothing ever changes.

It was hard not to disagree with him.  Trust me, it would have been a lot easier. But wait. Since we’ve been away we’ve seen quite a few changes.

On a managerial level, out (finally) went Mark McGhee at Aberdeen following a disastrous run of form that culminated with a record-setting 9-0 drubbing by Celtic back in October. When I heard the news I was overjoyed in one sense, and hugely disappointed in the other. Why? Well, I was kind of hoping to be in Aberdeen in time to stick two fingers up at McGhee as he left Pittoders for the last time. But alas, the price of the ticket was prohibitive, plus I’d never have gotten that crate of rotten tomatoes through customs.

In McGhee’s place came Craig Brown, a man that I had been not-so-quietly hoping would take the job. Of the managerial candidates on offer at the time – i.e. Gus McPherson – Brown is by far the best candidate for the job. Results so far have proved me right. The Brox revolution continues at Pittodrie – since Brown took over, Aberdeen have moved clear of the bottom of the table, winning four of the seven games he’s been in charge (and which included back-to-back defeats to Celtic).

Replacing Brown at Motherwell is Stuart McCall (him of ‘cargate’ fame @0:35), a man linked more with his time at Bradford, where he was both player and manager. His selection was made mainly on account of the fact he is familiar with the English lower league system, which is either an indication of Motherwell’s canny ability in the transfer market, or the sad state of financial affairs at the club. It’s not been easy going so far for McCall, with only 1 win in six attempts.

That win came against Hibernian, which links me nicely to ..

“Scottish football is actually a very dynamic entity, in that Scottish football is quite often to be found at the front of the queue whenever any changes to the game are handed out..”

Colin Calderwood, the last of the managerial changes since we last posted here. Now that Aberdeen have returned to some kind of form, Hibs have become the leagues ‘crisis’ club. In his sixteen games in charge, Calderwood has managed to win just three, and has overseen a precipitous fall down the league with the relegation place only five points away. Both St Mirren and Accies have games in hand, so Hibs fans might have reason to worry if this form continues.

Back at the other end, both Celtic and Rangers are in their usual places. Celtic have spent an enormous sum of money this season to prevent their arch rivals (well, anyone really, but mainly Rangers) from winning the league. In have come Kris Commons, Anthony Stokes, Daryl Murphy, Efraín Juárez, Gary Hooper and Emilio Izaguirre, all funded by the departure of Aiden McGeady who left for Moscow in exchange for £9.5m big ones.

Rangers’ financial issues are still not resolved, perhaps explaining the fact that more players left Ibrox than arrived. Kris Boyd left for Middlesbrough, Kenny Miller for Bursaspor in Turkey. The biggest change is yet to come for the reigning champions, namely the retirement of Walter Smith at the end of the season. He’ll hand over the reigns of power to Ally McCoist, at which point we’ll have two fairly iconic players at the helms of both half of the Old Firm.

Off the field, there’s been no end of interesting things. Following a barrage of criticism about the standard of refereeing directed at them from players, clubs, the media, the fans and basically anyone who knows anything about football, the men in black, disappointed at the lack of support from the SFA stuck two fingers up at us all, took their whistles, the ball and their cards and went on strike.

Ref’s get a hard time, we all know that, but it doesn’t help when one of your own, Dougie McDonald, makes a complete shite of a decision and then asks his linesman to cover for you. It’s just not the done thing. In any event, referees from abroad where flown in from Malta, Israel, Poland, Portugal and Luxembourg, and some games managed to go ahead. The referees eventually returned to work, but the postponement of some games have resulted in threats of legal action from the SFL, whose members lost out financially as games where called off.

Elsewhere, Dundee are back in administration. Their future looks more secure now that Creditors’ Voluntary Arrangement deal has been reached, which could see the club out of administration by .. och, read it yourself.

The other main talking point over the last few weeks and months has been the next league restructuring. I’m hazy on the details, but it looks like we’re about to go from the current 12 team SPL to a 10-team SPL in order to make the league more competitive or something, as well as seeing the clubs enjoy a greater revenue stream. The fact that it’s mainly revenue from two teams, now spread out amongst 10, rather than 12 clubs that accounts for the increase in revenue seems obvious, but that’s the kind of thinking required to get this sorry stinking carcass of a league back into some kind of credibility.

So, like was saying, I was talking the other day to an old friend of mine, English, about the state of the game north of the border. As most of you know, these kinds of arguments are wholly pointless, because it is practically impossible to find any kind of stat, or comparison with the game in the other part of Britain that puts Scottish football in a good light.

I did succeed however.

I counter-argued that in fact, Scottish football is actually a very dynamic entity, in that Scottish football is quite often to be found at the front of the queue whenever any changes to the game are handed out, whether it be a league restructuring (almost a decennial event these days), a league split or, thanks to Henry McLeish, even a far-reaching and insightful investigation into the state of the game.

In that sense, we’re eager for change. It’s a pity though that in the seven months that I’ve been away, nothing much has changed. It’s the same teams at the top, the same at the bottom. It’s the same financial woes. It’s the same slide down the FIFA coefficients. It’s the same sorry mess.

Yet I think it’s the best league in the world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I can’t explain that comment. It’s just the way I see it. Football, Scottish or otherwise, thrives on arguments, on the unfairness of the game, on the wrong decisions and on the fallacy of the league structures and our governing bodies. A homogeneous league, cold, sterile, where everyone was equal would be very boring.

We’d have nothing to talk about.

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Brimful of Alba (an EPL Scottish XI)

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Over the past few months on these pages I’ve bemoaned the fact that our players are being sold off to teams in the mid-to-low end of the English leagues.

With the exception of Darren Fletcher at Manchester United (who never played for a Scottish team) there are no Scottish players to be found running up the park at Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge or The Emirates, the current “Big Four”.

That’s not to say that Scottish football has not been represented in England’s top flight. This season we’ve seen Barry Ferguson, James McFadden and Garry O’Connor turn out for Birmingam, while Alan Hutton (Spurs, but on loan to Sunderland), Gary Caldwell (Wigan) and Christophe Berra (Wolves) continue to fly the Scottish flag.

But now with the addition of Blackpool into the English Premier League, the number of Scottish players has suddenly hit a new high. Stephen Crainey, Charlie Adam, Scott Dobie and Barry Bannan (on loan from Aston Villa) all turned out for the Seasiders in their 3-2 victory over Cardiff City at the weekend, a win that pushes the Lancashire team into the top flight for the first time since 1971 and which could net them a cool £90m.

Neither Stephen McPhee nor former Cowdenbeath midfielder Stephen Husband played in that game, but who knows: we may well be seeing them on Match of the Day soon.

Their opponents on the day, Cardiff, where not shy of a few Scots themselves. Former Celtic and Norwich shotstopper David Marshall failed to, ehm, stop the shots, while Kevin McNaughton (Aberdeen), Chris Burke (Rangers), Paul Quinn and Ross McCormack (both Motherwell) and the injured Gavin Rae (Rangers) should all be familiar names to fans of the game north of the border.

A small team (in terms of playing staff, supporter base and finances) in a big league, already Blackpool are already everyone tip for relegation. Like Steven Fletcher’s Burnley, whose place they take in the EPL, the Seasiders may well find the going tough in one of Europe’s top leagues. But the exposure to a much higher level of football, even when compared to the Championship, can only make our players better, which for Craig Levein – the coach of our national side – can only be a good thing.

Could the future be as bright as the Blackpool shirts? Only time will tell.

The EPL Scottish XI (4-4-2)

In the meantime, here is our Scottish EPL Select XI, based entirely on the Scots playing in the English Premier League this season (and where they came from)

1 Craig Gordon     (Sunderland/Hearts)
2 Stephen Crainey  (Blackpool/Celtic)
3 Christophe Berra (Wolves/Hearts)
4 Gary Caldwell    (Wigan/Celtic)
5 Alan Hutton      (Spurs/Rangers)
6 Charlie Adam     (Blackpool/Rangers)
7 Barry Ferguson   (Birmingham/Rangers)
8 Darren Fletcher  (Manchester United)
9 James Morrison   (West Bromwich Albion)
10 James McFadden  (Birmingham/Motherwell)
11 Graham Dorrans  (West Bromwich Albion/Partick Thistle)

Substitutes

Garry O’Connor  (Birmingham/Hibernian)
Stephen McPhee  (Blackpool)
Stephen Husband (Blackpool/Cowdenbeath)
Scott Dobie     (Blackpool)
Barry Bannan    (Aston Villa)

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Season 2009/10: and how was it for you?

Monday, May 10th, 2010

SO, there it is. The Scottish Cup final notwithstanding, the curtain comes down on season 2009/10, the 113th since that sunny day in August 1890, when Rangers defeated Heart of Midlothian 5-2.

Funny how history has a habit of (nearly) repeating itself. While this season Rangers kicked off against Falkirk and not Hearts, the end result was pretty much the same – Rangers champions (albeit joint champions with Dumbarton), Celtic several points behind them, St Mirren somewhere near the bottom. Taking the role of Falkirk in that first season where Cowlairs, a team currently residing in the “where are they now?” files.

Hopefully Falkirk won’t go the same way as Cowlairs, a team beset by financial and administrative problems and which eventually went out of business in 1896, but there’s many a nervous Bairns fan out there, wondering what the summer will bring.

But how was the season for you and yours?

You can’t say it’s not been exciting. Celtic, Dundee United, Falkirk, Hearts, Kilmarnock and Motherwell all changed managers at some point during the season. History tells us that changing horses in midstream is generally not a good idea, but with the exception of Falkirk, for the most part it’s worked out.

We said it before in another article on this site so we wont go down the road well travelled, but Rangers deserved their title. Despite all their problems, they won the league at a canter. A League Cup would have been matched by a Scottish Cup had it not been for United, and the less said about the European adventures the better, but worthy champions they are. The won the league against a backdrop of financial woes, but with every day bringing news of tax demands, a will-he-wont-he buyer and a bank-induced “buy one, get one free” players sale, it might not all be such plain sailing next season.

About the only team for who Rangers’ impending implosion is relevant is Celtic. Even with Lennon in charge had no chance of catching up with Rangers, but you have to credit the Northern Irish international for at least giving it a go. Unbeaten in the league since taking over from Mowbray, Lennon has made a good case for becoming permanent manager of the Hoops over the summer. Something tells me he’ll get the job, and you know what – why not? He’s a Celtic man through and through, he’s done a remarkable job in turning around a squad that just wasn’t performing particularly well and, if nothing else, at least he did something only two other teams did this season: beat Rangers.

Peter Houston, the initially reluctant Dundee United manager got off to a slow start, including a goalless draw with Killie, a 7-1 thrashing by Rangers and an away defeat at New Firm rivals Aberdeen, but he stuck it out to put together a series of results that kept them in the top half of the table (they never dropped lower than fifth) and got them into the Scottish Cup final.

Craig Brown and Jim Jefferies, two veterans of our game had seasons of differing fortunes. Appointed to their new positions within a month of eachother (Brown at the end of December, Jefferies at the end of January) both managers steered a steady course to keep their sides from straying too far down the table – though by a strange quirk brought about by the league split, seventh placed Accies actually finished the season with more points than sixth placed Hearts.

No one said Scottish football was perfect.

Fans of St Johnstone can look back on a solid campaign that, given a repeat performance next season, could well be the start of a lengthy SPL stay, if only they’d stop conceding so many goals. Jimmy Calderwood did was he was asked, keep Killie up, but his future, not to mention that of Killie remains in doubt.

Hamilton Accies did well to improve on their final finishing position from season 2008/09, finishing two places higher, and all that without their prize asset, Master James McCarthy. Whether they’ll do as well without James McArthur remains to be seen…

St Mirren managed to avoid the final day heart attacks of last season, but only just. A vital win at home to Kilmarnock and draws against Falkirk and Hamilton in the final weeks of the season kept the Buddies up, meaning SPL football will be played in their brand new stadium for another year.

Which leaves Aberdeen, easily the most disappointing team of the season. Picking holes in Aberdeen’s season is like shooting fish in a barrel, there was simply so much that went wrong. Terrible players, terrible results and a manager whose early-season PR with his own fans left many wondering about his sanity, not to mention longevity, all made up not so much a roller-coaster season as a fairly pacey downhill slalom.

Another highlight of the season has been the progress that Raith Rovers and Ross County made in this years domestic Cup competitions. Raith Rovers, somewhere below mid-table in the First Division made it as far as the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup, beating Aberdeen and Dundee along the way, before coming unstuck against Dundee United. Ross County made it one game further. They took two big SPL scalps, those of Hibernian and Celtic (providing Neil Lennon’s only copybook blot). They also put nine past Second Division champions Stirling Albion in an earlier round.

They’ll play Dundee United next Saturday at Hampden.

And I couldn’t fail to mention an old favourite at Inside Left: Fort William. The Fort, once Britain’s worst football team, possibly, went from a team without a win last season to winning no less than 5 games during this campaign. They finished five points above the bottom spot, the wooden porridge spoon this year going to Rothes. Despite their success, The Fort still set two records this season: the biggest home win (champions Buckie Thistle won 8-0) and the longest run without recording a win (11).

There have been some disappointments too.

The national side once again failed spectacularly on the international stage. Failure to qualify for South Africa was one thing, but friendly defeats in Japan and Wales proved too much for the SFA who fired Burley, who had won just three of his 14 games in charge. The SFA moved quickly to poach Craig Levein from Dundee United, who got his tenure off to a winning start (a 1-0 win over Euro 2012 group-mates the Czech Republic). While the start looks promising, it may not last: Levein is one of the names in the frame for the Celtic job.

The other disappointment has been the McLeish report, the much awaited inquest into past, present and future of the Scottish game. Released without any fanfare whatsoever somewhere last month (I forget when, go Google) the report made some minor waves in the national media and the blogosphere, but most of us who care about the game stopped reading after we saw the line about needing £500m in investment to get things to where they should be. Quite where that amount of money is going to come from in this day and age is a mystery to me, and McLeish for that matter.

What follows on from this first installment (there are three in total) is completely irrelevant now, because by coming up with such ludicrous amounts, McLeish has made a mockery of his own report, and any further insights or recommendations – no matter how clever – will be met with even less hoo-la than I would have ever imagined.

So that’s it. A quick summary of my Scottish football season. We’ve still got a few games to go (a Cup final and the First and Second division play-off Finals), and before the next season kicks off there will be more talk of league reconstruction and league splits. While the format may change, the football remains the same and despite all I’ve had to put up with as an Aberdeen fan, I’m already looking forward to August.

Are you?

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Simply the best

Monday, April 26th, 2010

And so the league is finally over.

Unlike last season, or even the season before that, both of which went down to the wire on the final day, Kyle Lafferty’s 17th minute winner against Hibs at Easter Road yesterday ended season 2009/10 three games premature. His goal brings down the curtain on a season that’s been in the bag for the Ibrox club since the end of January, when the gap between Scotland’s top clubs hit the 10 point mark – ironically enough as Celtic went down 2-1 at home to to Hibs in the final game of that month.

Rangers will have to wait until the final day of the season to unfurl the champions flag over Ibrox, as away fixtures at Dundee Utd and Celtic precede their only remaining home game, when Motherwell come to town on the final day.

It’s been a tumultuous season for both halves of the Old Firm.

Rangers, out to defend their SPL title, started the season under a cloud of financial uncertainty, with Lloyds Bank – the club’s largest creditor – becoming increasingly anxious to recoup the £31m owed to them. Unable to bring in any new players, an unhappy manager, to say nothing about unhappy supporters, frustrated at the seeming lack of progress at the club, the odds where stacked against them right from the start.

While Rangers where counting the pennies and tightening the belt, over in Glasgow East by contrast, the lid had been truly blown off the biscuit tin. A spending spree commenced, with Marc-Antoine Fortune brought in from French mid-table French side Nancy, Daniel Fox joining from English Championship side Coventry and Josh Thompson moving north from League One side Doncaster. The  spree was rounded off with AIK Solna defender Jos Hooiveld swapping Stockholm for Glasgow, and after spending the best part of £7m on playing staff, not to mention a new manager in former Hibs and West Brom manager Tony Mowbray, hopes of taking back the title where high.

On paper then, you’d think that Celtic would be odds-on favourite to retake their title cruelly denied them on the final day of last season. But football has a funny way of not quite doing what you expect – just look at our desperate attempts at score predictions over the season.

Despite all their spending, Celtic never got into the groove. Perhaps it was the change in manager and the subsequent change in playing style that failed to win favour with fans and media alike (Mowbray describes being ‘beleagured’ by all and sundry during his nine-month spell at Parkhead). Perhaps there where just too many new faces at the club for the team to gel as a unit on the pitch.

Whatever it was, even the arrival of Robbie Keane in February from Spurs failed to make any impact on the 10-point gap that had developed. Costly defeats to Kilmarnock (on Keane’s debut), Rangers and St Mirren (after which Mowbray was sacked) certainly didn’t help.

By the time Mowbray had left the car park for the final time, the gap had increased to thirteen points. Neil Lennon took over on a caretaker basis, leading the Hoops through a series of good results (the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat against Ross County aside), but the Charge of the Light Brigade had come too late.

The league (and in particular Celtic) has been poor this season. Hibs’ challenge faded away after the New Year, Aberdeen where in self-destruct mode and Hearts kept the revolving-door at Tynecastle busy, while Motherwell’s run of form started too late. Only Dundee United can look back on a good season; losing manager Levein to the Scotland job was a blow and it took a while to recover, but recover they did, their challenge for second place only being killed off in the 2-0 defeat to Celtic last Sunday,

But it is  easy to blame Rangers’ success on the failings of others. Quite simply, over the course of the season, they’re simply the best. Unbeaten in the league at home, a League Cup in the bag and only a Scottish Cup quarter-final away from a domestic treble, these are some achievements for a club written largely written off back in August. The only real blot on their copybook this season was a very disappointing European campaign where Rangers failed to record a single victory, and failed to make it out of the group.

In hindsight, with a small-ish squad (which includes a 40-year old defender), a protracted European campaign might have distracted Rangers from where their true strength lies, namely in domestic football.

Following the defeat against Sevilla at the start of December, Rangers continued on a run of form that would see them lose only one more league game (a surprising 4-1 humbling at the hands of St Johnstone, this defeat coming a week after Celtic where defeated by a similar score by St Mirren) on their way to their record breaking 53rd League title.

Along the way they punished Dundee United and Motherwell (7-1 and 6-0 respectively),  Much talk has been made of Rangers’ somewhat pedestrian and workman-like (read: boring and unadventurous) approach to this season, but any team that recovers from a 12th-second goal to win 4-1 is showing true champions form.

There is still a lot to be decided at Ibrox, and the future is far from certain. The club is still up for sale (Andrew Ellis is still performing due diligence with no offer forthcoming) and the future of Kris Boyd – this seasons top scorer (so far) -  may well be decided soon (will he, won’t he go to Birmingham?) as he entered the final months of his contract. Likewise, Madjid Bougherra, possibly Rangers’ best player this season also looks set to leave.

Aside from securing a buyer for the club, the priority over the summer should be to retain manager Walter Smith, preferably on a permanent contract. There’s not doubt about Smith’s tremendous importance to the club, but his ability to negotiate new contracts with his players over the summer could be seriously compromised if his own future is not certain.

It will be an interesting summer in Glasgow. Will Rangers find a buyer? Will they hang on their squad? How much of the £12m Rangers look set to make from the Champions League Group stages will be ploughed back into the side? And in the absence of a buyer, just what conditions will Lloyds put  on the club over the summer?

For Celtic too, uncertainty abounds. Lennon is campaigning for his caretaker position to be made permanent, but Celtic say they are looking for a more experienced manager to take the helm; until the succession is assured at Parkhead, squad changes may well have to wait.

Depending on how things turn out in the next few months, there might not be a lot of change at the top clubs in the SPL. The same players (give or take Boyd and Keane), the same debts, the same managers and quite possibly the same outcome.

We shall see. For now though, our congratulations go out to Rangers: worthy winners indeed.

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