BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN

Andy’s Sting In The Tale (10/01/25) “More of the Same?”

Date: 10th January 2025

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

Take away our various competing club loyalties and I can guarantee we’d all like to see Scottish Football in a better place in the future.
To me that starts with more kids playing as part of a real, long-term, properly funded plan that is also based on and includes health goals and working in conjunction with the Scottish Government and our communities.
Football can reach the places other media platforms and social messages can’t and can be an even bigger power for good right through the nation.
The starting point is we need to recognise what we’re currently doing isn’t good enough for the needs of the nation the game and the kids.
There is no mechanism currently outside of this wee blog for doing that.

Why?

Who in and around our game wouldn’t want a ‘New Deal’ aka a ‘delivery programme’ producing a richer conveyor belt of top level talent filling our teams up and down the country and with the best more than suitable for Stevie and future Stevies, ad-nauseam.

And who would argue against an end to the unsavoury crap that somehow our game still allows to thrive in Scotland in 2025 like some of the song and chant books that are racist/ offensive/ illegal and quite frankly irrelevant.
This poison also severely restricts the sponsorship opportunities our game increasingly craves and needs and I can tell you that from first-hand experience.
At best the Scottish Football toxicity is a commercial  hurdle and at worst a turn-off.
A well-known elephant in the SPFL and SFA rooms is that Uefa with its ‘Strict Liability’ has pointed how to stop the song books, and much of the bad behaviour.
That’s top-down and the clubs need to do more for a bottom-up virtuous circle.

What SPFL really thinks about pyro from boardroom to the stands as pros and cons of ultras aired in agenda setting survey - Daily RecordLet’s also find a way to address the current curse of pyros and any aspects and excesses of ‘ultraism’ that go beyond supporting both your own team and the game at the same time.

Fans have to realise we are united first and foremost by a love of the game.
And sometimes we can do that.

Ask yourself this.
How can a nation that spawned all the good and wonderful things surrounding the Tartan Army meekly accept the unacceptable in our domestic domain?
And we do.
And the media including the BBC is letting us all down by the rampant double standards.

So let’s start 2025 with a New Year Definition from well-known East Fife distant fan, Albert Einstein.

‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’

 

Einstein atomic bomb letter to go up for auction - BBC NewsOur game is good at landing in ‘Albert’s Trap’.

Building is about foundations and that is where we have to start.

But foundations don’t just happen.

It’s fair to say, last week’s Sting surprised a few of you out there and for the first time in a while was picked up by some international titles too.
So I’m famous now in the USA press, radio and the press Down Under.
Nobody in Scotland picked it up, (or maybe didn’t want to/couldn’t).
The foreign media were mostly interested in my startling insight into the percentage of starting Scots in our SPL top league on January 2nd.
Just 35%.
That simple fact shocked quite a few of you too, but as some long forgotten wee Irish comedian used to say, ‘And there’s more’.
There is if you dig deeper into my figures and then look sideways at how our game is running itself and the quite unbelievable voting structures that exist just to stymie change.

Scottish Youth Cup final: Celtic 3-0 Rangers - BBC SportAs Pete from sunny Ayrshire pointed out.
“Andy, why did you not emphasise the point that Celtic and Rangers, our media favoured twosome combined, had just 14% Scots starting.
Rangers had 9% and their city rivals just 18% with only Ross County in their anti-Scots Player’s Starting League.
It is also a fact that our two biggest clubs spend the most on kids football, way more than my team.
And these two clubs are ruthless in pursuit of whatever they are looking for, willing to steal kids from any other team, and we all know how they dump the vast majority.
That happened to my cousin, poached from a local club where he was doing well then  let go unceremoniously, when they didn’t need him any more. He’s given the game up”.Ouch!
But I can’t disagree Pete.
We all know.
Just nobody talks about it.
I’m a well-known victim having written before that I’m still officially a Caley S form signing from the ‘70s having never been released or even been told I wasn’t wanted any more.The System: What We Can Learn When Science and Reason Collide with Scottish Football (Paperback)And when Graeme McDowall’s wonderful book ‘The System’ analysed the real data behind our current ‘elite’ programmes it came up with, from memory,  these damning conclusions on what we’re doing.
– Our current  year group format favours ‘earlier in the year born’ and therefore ‘bigger’ kids at the detriment of their ‘later born’ peers.
– Kids chosen for being elite at too young an age are over-coached too soon and this stifles initiative and flair.
– There is no Plan B/ back-door for late developers like Jim Baxter, Kenny Dalglish etc.

Populist Click Bait

Our football media is what it is.
There probably isn’t a fan who doesn’t know that Celtic might or might not sign Kieran Tierney, or that some Rangers fans want another new manager.
The future is hard to predict.
But what I can say for certain is that in 10 years’ time neither of these two gents will be media worthy and we’ll have even fewer Scots in starting line ups.

Wake up Scotland!

And a question to consider?
Why is kids football in the hands of the clubs?
Should it be collective and kid focussed/ child centred rather than the current ‘race to being dumped?’
Is there a better way?
Andy’s Sting in the Tale1. X Rated Stuff
2. Football’s AI Revolution
3. ‘Balls’ Shouts Ex-Ranger
4. The Entitled Blame Game
5. 3 Points for a Draw in Deutschland
1. Opinions Welcome


Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg agree to hold cage fight - BBC NewsI personally am not on social media apart from occasionally clicking a link if there is no other way.
I personally find them and their owners stances poisonous and also object to they or any site harvesting and selling anything about me.
This week we had an impassioned plea from a member to boycott the particular toxic notice board owned by some South African born Gadge who has more than a few quid from his crypto currency days.
This blog gets posted on his private opinion channel and other social media sites too, like the one owned by an American who has this week stopped fact-checking.
We all know neither of these sites act quick enough when they are used for real abuse of people like us, and the deep and growing spread of mis-information.
You might think and say they make even the Murdoch empire look benign.
I don’t have an answer but feel that we’re on the cusp of change and would like to see decency break out in the interweb ether.
2. 25 Million Player Appearances Analysed in Minutes

And coming to amateur football near you on our new APP?George, the best coach I ever played under was never any good himself as a player, but often said he could spot good players by the way they run before they had even kicked a ball.
And my old pal Dave Johnson was an ex-pro, and latterly a Rangers scout under John Greig. Dave trusted his instinct rather than any tick-box statistics, but he liked 2 or 3 games to be sure.
After watching me once in a game against the CS Strollers he told me I was ‘East of Scotland material’ but that our winger/forward Stewart was much better than the league he was playing in, but too old and not Rangers level!
Anyway, Artificial Intelligence is now here to stay especially at the top end.
It’s already subsumed at Tynie and all over top clubs in England like a proverbial cheap suit.
Lee Mooney, ex Man City employee is the founder of MD Analytics.
He says AI can analyse 1000s of games and produce plans to counter any team or player.
He’s right.
And his machine can analyse 25 Million player appearances to help club’s recruitment teams and their plans.
Scary stuff.
And the $64,000 question,
Will this revolutionise Arbroath’s recruitment plans?
3. Mikel Talking Balls

Arsenal 0-2 Newcastle: Mikel Arteta says Carabao Cup footballs are 'tricky' - BBC SportThe Arsenal manager came out this week against the Puma balls used in the Caraboa cup.
They are seemingly different to the Mitre balls used in the Premier League.
He said, rather petulantly, “It Wisnae Our Fault”.
“We kicked too many balls over the bar”.
The EFL said in response, “Balls, Mikel, Balls.
Our Puma ball is widely used all over and is fine, and anyway the nice people at Puma give us money to use them.
And we all know that you Spanish are well known as moaners when it comes to talking balls”.
(Possibly edited a little by Andy)4. Instant Fix Time, Again

Overheard in a pub in Dundee on Thursday night, (Expletives removed).

“Outrageous”, (and other more colourfully described words of that ilk)
“Sack the bar steward in the morning”. (Not sure what the bar man did wrong, maybe they didn’t have Tennent’s)
“Get us back to our rightful place” (The age of entitlement still alive and well in certain fandoms).

5. Turning 1-1 Into 2-0

On 14th December Bochum were drawing at Union of Berlin 1-1 and had used all their subbies.

Union Berlin vs Bochum: Bundesliga match suspended after keeper hit by object - BBC SportSome idiot from the crowd threw a lighter at Patrick Drewes the Bochum Goalie and he collapsed.
A big stooshie occurred and all players walked off the field and when they returned Patrick didn’t come out, hurt maybe.
Phillip Hoffman the centre forward went into goal to see the game out.
The German FA then awarded the game 2-0 to Bochum.
Berlin have appealed and I hope they lose.
Would our SPFL have had the balls to do that and would they have been Mitre or the Puma ones that Mikel says go over the bar?
That’s Sting for another week, hope you enjoyed it.
If you didn’t then that’s OK, keep reading to see how bad it can get.And the good news for the January daylight anoraks like me with my wee SAD light machine is 7 extra minutes in the morning and 13 in the afternoon. 

Andy’s Sting is:

A weekly column from me, Andy, a long suffering but optimistic ICT and Scottish football fan. (Well done for heading to Company Voluntary Agreement ICT although your £3.8M figure is a corporate disgrace and should lead to public floggings in the Market Square).

I try to make the Stuff in Sting the kind of football thinking and discussion you don’t see much in the MSM but should.
The opinions are mine and I don’t mind if you don’t agree or even disagree with anything I say.

Andy’s Album of the Week
 
Capercaillie : CascadeCascade by Capercaillie on Amazon Music - Amazon.co.ukThe Beeb iplayer were flagging a 2 hour long 40th birthday celebration of Capercaillie who hit 40 years young a few months ago.
It’s an eclectic insight into where a very young band came from and a great insight into these kids from the wee village of Taynuilt with a singer blessed with the voice of an angel and some amazing musical talents making it all happen.
I’ve already showcased ‘Reloved’ their 40th celebratory album with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on this blog and to be fair I’ve warmed to it although it’s maybe, for me a little overproduced.
So this week I went back to 1984 and their first album ‘Cascade’.
I’d never heard it before.
Wow.
It’s raw, underproduced but wonderful.
Karen’s voice as a kid still at school or maybe just left is amazing and the mix of material just works.
An Eala Bhan, and Marc’s Set are my stand outs today, but tomorrow I’d pick 2 different.
I got it on YouTube and had a constant fight with crappie adverts but it was worth it.

Posted in: Andy’s Sting in the Tale, Latest News