BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 13th September 2024
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
But look sideways as well and then change what needs changed
A third of the way into the Nations League top level adventure and our team are showing more cohesion and fight than in the Euros but Null Points, Eurovision style is on the cards with 4 really tough games to come.
We could well end up being ‘Grannied’.
That’s what the bookies would say because we are ranked 48 in the Fifa table and playing against Portugal at 8, Croatia 12, and Poland 28.
Our coefficient will only be heading one way, the wrong way, in our tough wee mini league and that is only bad news for future tournament draws.
I was quite shocked reading the latest Fifa list to see countries like Morocco at 14, are 34 places above us, and that Japan are 18, Iran 20, Korea, 23 and Qatar at 34.
In my head we could and should be better than those countries so it has to be someone’s fault.
And in football, well it’s always easiest to blame the manager.
Not surprisingly some of the red-top journo knives are already out whipping up their shrinking audiences to find a better head coach.
It has to be Steve’s fault.
Stevie is failing the nation.
Why?
He’s dour for a start and is obviously also failing in the Paul Daniels stakes.
Stevie simply isn’t magicking up the conveyor belt of top talent for all positions that we need.
Not real journalistic analysis in fact.
No forward-looking analysis.
C’est lavvie.
The real culprits however are not those on the 6th floor.
They are long gone, Allans,. Walkers and such like.
Those who made decisions back in the 70s and 80s and 90s.
Fast forward to today.
The questions that should be asked in all areas and the investigations needed to deliver a better future is actually not rocket science.
Our starting is some hard-nosed and uber-honest historical analysis.
Cutting through all the crap
What did we used to do better when we produced more players?
What are we no longer doing?
Can we regenerate old practices to re-establish what we used to do well?
The second task needed then is honest benchmarking against other countries especially those of similar populations above us in the rankings.
What are these other nations doing better and worse than we are now?
What can we learn and beg, steal or borrow?
Then the really tough decisions come for the very top of the SFA and the SPFL too.
How do we identify, rank, introduce, facilitate and manage change and changes for future managers.
Again not rocket science.
Just the same questions all businesses face.
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. Shinty Invests in Schools
2. Uefa Let Most of the Women Down
3. Scott the Gardiner Wants £10 per unopened Email
4. Roy Hits 70 Years
1. It’s Not Too Late for Football
I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know much about The Camanachd Association Programme in Scottish Schools.
Thanks to Phil on GMS this week I now know a hell of a lot more and I really like what they are doing.
Yes they are small as an organisation, but they are nimble and focussed.
Shinty it seems is now working with local wholesome Sponsors and sees kids as the future, all kids everywhere, and not just their own kids in their traditional Gaeltacht.
Sponsorship money is targeted.
Things like an Arbroath High School/ Angus cell with feeder primary schools are fair game to them.
I’m impressed guys.
Here is what they say they are doing, lifted from their own web site.
“Camanachd Association and UHI Train 45 Teachers in ‘Shinty for Schools’ Programme
Lyndsay Bradley, Headteacher at Acharacle Primary School said:
“Including shinty in the school curriculum is a fantastic way to introduce pupils to their national sport from an early age. It provides pathway links to local clubs and an opportunity to learn more about the culture and heritage of our communities through sport. The majority of players in our current senior ladies and men’s teams began their shinty careers in our local primary schools. I have been a long-term advocate of training our new teachers as shinty coaches at the start of their careers, giving them the essential skills and confidence to take the sport forward in their schools and I am delighted to be involved in this project.”
There will be an additional session in Skye, delivered in Gaelic, within the next month.”
I really like what they are doing and how they are constructing a bigger future for their sport one step at a time.
Made me think about school’s football all over Scotland. It used to a hotbed of talent feeding in at all levels of the game. An endless free supply that was taken for granted.
If you’ve been on the moon, Schools football in Scotland fell off its perch, almost overnight in the early 80s when the teachers like Danny Costello pictured here with former pupil Ian, now Scottish Secretary, and long-time pal, Andy, that’s me, walked away.
It was never the SFA’s fight but bloody hell our game has suffered since.
Not easy to regenerate but well worth working with all the stakeholders.
And here’s a wee parallel fact for you.
Sport Scotland funded by Holyrood put over £1M into the SFA for Kids football.
I don’t know how it gets allocated.
The clubs tell me they get less than 40p funding per kid per annum so I do know the Sporty Scotland money doesn’t go to the kids or their clubs but there are no public records.
Maybe someone can let me know and I’ll share it.
Shinty sees the open goal that schools offer but I’m not sure football does, yet.
It should.
I can’t think of a better investment.
2. Same Old, Same Old, Follow the Money Nonsense
Celtic WFC play Vorskla Poltava the Ukrainian Champions in the third qualifying round of the Uefa Women’s Champions league with both legs now scheduled at Airdrie’s Potato Stadium on September 22 and 26.
Winner takes all and loser is out of Europe with nada.
So All or Nada and that is ridiculous.
The Ukrainian side are ranked 53 places above Celtic but Scottish Captain Rachel Corsie thinks our team have a great chance because of 2 home games in Airdrie.
So, a financial bonus for the winner but half of bugger all for the loser.
Uefa is again serially failing its smaller members and their newish women’s clubs.
Anyway change is afoot, just not the right change or changes.
This is the last year of the current 32 team, 8 group format before moving to a 36 team ‘Champions League’.
I don’t know how the current and quite ridiculous ‘qualification process’ will again conspire against bona fide champions from smaller leagues but can guarantee we will continue to have Uefa pandering to the big clubs rather than doing what’s right for all their members.
The odds will again be against any lesser countries joining ‘the elite club’.
It is ever thus and will be until the wee guys combine, work together and revolt.
Uefa wouldn’t like that.
Here are some thoughts of fans from an on-line site discussing some of the issues.
“Women’s Champions League is wildly uncompetitive until late rounds”
(I’d say that is made worse by giving the big clubs more and more resource and keeping the wee guys out of the annual financial beanfeast)
“The current format is fine unless you get knocked out and there is no Europa safety net because the financial numbers don’t add up”.
(Why no Europa or Conference support competition? Why not conspire to promote the women’s game?)
“The big clubs will just get bigger and the smaller countries lose out. That’s Uefa for you”.
(Yes, big clubs self-interest is the key factor and they have power in the Swiss corridors)
Good luck Celtic next Wednesday.
I’ve been trying for the last ten minutes to find out if it’s on council telly, unsuccessfully.
I’ll edit Sting if I find out.
3. Inverness Update
All has gone quiet in the Highland capital as the team now running ICT steadies the ship with a view to finding ‘a buyer’.
That option disturbs me.
I think football’s reset shouldn’t always be to find a ‘rich benefactor’ who is essentially stupid enough to conflate ‘investment’ with ‘spend’.
That usually ends in tears.
I’m not inside this tent but as an outsider and fan would personally prefer that community clubs should be run for their communities and that means ‘right sizing’ rather than trying to compete with our Glasgow or even Dingwall Giants.
How about a real Inverness ‘United’ and with the best youth section in Scottish football?
I like the sound of that.
Anyway this week two wee Inverness stories are worth a mention.
The first is that the ex ICT CEO, Scott wants £70,000 pounds for leaving ICT in the state they are in.
I worked it out, – that is £10 per unopened email in his inbox on his departure.
It’s all now a ’Pandora’s Box’ according to ‘interim-everything’, Alan Savage, running a club who are now said to need £1.6 Million to meet their current commitments and survive till the start of season 2026–27, two years from now.
Scott’s claim against the club has caused real chaos because it has to be rebuked forcibly and ICT have had to bring in forensic accountants, never cheap, to analyse the diverse and no doubt complex series of events leading up to the almost ‘dropping off a cliff’ a few weeks ago.
There has to be incompetence, misinforming, pig-headedness and maybe even worse throughout this sorry tale and I hope the club keep their fans informed.
Whatever happens the ICT fans are vital for the future and should be at the heart of every decision.
And I was really saddened to read another sorry tale from my old stamping ground with the uber seedy story of the Thistle Girls FC head coach being jailed for illegal and completely inappropriate sexual conduct.
Not nice to think about, talk about or read about.
But maybe a spur for the authorities to go even further.
Football needs to protect and empower all its kids.
And finally when will the ‘football family united’ start talking about and delivering free football for all kids.
A real challenge yes but a truly worthy one and a great political result and a better conveyor belt for Stevie.
4. My Very Real Boyhood Hero
Growing up my brother, my Dad and I shared a raft of comics.
We had The Victor, The Hotspur, and the Rover and Wizard delivered on Monday, Thursday and Friday.
All had football stories and stars.
They were always the best stories because football really worked in comics.
In those days of very little live football on TV it was effectively the equivalent of a Sky subscription channel.
I still remember expressions like ‘Testing the goalkeeper”, “Whoooosh”, and “Goooooaaaaal”.
Comics were great value and didn’t need free gifts or even colour pics to sell themselves back then, but it was the ’60s and thrift and make do and mend was known in every family.
So naturally we then swapped our almost worn-out comics with our cousin Johnnie who furnished us with his also almost worn-out copies of The Valiant, and The Tiger and Hurricane.
So I followed a whole bunch of teams in a black and white medium that actually exploded colour in your imagination.
A real education and link to our game.
Caley, my team, had players that I liked, but the comics had real heroes.
My favourite by a long, long way was in the Tiger and Hurricane, Roy Race, AKA Roy of the Rovers.
Melchester Rovers.
The finest team in England and the World and Big ‘Dunc’ Mackay, a token Scot modelled on our own Dave Mackay at centre half became a key part.
Well Roy Race actually made his debut in 1954, just 70 short years ago when the comic was just ‘The Tiger.’
I looked up his contemporaries, those playing for the Scotland national team that year, and they included, Doug Cowie, Sammy Cox, Harry Haddock, Tommy Ring, Willie Waddell, Willie Ormond and Laurie Reilly.
All big names, but not in the same league as Roy.
He was ‘simply the best’ before Tina ever sang the song and while other comics with their other comic book stars tried to outplay him they never could.
Apart from maybe, Viz’s Billy the Fish, the Fulchester Rovers goalie who came the closest many years later.
The Further Adventures of Billy the Fish (1990) (youtube.com)
I loved that series too and well remember doing a sponsorship deal to put Newcastle Brown Ale on to the Fulchester Rovers strips.
It cost a fortune.
From memory, 3 boxes of Newcastle Brown ale non-returnable bottles for the Viz office on an annual basis before the Xmas party.
Yes, Billy was a hero too.
But Roy Race was sheer class.
And Newcastle Brown Ale was nice served ice cold.
That’s Sting for this week.
Feedback and wee stories always welcome.
Andy’s Album of the week
Prom 8: An Orchestral Celebration Inspired by Nick Drake
Ok it’s not an album as such but 50 years ago music lost Nick Drake and the nice people at the BBC have broadcast his best work, reimagined with affection and real affinity.
Nick was obscure and even underground in his own lifetime but his music not only stands the test of time it has become truly seminal in a wide array of directions.
A list people like REM, Kate Bush, Paul Weller and loads more.
I first came across him on an ‘Island Records’ sampler back in the early 70s called ‘El Pea’.
It was a cheap album full of wonderful tasters and I regret that I lent it to a girlfriend and never got it back.
It really was better than wonderful featuring up and coming acts like Traffic, Sandy Denny, Fairport, Jethro Tull, Quintessence, Mountain, Incredible Sting Band, Cat Stevens, and Mott the Hoople.
It will be on Spotify and here is a link to a YouTube option.
Anyway I knew nothing about this quite amazing BBC 50th celebration when it was broadcast in late July but I came across a link a couple of days ago.
Amazing.
The BBC have done him proud with this collection.
It is two halves with an interesting interval discussion interspersed and feature of some of his stuff.
His sister, the well know actress, Gabrielle Drake, gets involved too.
The whole programme cuts across all his best stuff from wonderful albums and for your licence fee you get over 2 hours of what must have been an exquisite concert.
And Ticketmaster didn’t rape the sell-out audience!
A great sampler for a wonderful talent.
I particularly like Olivia Chaney and Marika Hackman’s vocals.
They capture Nick’s loneliness, sadness, musicality and sheer tunefulness and celebrate a talent lost way too soon.
After you have binged out on this amazing BBC collection, Nick’s albums are worth a dig too.
My favourite is ‘Bryter Later’.
Not a bad theme for Scottish football if those at the top embrace change right through the grass roots and take the game with them.
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