Andy’s Sting In The Tale (15/11/24) “I’m All Right Jock”

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

That is the message from the happy English fans.
All 56.5 Million of them.

A good, well drilled team, a great result last night and a national broadcaster happy to pay sufficient amounts to the FA via Uefa to put the England matches on ‘Free to Air TV’.

I watched the Greece v England match last night courtesy of Scottish Television who as part of the ITN Network now proudly pay real pound notes, generated from Scottish advertisers and customers like you and me, to the English FA for the privilege of showing all English matches in Scotland, to all 5.5 millions of us Jocks
We all know there is no reciprocal agreement for ITV to broadcast Scotland matches in Scotland or anywhere.
Scotland has been done over and with hardly a squeak from those who should have squeaked so bloody loud it became a roar!

But first, fair play and well-done England with what was said before the match to be a makeshift team after call offs by over tired players.
Didn’t look like a newbie 2nd XI against a very fired-up and ‘in your face’ Greek side, a team on the kind of impressive run we would love.
And neither were they helped by an over-strict (on England) German referee.
If you didn’t see it, England were never bullied by the intimidating Greeks or the ref, stayed and looked comfortable on the ball, had great first touches and shielding in a very tight midfield, showed some blistering pace on the wings, quite inspirational goalkeeping when needed and delivered a great performance.
Their quite exquisite 3rd goal reminded me of Andy Ritchie at his best.
And it was a full budget ITV production and STV customers paid for it by watching the ads.

Now back to Scotland and Croatia/Poland.

Compare STV (Scottish Television) last night to the fare we’ll be served on You Tube on the Viaplay You Tube Channel. I could not get access to any of the stream because the email where I am staying wouldn’t allow it.
Or maybe it was just impossible for someone like me who just wanted to click a box.
Scottish Fans Need Political Help

And we need it from Westminster to protect international football for all British Citizens and to mandate showing it on ‘Free to Air’ channels.
Yes it has to be commercial and the rule is broadcast revenues are based on revenue potential from audiences.
But it’s plain and politically wrong that ITV can bid for one country rather than the four they service with their ITV franchise, twenty four/seven 365 days a year.

Why is there no Westminster ruling that any terrestrial channel, like ITV who want the English audience, have to extend the same offer on a cost per thousand basis to the other home counties?
If I was Keir Starmer, after a very dodgy first few weeks, I’d be looking for feelgood positive stuff like this.
Make all international football available on council telly Keir?

So, where we are today is the English fans don’t just have an abundance of top level talent and a conveyor belt working well they also get the ‘full monty’ in tv production part funded by us!
We, in chilly Jockoland, get a ‘cheap as chips’, soft-focussed like a 60s porn movie, second rate production on a YouTube channel from a failed broadcaster simply fulfilling their minimum contractual obligations to Uefa but not to Andy.
And it makes me laugh that our politicians are currently more interested and chattering about ‘Supporting him with faint praise’, or, ‘Throwing hypocritical mud’ at Neil Gray for his nice wee list of sports jollies he has accumulated than addressing a real issue like ‘TV free for all fans’.
A result that needs proper cross party support and is a win for the people who vote them in.

I guess it involves working together which is something that our politicians don’t seem to find divisive enough! And as for our last two matches against Croatia at home and Poland away.

‘Caledonian Optimism’ on the radio and in the papers has already broken out, and that was expected and it’s usually bad news when it does. But helped by a dodgy sending off we recovered from a terrible start and beat the mighty Croatia.

Anyway Poland to come and as part of our journey to wherever, a wee piece by Ewen Murray in the Guardian on Thursday after a revealing discussion with Steve Clarke really hit the spot about the realities we face as a football nation.
The whole piece could have been plagiarised from the contents of our frequent weekly discussions in ‘Sting’.
I personally believe and have long spoken about how Steve has built a quite incredible club-team spirit right through our squad but that at the same time has been severely limited by the quality and quantity of talent our system is delivering.
(Our best player, McTominay was pure windfall from United)

It seems Steve agrees with Sting when he spoke with Ewen in what must have been a very un-Steve media interview.

“Scottish football must adopt a drastically different approach to youth development or risk falling further behind the leading nations”.

“At some stage people have to sit down, a think tank or whatever, and try something a bit different. If we keep doing what we’re doing it’s not going to get any better”.
“The change has to be driven from the top. They have to understand we need to change”.

“Croatia have a conveyor belt of talent”.

So there is hope if we can change.
But Ewen Murray then brings us all back down to earth, the real world, in his closing para.

Andy’s Sting in the Tale

1. Slope and Nonsense
2. Taxis For Neil Gray?
3. David Coote Under Attack
4. Sandy Ceferin Likes His Wee Plane
5. French Disconnection

1. 6 Points, The difference between relegation and the play offs.

I’m writing this as a fan of all football, all clubs, and don’t know all the background, the specific rules or what has been tabled and discussed at the SFA and maybe the SPFL too behind closed doors with the member about what happens when you have a wee slope in you pitch. Even when it’s no secret because you’ve always had it and are not a newbie to Scottish football.
What happened this week to Bonnyrigg Rose because their traditional ground is not billiard-table flat is quite outrageous.

I’ve played on New Dundas Park and it was better than fine and not worthy of the fine.

And in a wee world where thousands of fans can let off flares and hold up semi finals with no real penalty, because we have no Strict Liability like Uefa mandate in their competitions, you wonder about fairness.
To Andy, giving one of our wee guys a 6 point deduction in an already uber tight league situation feels heavy handed in the extreme.
It should never have happened and shows the system isn’t working when something like this just occurs out of the blue.
If it’s a money issue at Bonnyrigg for the work it will need and they’ve let promises slip, then how about a low interest loan to undertake any groundworks in the summer?

Why the sudden, almost Victorian punishment out of the blue?

It’s not a secret that the President’s Lounge at Hampden, the equivalent at other international grounds, and club boardrooms everywhere are places where ‘guests’ are invited, ideas and problems discussed and relationships made and developed.
This week we heard that Neil Gray, Sports Minister as part of his health portfolio went to some domestic and international football matches as a guest of both the SFA and SPFL. He isn’t the only one of his team to have been similarly entertained, or jollied.
Holyrood hypocrisy kicked in and suddenly the use of his ‘chauffeured car’ has become the issue, and the fact he shared his wee jollies with friends or family maybe combining work with pleasure, maybe not, the way Aberdeen and Scotland have been playing.

I know for a fact that this particular minister, under attack from all angles of his portfolio, like many others never really stops working and the current vindictive attacks from parties whose ministers or under ministers do the same is like something out of ‘Yes Minister’.

“It’s a ballax min”

That is what the Aberdeen Fans at the Beach End would say and I agree.

Neil’s rather inadequate amateur level ‘defence’ of choosing too many ‘Aberdeen’ games in his jolly list was ill advised by the PR advisers, it’s not about that.
Marie Todd was much better in a robust response on Radio Scotland about it “being part of the job”.
Fans don’t usually think about such stuff and when pushed simply want our sports minister to care about the game and for any government funding to be used positively and openly.

4. Do as I say, Not What I Do

At the Euros Sandy Ceferin, Uefa’s current grandest fromage, told all the competing countries to cut air travel.
They did and Uefa boasted a 75% reduction in flights and that 90% of Uefa staff used public transport.
Sandy then used a wee £20M private jet on 16 flights including one of 14 minutes between Düsseldorf and Dortmund.

Lise Klaveness and some angry and worried counties with near Russian borders got Fifa to act, albeit reluctantly, on their biggest sponsors, Russia.
We all know deep down such a move would send a message to the Israeli population that their media would find hard to polish away.
News, i.e. what we’re told and how we’re told it really depends on the editors and the owners.

That’s it for another week.