BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 20th September 2024
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
I enjoyed a wonderful old boys lunch yesterday at Howies in Edinburgh yesterday.
It was the AUAFC ex-players annual catch-up and it was great to see guys that I played alongside in the mid ‘70s and also the slightly older, erstwhile ‘folk heroes and characters’ who had preceded me.
If Dave MacKinnon, the best slide tackler who ever slide tackled, hadn’t been our wonderful after lunch speaker I’d have been the youngest in the room but he beat me by about one measly month.
We had a pre-lunch get together over a wee something and the noise levels were high as old friends linked by a deep love of football, and winning and losing together, updated each other on all matters football and life.
Lunch was really good, thanks Howie, and it was quite amazing to see the years drop away and shared memories combine into genuine friendship and laughter, lots of it.
Most of the guys read this blog, (just because I send it to them) and a fair proportion are ex-teachers.
And one of my recurring conversations with different guys across the day was the disgrace that I write about or refer to most weeks.
The effective death of school’s football after the early 80s teachers strikes.
But not just that.
Real concern about the absolute lack of any action by the people who should have done something about it in the 40-odd years since.
Looking back, that is quite disgraceful.
Yes the death of Schools football has fallen under the radar because it does not directly affect the number of points teams collects this weekend.
That is no excuse.
It demonstrates the disturbing shift to self-interest that has ravaged our country and our game since the Thatcher years.
And a lack of planning for the greater good of Scottish football, rather than just filling the short-term coffers of our most powerful and dominant members.
Business planning sounds easy but it is very definitely not!
If done right it is uncomfortable at first and ruthless honesty and collaboration is needed.
1, You have to know your starting point for a start.
2. You have to agree where you want to be at an agreed point in the future.
3. You then create, assess, prioritise and work on and fund the long-term actions that will help you to achieve your objectives.
I can honestly say I’ve not seen any example that football in Scotland is a genuinely forward looking planned business.
Not just today but dating back over 50 years.
Football in Scotland is reactive, and to be brutal survival focussed.
Yes.
And to be fair it will always need to be to some extent, but to deliver the best future it’s really got to be more than just about “me, me and me and this week’s game against whoever.”
Sometime, somewhere the cancer of self-interest which is rife and dominant needs to be removed and replaced by common good.
A lack of genuine planning by those paid to run our game explains why we are where we are.
I’m not an idiot.
I get, and understand why people who could have made a difference along the way chose instead a ‘normal’ life, aka managing the very real but never openly discussed ‘long-term decline’ we find ourselves in rather than fighting for positive future change.
Don’t rock the boat and build a career kinda thing.
But because of that our game is trapped in a cage of its own making.
To escape, quite simply Scottish football like any collective business needs a change of strategy with long term planning and targets and a change of approach top down.
And starting yesterday too because its like turning an oil tanker.
Everyone in the room yesterday knows that the loss of the amazing and consistent conveyor belt of talent delivered annually by the long lost volunteer army of school teachers has been cataclysmic.
And what’s worse?
Nobody ‘with the power to have changed it all’ has done anything since!
And sadly, I can confirm there are no plans for change.
Schools football was the glue that held our game together delivered both lifetime fans paying at the turnstiles and elite talent.
And lifetime friendships.
Why was it allowed to wither, die and eventually be consigned to the “too difficult to regenerate” tray on the 6th floor in-boxes.
Why guys?
Why?
I can tell you that on your/our behalf I’ve asked that question at the very top and can confirm there is no real appetite to become serious about regenerating what was our self-charging engine of excellence.
It is said to be “too difficult”.
I think that means it will take resource from the clubs and that is a no-no.
Our clubs don’t talk about being caught up in a vicious self interest ‘circle of decline’ because they are too bust surviving.
Our very own lobster trap in murky waters.
How Would I Start the Regeneration?
Things have changed since the 80s, and yes it will be difficult to restart, and yes it will be different, and whatever happens has to be of our time.
I’d personally start small and possibly regionally, enlist the Scottish Government as a partner, make it a joint health and football initiative and build it step by step.
Bring in an appropriate sponsor, not kiddie gambling or junk food.
I can honestly say that it is the single most important action that our game should commit to.
So would everyone from our big table at Howies yesterday.
And coincidentally after yesterday’s lunch I had a long conversation last night with an SPFL club chairman who says he simply looks after his own, believes football in Scotland is hopelessly corrupted by the brutal fight for ‘not enough resources’ and that no club will risk voting for money in the game being channelled away from wages for players.
His job is survival in a dog-eat-dog annual scrap that is just getting worse.
The demise of Brechin from riding high in the Championship to the Highland League, in a blink, and the rocky road back for them, East Stirling, Cowdenbeath, Berwick and Albion Rovers weighs heavily.
I love the pyramid but it is broken in its current form.
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. Highest Penetration of Fans In Uefa
2. How Many Scots?
3. Some Disturbing Rumblings from Worried Refs
4. Toto was Special
5. Amazon Firestick Time
1. Scotland Top the Table
The annual Uefa fan survey confirmed that in Scotland 18.36 out of every 1000 of our population goes regularly to top level football.
Yes the figures are skewed significantly by the particularly unique socio-religio factors driving quite incredible attendances at our two biggest clubs, but the truth is active football support in Scotland has huge penetration at all levels.
I was invited on to GMS to discuss it and Laura nearly fell off her seat with our first interchange.
Good Morning Scotland – 18/09/2024 – BBC Sounds (0718 ish)
2. A great Result against Slovan Bratislava
The 5-1 result made me smile out loud but guess how many starting Celtic players were born in Scotland?
The answer is less than three and more than one.
When Celtic lifted the trophy all 11 came from within a bawhair of Parkhead.
And last night’s BBC programme about Aberdeen in the 80s showed how important Scottish youngsters straight from Schools football were.
The same channel that supplied all 11 in Lisbon, nearly everyone in Barcelona and the joy of Hewitt and Black and big Rougvie and other Scots kids in Gothenberg.
Why is it so obvious to us looking back, but not to the people who can do something about it looking forward?
And the underlying question, while we’re discussing change for the better.
Why do we have trouble selling our game commercially?
(and a wee clue, – Elephants and rooms might be a starting point).
3. Send For Starmer
I’ve had a few emails this week from ref members in a couple of areas in Scotland about an ongoing rise of abuse and violence.
Headbutting and real threats and other unacceptable stuff.
To be fair refs have never been properly looked after north of the wall.
They have been allowed to become victims of a particular deeply entrenched domestic abuse and looking back that is just not accectable.
Without refs there is no football and the refs feel they are not getting enough support from their bosses.
We to do two things as a game.
Elevate the refs to the status they deserve.
React “Starmer-like” to the villains and that means short sharp shocks.
Why is it seen as acceptable to verbally or physically abuse people the game can’t exist without.
I have a wee idea for an integrated campaign to change attitudes and the authorities can have it for free.
“Referee Respect”
A programme aimed at all who play the game, and all the clubs that play it.
A programme where ref respect is central.
Our refs deserve this.
Our game will be better for it too.
4. He Lit Up World Cup Italia
Salvatore Schillachi was a late call up to the Italian squad for Italia 90.
A journeyman rather than a thoroughbred in a squad of thoroughbreds.
He didn’t expect to play at all.
On as a sub he did and scored an important goal with his head which was the poorest part of his game but he was a natural striker.
And then it all happened.
He lit up not just the tournament but the whole summer.
59 is way too young.
Grazie, Toto.
5. Football Free on Telly
I was getting my hair cut today and James, the barber, asked me if I’d seen the Celtic match.
I said I didn’t have the right channel subscription and that my current package was expensive enough.
He said neither did he but then spent 20 mins telling me how to buy and programme an Amazon Firestick.
So, if you want to watch Celtic “Ghirls”, on Sunday and Thursday that is what to do. (And goodness I hate that plastic Paddiysm with the bollocks added ‘h’) and was shocked to find it on the Celtic site too.
Anyway the match is on good old Setanta who are nowadays called something else to disguise the recognition that they nearly broke Scottish Football.
And now I have all the knowledge.
Thanks James.
Feedback and wee stories always welcome.
Andy’s Album of the week
Crime of the Century: Supertramp
It was a 1974 release so it fits in with the Howie’s lunch group.
I remembered this as a great album.
But playing it for the first time in ages it feels experimental rather that the finished article.
Whispering Bob loved them and ‘School’ and ‘Dreamer’ are still great tracks and worth a listen still but if the title hadn’t tied in neatly with today’s blog title I think I’d have unearthed another gem from the past.
So, Album of the week for sure, but a ‘shirt filler’ rather than a star turn.
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