Andy’s Sting In The Tale (30/08/24) “English Cynicism or the Rhythm of Scottish Football?”

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

Tom from Limerick delivered some very hard-hitting stuff this week in and on the Beeb in a genuinely thoughtful follow up to last week’s SFA ‘Report on the Transition Phase’ by Chris Docherty and Andrew Gould.

This particular English man is not a typical football writer north of the wall because he is allowed the freedom to see the bigger picture and isn’t constricted by the need for ‘wee favours’ from clubs to fill his allocated pages and air time 7 days a week.

That potentially keeps him more honest than most and also makes him dangerous.

I pick up on some of the excoriating detail he lists in section 3 in Sting below but here is his conclusion because I think it sums up Scottish Football.
And yes it’s the same Scottish Football that has previously had the insight and desire to commission McLeish 1 and 2, both now quietly binned, and also Ernie Walker’s Think Tank with Rinus Michels and others which after a very successful and progressive pre-launch somehow never saw the light of day.
And was never discussed again.

Ask yourself, was Tom being cynical or insightful when he said,

“Andy Gould’s Report has maybe started a conversation but these things tend to die away soon enough.
Other issues take hold and everyone moves on until another report is produced and then the talking shops  continue again for a spell, before they too fall silent.
It’s the rhythm of Scottish football”.

Last week I told you that on my first brief readings that the report is good but somehow the authors hadn’t spoken to either Henry McLeish or Graeme McDowall the author of ‘The System’.

They’d have been my starting point and it’s never too late guys.
Henry has a wealth of knowledge, current and historic, and cares passionately about resetting the game for a better future and Graeme’s book is a must read for everyone who cares about the future of our game.
I think the report is both good and all the less for their absences.
The Rhythm of Scottish Football
I really like Tom’s “Rhythm of Scottish Football” phrase.
What is it about the way Scottish Football works that Tom thinks will kill-off progressive initiatives like those  Andy and Chris want to explore?
Maybe I can explain why I think Tom is so pessimistic by trying to make sense out of what seems to be the unwritten rules we seem to be constrained by.
So here are some of what I’ve called ‘The Immutable Laws of Scottish Football’.They are all complex, complicated and interlinked yet at the same time basic, base and very simple.Some of Scottish Football’s Immutable LawsMoney is Power and Power is money
(Both dominate the SFA and SPFL because they are effectively run for clubs by clubs. This impacts on how they work and how they make decisions.
Smart clubs work from within)Everything is short term because the business of football is dominated by short term results.
SimplesClubs vote for what is best for themselves today and maybe, just about maybe, tomorrow rather than in 25 years.
To understand the business decisions taken by clubs collectively and individually you have to walk a mile in their shoes.
Ambition and downright gambling sometimes gets in the way and opportunism is rife.
Right-Sizing and normal business bean-counting sometimes become victims to ambition.

Most fans don’t care about the big picture, are short termist, and care more about beating local rivals and about who we are signing this transfer window rather than how many self-bred youngsters are in our starting 11.

 

Our media are mostly posted missing when it comes to the business of football
Gossip is the valued commodity and there is an inherent approval of the concept, and legitimisation of ‘Rich Owners’.
a constant call for ‘investment’ that is actually ‘spend’ on wages.
This means clubs can be raped in full view by big-talking opportunists. (Wealth of the radar and all that)The media makes it all worse because Football news in Scotland is really just about two clubs and pages are filled with little more than gossip to try to maintain tumbling circulation figures.
Even Tom’s BBC are dominated by the two big clubs where news about one can’t be presented without a makeweight story about the other.
It’s 2024 and our 4th estate simple sees Football news as cheap clickbait rather than an industry to report on, to sometimes investigate and always to hold to account.I could go on but you can see why Tom English, Andy Smith and others who don’t just care about who is signing who today, could be regarded as cynical.
I think we just care, can see the bigger picture and wish football could too.

It is transfer deadline day as I write after a long car journey I’m fed-up hearing made-up news about who our big two clubs are signing.
Fans get mugged every year about who is coming in and who is heading out and it’s all hype and bollocks.
That’s why I was intrigued by a piece yesterday in Murdoch’s Times by Michael Grant who I think writes well.

He was interviewing Graeme Souness who also speaks openly and without the Rangers PR machine telling him what to say.
Graeme was honest in saying he had wanted Frank Lampard as Rangers manager, “Frank was attractive to me and I asked, ‘How friendly are you with Man City and Chelsea’, because I was thinking, we, (Rangers), don’t have any money so we could have got players on loan”.
That sentence made me immediately think, “Why do our 4th estate not ask why a huge club like Rangers has no money to sign players?”
“Why not ask why players who turn transfers into Scotland down why they somehow prefer to play elsewhere and help our game move forward?
I feel our media has an unhealthy relationship with our clubs and shies away from asking the questions that the fans and the clubs deserve to be asked.
Even if we’ve been brainwashed for eons into accepting the status quo.
Hence all the focus today on the ‘Transfer Window’ and nothing on the real issues like in the SFA report.

I watched the new Champions League draw on a silent iPhone in a lovely restaurant in Nairn,  Sun Dancer.
I had no idea what was going on but it seemed well rehearsed went to plan and was replicated for the other Uefa competitions today.
Good luck to all 3 (Scottish) clubs going forward.
‘Scottish’ in brackets because hardly anyone ‘Scottish’ will actually take the field for any of them.
And I genuinely wish them all well despite knowing deep down that the money that comes in will further distort any semblance of competition between the three clubs against each other, and then between the three clubs and the rest of our game.
And I’m also sad knowing our coefficient has collapsed so this is the last of the ‘easy access’ into Europe scenarios.

Next year will be a tougher entry process for all and less Uefa money.

And finally I’m smiling to myself because I acknowledge the slickness of the Uefa draw process, but truth-told, I preferred our wee Scottish cup draw back in 2017 when after some green-room entertainment Rod Stewart mixed up the 6 and the 9 balls, nearly gave SFA President Alan Macrae a heart attack  and at one point gave Morton a plum draw for a few moments.

Now that was a real draw and Rod’s ‘Rod Hull and Emu’ style of picking/grabbing  up the balls still makes me smile.

3. The SFA’s Andy Gould Has a Huge Task on His Hands

And Sadly I Think Tom English is Calling it Right

We’ve already talked a few weeks ago about Rangers flailing in their attempts to get into the uber lucrative Champions League and last night Hearts were never at the races in trying to stay in the second level.
Killie at least had a go but are now out.
Hearts starting 11 had just 3 Scots and only Craig Gordon came through their academy, so long ago that Methuselah was still alive.
Killie had 4 Scots and all from outside the club.
Rangers and Celtic are no Scottisher.
So we have a ‘Foreign Legion’ Failure big time, and my question would be: Why do our mercenaries not seem to have the ball control skills and fire that the mercenaries who play for other clubs against us seem to have?
(Answers on a postcard, but it is to do with how difficult it is to get good players to see Scotland as a good career progression)
And now some of the X-rated info/figures that Mr English quoted.
Daniel Kelly, aged 18, has just left Celtic for Millwall.
He was the only under 21 player who got game time for the champions last year, 5 times off the bench and a total of 89 minutes.
(How many kids come through the Celtic system and how does that compare to Barcelona?)

Daniel had been offered a contract but chose game-time over occasional football minutes.
Brendan Rodgers this week spoke about the need for Celtic youngsters to be patient and quoted James Forrest, Calum McGregor, Steven Welsh and Anthony Ralston as prime examples.
Sheer tongue in cheek nonsense Brendan.
I hope behind the scenes he’s asking the right questions and think he probably is.
Tom English also confirmed that Rangers gave just 29 minutes to Scottish under 21 players last season.
And this year after 3 games just 18 players under 21 have taken the field in our top league.
That is both shocking and wrong.

‘Scottish FA report will gather dust just like young players it’s supposed to help’ – BBC Sport
4. ICT Will Be a Case Study One Day  (About what not to do)

What happens when a CEO has 7,000 unopened emails and doesn’t speak to or listen to anyone?
What happens when the club constantly wrong sizes and pretends to be bigger than it ever really was?
What happens when a very special fan group’s ‘investment’ is simply pissed away on mercenaries wages?
What happens when business men use the club as a ‘front’ for some ambitious and difficult planning cover?
What happens when the financial numbers are not just overdue but also hiding very real shortfalls and overspends?
What happens when the club has never really grounded into its community and doesn’t look like it knows how?
What happens when the money runs out and there are no more ‘knights in shining armour’ queueing up?

All these questions and more mean that ICT are on a journey that they’d rather have avoided.

This week Alan Savage, previous Chairman and current Volunteer/CEO/Chairman/Man Friday has achieved some real progress and deserves credit.

He has got the manager to take a 40% wage haircut from £3k per week to £2k and now to £1.2k.
He has got all shareholders to accept their shares and loans are worthless paper (for now) and their only hope of any return is to roll them forward into whatever the club becomes.
He has avoided the short term pre-packaged administration that footballs most famous liquidator, Bryan Jackson might have delivered next Tuesday.

 

Advice is Always Patronising

Alan from a distance I’d say four things.

First, thanks.

Second, please forget about being a big club for now.
Get back to basics in the community.
Real basics.
Take the community with you at every step and become Inverness’s team.
Right size the club and take it a step at a time.

Third, Forget about balancing the books for a mythical ‘sale’ and golden future.
The club should belong to the community.
Find the right path and take the fans with you.
Fan ownership is not the fastest way forward but it is the best way for community clubs.

Fourth, Good luck because there is no easy path and no new owner with wealth off the radar.

I’ll help in any way I can and I know many others think the same way.

5. Pitch Problems

Councils sadly no longer see municipal parks as part of their responsibility to their broad communities.
In Monday’s Glasgow Evening Times the lead story was “Future of football clubs are unsure because of huge rent hikes. (For instance, a 2 hour booking for Petershill Park has risen from £86 to £300).

And in yesterday’s Evening Express the lead story was ‘Sport Aberdeen’ who run the city’s pitches and who said “If we were running this as a business we would stop football.
We take a £250 hit for every match played on our pitches.
We need to grow football and think 3G even at £750,000 per pitch is the answer”.
Every game on Sport Aberdeen football pitches costs city £250 (pressandjournal.co.uk)
Scary and ubiquitous across Scotland stuff.
Councils are under crazy pressure and football is a soft target.

6. The Nations League Has Snuck Up On Us

We play Poland at Hampden on Thursday and from the SFA web site there are some tickets still available.
Then on a very tight schedule on Sunday it’s Portugal, away.
I don’t think the matches are on council telly.
They should be.
The Scottish football team belongs to the nation.
If you have an Amazon Firestick you’ll be fine.

As always stay safe and feel free to contact me about anything in Scottish Football.

Andy’s Album of the Week: Big Country, Through a Big Country

Driving through Fife today I had a yearning to hear the late Stuart Adamson’s Anthems.
So it’s been on repeat this afternoon while Stinging and I’m transported back to The Playhouse in the late 80s.
I can’t believe it is 23 years since we lost him.
This album is pure Scottishness.