Andy’s Sting In The Tale (03/01/2025) “38 Bloody per Cent and Heading South!”

(Photo:@Homesoffootball)

Happy New Year

Every year we are all told who the nation is ‘Honouring’ in the Queens/King’s New Years Honours List.
I have no clout with whoever awards the awards but isn’t it time that our national hero, Rose Reilly, became a Dame.
Yes she was somewhat (very) retrospectively awarded an MBE in 2020 but she deserves to be at the top of the ‘Honours’ table next time.

While I guess the majority of us think most of these ‘Honours’ awards are just wee thank yous for lasting more than a year in certain high-profile Civil Service jobs or because people are already rich famous and have best-selling ghost-written books, or have given gazillions to the Tories, but Rose got her MBE on mostly unsung merit and was severely under-awarded.

This girl, aka wee Ross Reilly when necessary, aged 9 or so with a sort of crew-cut to look the part, had a lifetime of fighting the system and had knock-back after knock-back.
But she made a real difference that outscores 99% of New Years Honours awards.
Way more difference and benefit to the communities than most who become Knighted or Damed too.

sent you a personalised message although I can be certain he enjoyed staying in his wee house in sunny Florida much more than finding a way to get into Ibrox in a disguise.

So We Now Have a Famous Belgian

And there aren’t many in that Walloon/Flemish/Deutsch club.
After joining this very restricted list, alongside Herge, Tin Tin and Poirot, the Rangers manager deserves real praise and maybe an award in next year’s Belgian New Year Honours List, if such a thing exists.

Not having any skin in yesterday’s Glasgow derby I enjoyed the match, cringed in disappointment and shame at the song book when it occasionally erupted, and wondered where Celtic were playing because it certainly wasn’t in Govan.
Two teams resplendent in BettingCo Logo tops from companies whose product hurts and even kills their fans.
And fans like me at home being forced to watch pitch side and commercial-break ‘calls to gamble’, HERE and NOW!

Anyway back to the football.

Phillippe’s team could have easily scored 5 or 6.
He was also unlucky in the recent League Cup final and Celtic just didn’t seem to learn the lesson ahead of, or during.
They were overwhelmed and had no Plan A, let alone Plan B.

And the game also demonstrated just how the Scottish Media (Football Branch) World is in reality a very small goldfish bowl with effectively a 2 club dominant focus.
To fans outside that bubble it seems nothing else matters.

In the run up yesterday, during and in the aftermath here is some of the crap the ‘experts’ in the media threw at fans like you and me who can and have long seen past the charade and introverted pastiche it has all become.

“There isn’t a single Rangers player who would make it into the Celtic starting line-up today”.

“The bookies odds are always right”, (they weren’t yesterday)

“After the League Cup Final, Celtic will blunt the Rangers forward press that caught them off guard”. (Is that what you call it)

“The whole world is watching this game today”. (Pure, introverted non-fact-checked nonsense.)

“We’re into the last 20 minutes of this ‘Derby of Derbies’ ”. (A name the commentator just made up to sound competent and a little windswept and interesting)

Anyway.

There is a Much More Important Set of Results from Yesterday

The ‘Scary’ Scottish Premiership Results, Thursday Jan 2nd 2025

Aberdeen 4 Ross County 1
Hearts 6 Motherwell 5
Rangers 1 Celtic 2
Kilmarnock 7 St Mirren 2
St Johnstone 3 Hibernian 5
Dundee 6 Dundee Utd 4

OK so it’s a one-off, one-day, dipstick research insight.

And yes over a year the numbers per game might average a little up or down but the scores actually represent the ‘Scottish’ players in one full Scottish Premiership series of starting line-ups yesterday.

A Total of Just 46 Out of 132

Or just 34.84% Scottish players playing in our very own Scottish football.

Or 65.16% of Scottish top level football starters not coming from Scotland.
Incomers from player pathways elsewhere.

So it is a 2025 fact that Scottish Football needs to import ‘players’ just to keep the status quo which is, as we all know deep down is managing a decline.

I think it says a lot about how and where we’ve let our game slide to.

It’s also a disgrace.

I think it’s a further disgrace that it has happened slowly but steadily over many years, hidden in plain sight and nobody with the right power has pressed the panic/reset button.

When you realise that our top football teams choose to field non-Scottish players rather than collectively investing in a rich conveyor belt of talent then you start asking questions of the administrators, the clubs and the fourth estate.
We’re all in it together although a cynical reality is fans are really just there to provide revenues.

Why did you have to read a fact like this from Andy’s wee blog on a Friday?

Our game is way bigger than “The Derby of Derbies” bull we get fed, but how the hell do we get the game, the whole game to realise that?

Andy’s Sting in the Tale

1. No Scotland No Party
2. Sporting Merit or Old Pals Act
3. Is Olmo Now a Free

1. No Scottish Kids = No Scotland at the Future Euros or World Cup

The Lowland League read this and then pointed out that their initial communication had also mentioned that their response was also based on Uefa’s current dictat, “Qualification and opportunities should be based on Sporting merit” a clause that seemingly never reached the clubs with the ‘Board Judgement.

I understand helping old pals where you can, but I think the SPFL are way off the mark here.

Maybe they should be integrating and commercially helping the Lowland and Highland League for the benefit of all their ex members and old pals as well and their members to be and future new pals?

The over ambitious money side of football is ugly everywhere not just in helping out Donald at Cowdenbeath.

Barca are no different to my team ICT.

The pressure on clubs to over-egg their finances is something football really needs to deal with.

That’s Sting for another week.

The good news for the daylight anoraks is it is now also getting lighter in the morning too with a whopping one minute extra arriving on Sunday since the solstice on Dec 21st.

Andy’s Sting is written by Andy who is a long suffering but somehow still optimistic Scottish football fan.
The opinions are mine and I don’t mind if you disagree with anything I say.
That’s healthy and will help us collectively move this thing forward.