I feel less angry about the state of the Scotland National team than probably any time in the past. It’s not that I just don’t care anymore, it’s that Steve Clarke is there, he may well be able to do something about it eventually. He is also honest and forthright enough, to say what must be very, very wrong with Scottish football, and hopefully how it came about, and how it can be improved.

We used to create talented world class footballers in Scotland. Up to and throughout the 70s and into the 80s, but it stopped very suddenly somewhere about the late 80s.

Perhaps it had stopped earlier, and had been disguised by the brilliance of Alex Ferguson and Jim McLean in developing talent at Aberdeen FC and Dundee Utd. Scotland wasn’t developing talent anymore, two individuals had their own ‘football factories’. The Old Firm buying foreign players in the late 80s, regularly playing without a Scot in the team, other teams following, including Aberdeen, purchasing foreign ready made players rather than developing their own, exasperated the situation.

While the change in signing policies affected the game, and those in charge of the game had neither the intelligence, skills or foresight to do anything about the issues, I believe there was another contributing factor. A cold dark aspect many won’t like or agree with. Scottish football got infiltrated by a small band of careerists. Highly skilled at promoting themselves, name-dropping Ferguson, McLean and Stein, and bemoaning computer game distractions, obesity, and it not being like the good old days anymore.

But ultimately like all careerists, shit at the job they were supposed to be doing, coaching, developing talent, and learning what the rest of Europe was doing to develop talent, and taking those techniques back to the Scottish game. The Largs mafia really got a hold of senior positions about 1986. Just because they may have qualified for the odd tournament, doesn’t mean it wasn’t the previous generations ground work responsible for that. While their ground work led to the current mess, which is decades old. For some of you, these people are heroes, and some of them still reappear in the media from time to time, to re-write history again, from the point of view of their own highly polished, highly dishonest CVs.

While Scotland went backwards other parts of the world found new ways to develop talent for a different age. Learning from each other in different countries, and then further adding their own ideas. For example a number of Danish clubs have links to Ajax, who have links to Barcelona. Successful countries have occasional down periods, then a new wave of talent comes through again. When was the last Scottish wave of talent? Belgium, population 11 million, didn’t accidentally develop all that talent. Chips are part of their national dish. They like a beer. They have the same computer games, and issues with rising amounts of obesity. They aren’t better than us, but the people in charge of their football are better than ours.

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Free Book. Gothenburg 83 the fans’ stories here.
The t-shirt shop here.

Didn’t think it possible, but the last few weeks the Glasgow media have reached a new low in their coverage of Scottish football. And this isn’t just the tabloids, not just the usual suspects. BBC Glasgow, on your licence fee.

Brendan leaves Celtic. A very successful manager, a very skilled manager, he left as, well it was time. It is sad for supporters when a player or manager moves on to better things, but it happens. You get sad and or angry about it for a day or two, you pick yourself up, and get on with it. The king is dead, long live the king.

Not if you support The Rangers or Celtic. You get nursed through the whole sad/angry experience by a succulent lamb media, as they offer twenty four hour psychological care. As if the prospect of dealing with the reality that their teams, aint all that, is simply something these emotional wrecks couldn’t deal with.

Attack after attack after attack on Brendan Rodgers. “How could he leave when he could have been a hero?”

Two things; he singularly shoots ‘the treble treble’ in the back of the head at very close range, as if it is any sort of an achievement. It’s not, whatever the media say, it’s a perfect example of how ridiculously skewed Scottish football is financially. A small reminder, Celtic with all that money, all those resources, will be playing Aberdeen, from the North East of Scotland, at ‘neutral’ Hampden soon, which is in Glasgow. Because it’s just not fixed enough for them in advance already. We will be sneered at, and belittled for not taking enough supporters.

Secondly, in the absence of any actual journalism in Scotland, why did Brendan leave when he left?

Anyone remember when McInnes arrived at Aberdeen? Lovely man that he is, I’d doubt very much Craig Brown wanted to retire five games before the end of the season. McInnes wanted in early so he could coach the players. Find out what their personalities were like. Who was open to learning, and following his instructions, and who wasn’t. So he knew what to bring in in the summer. That first full season we got off to a flyer. That momentum helped transform our club from the mess it had been in for years to now generating probably more than double it’s previous turnover. But nowhere in the Scottish media is the fact these two, reputed to be friends, have done exactly the same thing when starting a job.

Then there is the recent defeats of The Rangers by Aberdeen. I’d be surprised if there is anywhere outside of a dictatorship where a far smaller team, with regard to resources (though crucially not history or European trophies), would get such reluctant praise for beating a team with the budget of The Rangers. The media narrative all over the world of the giant killer, the underdog being a great story. Not in Scotland.

Just pumping out the laughable whataboutery of investigating Aberdeen supporters for sectarian chanting, and allowing the narrative of appealing Morelos yellow card (the narrative is ‘they were cheated’) just diversion and dishonesty all over your licence fee funded BBC.

Only a few weeks ago, Steve Clarke had a public melt down at his treatment from supporters of The Rangers. He went into great detail as to how shameful it was, how embarrassing it was for Scotland and how glad he was he’d left Scotland when Chelsea signed him when he was young. That was exactly when the media ought to have gone into overdrive into this cancer in Scottish football and Scottish society.

Instead the media have been very deliberately trying to tar every Scottish club. Everyone is a problem. A diversion. The establishment working together. The Record, Scottish Sun, Sky, BBC all ‘coincidently’ doing exactly what Traynor wants them to do.

I’d put money on Steve Clarke going back to England in the summer.

The shop is on fire.