The Great Steven Gerrard Swindle? Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Reality

I have been wrong before but this move just doesn't add up

I do not like The Rangers Football Club. I don't dislike them with the same intensity that I did Rangers and I got a great sense of closure when Rangers were liquidated.

But any club emulating what I have always believed to have been a uniquely objectionable sporting institution is worthy of similar derision, though the stakes are less high for me, simply because we won.

Nonetheless, the new neighbours who moved in are noisy and do their best to be vexatious and even (especially) offensive. So, while, on a competitive level, I am much more concerned with Motherwell (for obvious reasons), Hibs, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and, next season, St Mirren, the happenings at Ibrox are still worthy of comment.

I am not objective, as my first statement acknowledged. I'm biased, and speaking from a position of ill will towards The Rangers.

But, thus-declared, I have my own observations to make about the appointment of Steven Gerrard as the six-year-old Ibrox club's seventh manager.

The Player

Firstly, due respect: I liked him as a player and acknowledge that he was the best English midfielder of his generation and an all-time great English footballer.

But I have never believed that he would make a great manager because he always seemed to have a working-class sense of humility that, while endearing, was born of self-doubt whereas Frank Lampard exuded such confidence, displayed as smug arrogance, as to be guaranteed to rub me up the wrong way.

Don't get me wrong - I have always respected Lampard. In fact, I have always believed that he could make an excellent manager, which I have never believed of Gerrard.

Time will vindicate or condemn my superficial assessments but, amongst the undesired outcomes at The Rangers, Steven Gerrard taking over as boss has never registered.

Age-old Theme

For film buffs and those of a certain vintage, the last six years have been reminiscent of the Hollywood classic, Sunset Boulevard, in which an ageing "once-was" refuses to accept the realities of time and progress, surrendering any last vestiges of dignity in the process.

How Do I Look? Have I still got it?

Her increasingly desperate attempts make for compelling, if sometimes uncomfortable, viewing.

The Rangers demonstrate similar delusions, though the constantly-changing, increasingly-ridiculous storylines could have been churned out by the scriptwriters of River City.

McCoist, McCall, Warburton, Murty, Caixhinha, Murty, Nicholl, Gerrard. Between them, they have won League Two, League One, the Scottish Championship (at the second attempt) and the Petrofac and Dry Blackthorn cups.

Candidates

At the turn of the year, Derek McInnes was approached. Deek, the most transparently dishonest, Ibrox-hearted Aberdeen manager since Jimmy Calderwood, did everything short of baring his bearded backside in order to show his preference for the Glaswegian imposters over his current employers. But still, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to cash in on the points gift he had sent in advance, so troubling were his doubts about the club's financial stability.

That disappointed me as I was quite sure that he would fail at Ibrox. But he also surprised me. Never appearing to be the sharpest tool in the box, Deek nevertheless made a wise judgement.

I wasn’t unduly troubled, though I would have felt better if he had been in the bag – a few months can bring untold changes and that might mean improvements.

And so I wondered if there was the possibility of some new investment, however improbable, from the Bank of China or some such institution looking for a high-profile presence.

In the meantime, the next obvious candidate would have been Steve Clarke. This prospect bothered me a little.

Clarke has a varied and high-level coaching background, has done an excellent job with Kilmarnock and could surely do much more with the sort of funding that, even The Rangers could likely find, given his reputation and extensive list of contacts.

He also comes across as an intelligent guy, which was why I was fairly confident that he would decline any offer.

Then there was Steven Robinson, whose style (if you can call it that) I dislike intensely.

Robinson is a throwback to days that should be long gone, using physicality and a peppering of brutality to good effect against superior football teams.

Robinson is reminiscent of a young Jimmy Nicholl – staunch, no one likes him and he doesn’t care. So, in that sense he would have been a good fit at Ibrox, though not box office.

He’d have straightened them out in terms of being organised and aggressive but he wouldn’t have sold season tickets, so he was a non-starter.

Then there were the “Warnocks”. Of course, there is only one Neil Warnock but I use the term to describe one of those experienced firefighting bosses, who English chairmen turn to when their clubs are in distress.

The kind who have lived with the intense daily pressure, fans calling for their heads, the press pack stitching them up and who, year after year, come back for more.

He is one of many who just might have done a job – at least on an interim basis – finding a tactical approach to favour a desperate situation and maybe even swinging a cup or two.

But what The Rangers got was the much-admired player and virgin manager, Steven Gerrard.

He thinks it's all over: An emotional Gerrard so close to a title

This pleased me greatly, for a number of reasons.

Map-reading

Firstly, “it puts Scottish football on the map” – no, it doesn’t. Scottish football was already on the map and our own Brendan Rodgers has done a great deal to make that happen.

Brendan was the bookies’ second-favourite for the England manager’s job, within a few weeks of joining Celtic, after Roy Hodgson resigned. He has also been quoted as a likely candidate for most half-decent prospects in the English Premier League, including Chelsea, and was heavily-linked with the soon-to-be-vacant Arsenal job.

So, Scottish football is getting plenty of attention from down south and beyond, which is partly why we have Moussa Dembele, Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard. It was also quite probably a factor in attracting Clarke to Kilmarnock, persuading Youssouf Mulumbu that he could reset his career there and convincing Steven Caulker that a season at Dundee would be worth a try.

These things have all been excellent for Scottish football as has the work Neil Lennon has done at Hibs, building a very promising team.

Having Gerrard in Scotland will generate more interest and perhaps persuade the likes of Aberdeen and Hearts to consider experienced, progressive managers, who would not have been available to them two years ago.

Why else would I be happy that Gerrard is there?

Having a rookie coach thrown into a torrid situation is obviously a bonus for rivals, but the lack of tactical experience is only one element.

Leadership

Leadership is said to be one of Gerrard’s strengths but that is the sort of glib comment uttered by people who have little or no understanding of the skills and qualities associated with leadership in modern-day football.

Personally, I have never felt Gerrard to be a great on-field leader. If he had been, perhaps he would have won a league title in his career.

But, that aside, leading by example is a very different prospect to leading through communication.

This is something that the majority of ex-pros and Scottish football pundits seem never to have considered.

Book-learning

As a hobbyist blogger, I am very much a half-assed amateur when it comes to football. However, I do read about the game and biographical works about football managers reveal some common themes.

First is that a little reading about football demonstrates that, in the modern game, old-fashioned techniques are largely obsolete, partly due to increased education as well as the changing dynamics brought about by huge salaries.

Even in the lower reaches of the English game, managers study various psychological techniques, including drawing on successful leadership and motivation strategies from other sports.

St Mirren’s Jack Ross gives indications of this sort of thinking but he is one of a very few in Scotland to allude to this. I have my doubts about whether Gerrard has been similarly studious but you can guarantee that Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane did so before entering management. Ryan Giggs? I’m guessing not.

Second, is the intense, nigh-on intolerable pressure, which seems to increase year-on-year. Gordon Strachan recently spoke of sitting in Glasgow holding hands with his wife hoping it would get better, when first in the Celtic manager’s job.

But look at the physical changes that took place in Slaven Bilic, once one of the coolest young managers in the game but who appeared to be collapsing before our eyes before he was finally released from his West Ham purgatory.

Before & After: Two years took their toll on Slaven Bilic

Likewise, Antonio Conte – looking like an Italian film star on his arrival, exuding confidence to the point of mania but latterly resembling someone recounting his traumatic survival of an earthquake – one year after winning the League on his first attempt.

Before & After: Antonio Conte

The Rangers is one of the least forgiving and most unreasonable clubs in football and Gerrard – neither an insider nor one whose England performances cut much ice in Scotland – will discover this when unrealistic expectations are not fulfilled.

Circumstantial evidence

But, more than this, are the circumstantial factors.

According to the media mania, his name alone will attract top-quality players and investment has been promised.

But let’s look at that rationally.

As recently as Friday, Dave King couldn’t even state if the necessary investment would be internal or external, claiming that it “didn’t matter”.

Now, far be it from me to call King a glib and shameless liar, but the empirical evidence is against this mystery investment existing.

A few weeks ago, The Rangers signed a third-rate kit deal that was derided by a large proportion of their own fans.

So, it seems safe to assume that the club hadn’t even thought of signing Gerrard at the time, as having such a big name manager on board – with exciting signings to come – would surely have been a bargaining chip in negotiations with Nike, Adidas or even New Balance.

Secondly, having promised a manager “capable of delivering trophies”, just in time to undermine Graeme Murty (and make this blogger’s concerns that The Rangers would run Celtic close in the Scottish Cup semi-final seem like frightful anxiety), King has appointed someone who can offer no evidence of the same.

Again, that sounds awfully like someone who had no idea that Gerrard would be boss, just a couple of weeks ago.

And yet, with a multi-million-pound war chest arriving any day now, The Rangers would surely have felt confident of luring a manager who had actually won something in the past – or at least managed a team – and who would back up Dave’s promise of Silverado.

We are also invited to believe that, on the cusp of a brave new era, two directors decided that they wanted to bail out before the times got truly exciting.

Add to this the debt, the issues with the takeover panel, the need for stadium repairs, etc. and the Steven Gerrard appointment looks more and more like a swindle perpetrated on someone who knows little or nothing about The Rangers or the Scottish game, aided and abetted by the most ignorant and unscrupulous shower of reporters that have ever covered any sport.

I’ve been wrong before, of course – like when I thought that we would face a few scares in the cup semi – but, at face value, this whole episode looks not so much a damp squib as a custard pie primed with a banger, ready to explode in a lot of faces.

Sympathy for the Red?

I suppose I could sympathise with Gerrard, who seems to have displayed that English-football arrogance of thinking that Scotland should be a soft-touch and a shortcut to the top.

I suppose I could predict that Brendan, Neil, Clarke, Robinson, Ross and even McInnes or Levein will take great pleasure in bringing the big-shot rookie down to earth, with a mixture of tactics, man-management and experience at the coal face, and that we should go easy on someone who has been pretty inoffensive, thus far.

I could but, on reflection – nah – f*ck him!

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Ray Wilkins

I first became aware of Ray Wilkins through football stickers and cards, when he was a Chelsea player.

At that time, I had a real fondness for Manchester United – most boys of my age had an English team and my school was largely divided between the Liverpool and Man United fans.

At the time, Dave Sexton was the man charged with restoring United to the top of the English game.

Ray Wilkins was just one of his key recruits, alongside the likes of Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen from the Leeds United side of Don Revie.

Later paired with Bryan Robson, the two formed a formidable midfield partnership – Robson being the dynamic “gives-it-and takes-it” box-to-box midfielder, while Wilkins was always the more considered footballer – but tough, as you had to be in those days to exist in the hardest position in the British game.

He went to AC Milan at a time when several players from the English First Division were being wooed by Serie A. It was only natural as the English League was the best in the world at the time, as six consecutive European Cup (before the post-Heysel ban) wins testified.

Ray had two good years there, which was testament to his technical skills, before spell at paris St Germain and then, to my horror, joining Rangers in 1987.

Although Graeme Souness had signed top England internationals such as Chris Woods and Terry Butcher, Celtic fans were already hoping that the sporting gods would see Rangers squander their money, as they often did.

But that was never on the cards with Ray Wilkins.

He had everything needed to shine in the Scottish Premier League and a lot more. Not just his abundant skill and the physicality to allow him to demonstrate that in the most chaotic of environments, he was every inch the professional's professional.

There was never any likelihood that he would be another complacent player looking for a big payday.

More than 80 England caps, his country's captainship and the fact that he played professionally beyond 40 are enough evidence of that.

The season after Ray Wilkins signed for Rangers, Souness recruited the next big Scottish thing, Ian Ferguson from St Mirren.

I recall many a time standing in the jungle when the home fans would celebrate Ferguson's inclusion in the Rangers team. We knew that he would likely disrupt his own team with his determination to stick one over on us, lunging into challenges and howking long-range shots over the bar.

No Celtic fan ever relished having Ray Wilkins on the pitch. We understood that he would be the direct opposite – somehow in the most frenetic of atmospheres always seeming to have time and space on the ball to use it to damage us.

I recall pictures of tears in his eyes at the end of his final game for Rangers before he went to QPR. I was just relieved that he had left them.

He played on, even returning to Scotland to play for Hibernian, seeming to just want to play the game at the highest level possible for as long as he possibly could.

I have no personal anecdotes of Ray Wilkins the man, though I have read the multitude of stories praising him as a kind and decent human being.

But, he was one heck of a footballer and his passing at the age of 61 is also a reminder of another era in Scottish football, one that was hard for Celtic fans of my generation to live through.

Ray Wilkins made that time immeasurably harder for Celtic. But he did so with skill, professionalism and honour in the best – and almost forgotten – traditions of the game.

Few of his ilk remain but football would be better for more men like Ray Wilkins.
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Why The Rangers and Police Scotland must take action against the Union Bears

Incitement to attack Celtic players and fans shows they are dangerously out of control

At the best of times they're unpleasant – a “permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace,” as one journalist famously said of the club they commemorate.

They set out to offend and sometimes achieve the notoriety they are seeking with the crudest displays of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic bigotry.

The Union Bears are a  group of people who you wouldn't leave alone with sharp objects, never mind an egg and a microwave,

But, when those who are motivated by little other than being noticed and don't get the attention they crave, they can quickly move towards becoming dangerous.

And that appears to be the case with their fans' march before Celtic visit Ibrox on Sunday (or the “match against the Fenians”, as they put it).

Forget the obvious copycatting of the Green Brigade with their Corteos – no one has a monopoly on walking the highways (and many of the Union Bears are will be experienced street-walkers).

But the banner calling on supporters to take to the streets “in dark clothing” carries a clear incitement to violence against Celtic supporters and/or players.

The “Goodnight, Green White” has a silhouette image of someone wearing a green-and-white hooped jersey being kicked in the head, which could only reasonably be interpreted as encouraging physical assaults.

This should particularly concern the Scottish Football Association, given the number of  incursions by fans of The Rangers in recent years, especially in light of the rioting at Hampden after the 2016 Scottish Cup Final.

There can be no excuses for Rangers continuing to accommodate this group of dangerously out-of-control thugs and Police Scotland must take all necessary measures to prevent threats to public safety.

The time to act on that is now, when the incitement is so explicit as it is with the Union Bears' poster.

Waiting until after the called-for assaults have taken place is not an option.

Ironically, as many will be aware, the image they chose to adapt is a famous one with Anti-Fascist Action (AntiFA) groups for years (you can read about its origins here) but it's not the first time that extreme right-wing hate groups have missed the irony of their own messages.

But, while the march has, as with most Union Bears activities, been met with mockery, the potential consequences are serious.

There is no place for this in football and there is no place for this in Scotland.

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Craig Whyte and Rangers freak show does nothing for Celtic or Scottish football

Here we go being “obsessed”. Dust down any other social media tropes for those who dare to comment on the Craig Whyte case or the freak show that has been Rangers and their sequel, The Rangers.

Perhaps spin-off would be more appropriate as this sorry tale has gone from Breaking Brox to Better Call Donald as the focus has shifted from one improbable anti-hero to another with the common theme being that everyone close to it ends up being irredeemably tainted.

Apart from, perhaps, Donald Findlay QC. There will be no paean to Findlay here, any more than any sympathy will be extended towards the club that cheated the tax-payer, businesses, employees, fans and the game of football.

But Findlay could claim to be “untainted” in the sense that just about the only criticism that would sting Scotland’s highest-profile lawyer would be that he was a bad lawyer, which he patently is not.

Lawyers can be a peculiar breed – indeed, every profession has its attendant foibles – but they often get a bad press unnecessarily. They do an essential job that you hope never to need but pray to the great star above that you get a good one, if you do.

Something like an insurance policy; everyone hopes never to collect and resents paying but wants to make it work for them when called upon.

Findlay gives the impression of being that particularly obsessive type – the kind who feels a rush of cerebral orgasm when touching a clever legal spot. The kind who would see “lawyer” as being what defines him before family, faith, football or even Freemason.

So, to see him in Craig Whyte’s corner against his former friends and colleagues only added to the slapstick nature of the Govan Comedy.

The rest of Scottish football can laugh for a moment – and probably should. The case against Whyte smacked of bitter, visceral revenge and the defendant (himself no “innocent” in the world of underhand business) looking like a patsy to draw the focus from the real culprits in Rangers’s demise – David Murray, Campbell Ogilvie and a bunch of directors.

It’s amusing because the metaphorical blood promised by the same people who ushered Whyte into Ibrox has not been shed. He’s not going to jail, after all, for buying a football club that was already on the rocks and finally sinking it.

But any sympathy for Whyte should extend to the actual injustices visited on him (when his erstwhile backers hung him out to dry) and “respect” should be limited to an Artful Dodger who had enough craft to see Fagan and Bill Sykes hoist by their own petard.

That the Scottish Football Association should respond by mooting a legal challenge to recover a £200,000 fine for “bringing the game into disrepute” is worthy of derision at best and another reason for an organised campaign to clean the SFA of the corrupt and the incompetent – which covers just about all of the senior positions.

Having a president who lied about knowledge of EBTs while having received one himself at the club that was under investigation brought the entire game into the worst ill-repute possible.

21st-century Scotland is still so small in places that a small, one-nation clique of handshakers, blazer-wearers and pocket-liners can still hold sway in major institutions to the detriment of the game of football and the reputation of the country itself.

Do not underestimate the power of football. The modern political consultancies have been tuned into the “soft power” potential of sporting and media events to enhance a nation’s international standing for years.

It is for this reason, above all, that the political world suddenly becomes focused on gay rights when major tournaments like the Winter Olympics and World Cup are awarded to Russia. The politicians care no more for Russia’s oppressed LGBT communities than they do for them in the British Commonwealth but PR-gold sporting events? That’s a problem.

Forgive the digression but a Scottish football game that was healthy and winning friends on the international stage would be a major boost to the stature of the nation. And the tawdry, insular catastrophe that has been the Scottish game similarly has an inverse effect.

So, what now? For a few days fans of the other Scottish clubs will exchange

jokes and the endless stream of shysters and snake-oil salesmen a who have stuck their nose in the Ibrox trough over the years will bleat like lambs marked out for succulence.

Then, on Saturday, the nation will unite to support the SFA’s team against England. If they win, the game will ride a summer wave of delusion; if they lose Gordon Strachan will be sacked and that will be the Scottish football news.

It’s no good asking: when will the punters have had enough? The punters had enough years ago and came back for more, martyring themselves like the unappreciated partners of a no-good spouse, whining over cups of tea and deserving very little sympathy.

Celtic supporters of a certain vintage will recall that we have had our own camel-coat-wearers to bear and that our own major shareholder has a few sharp moves of his own.

But until the fans start to act – by boycotting the national teams and exerting co-ordinated pressure on their own clubs to reform or disband the SFA, they will be part of the problems, victims facilitating a wider malaise.

A stinking fungus has befouled Scottish football for generations. The game will not be rid of it without root-and-branch removal.

Hold your nose, not your breath.


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Not fit for purpose: The only victory for Resolution 12 would be to disband the SFA

In 1873, one year after the foundation of a now-lost Glasgow club, the Scottish Football Association was formed, making it the sport's second oldest national association in the world.

The SFA is a remarkable organisation. While most of the world was still sleeping, in terms of football, Scotland was leading the way, having participated in the first ever international match – against England, of course – at the West of Scotland Cricket Club in 1872.

And yet famously, infamously, notoriously, the men's national team has, uniquely in the British Isles  failed to progress past the groups stages of any major international tournament in its history.

That is despite having been peppered with some of the greatest players in football, all the way up until the 1990s.

McGrory, Hibs' Famous Five, the Lisbon Lions, Baxter, Bremner, McLintock, McGrain, Dalglish, Jordan, Souness. For more than 100 years, the playing talent was abundant.

The Famous Five: 

In 1967, the Scottish champions were European champions, too, and the national team was good enough to humiliate the world champions on their own patch. But a sustained endeavour towards a major trophy or a final or a semi-final? Nope.

When we were kings: Billy McNeill

I refer to this purely for background and anecdotal evidence that there has been an apparent malaise at Park Gardens and Hampden Park, ever since – more-or-less – the SFA was founded.

But it's not good living in the past, especially when the evidence of contemporary failure is so abundant.

The most recent revelations surrounding Resolution 12 bring this into sharp focus. Those pursuing this deserve credit for their efforts in a thankless task, even if I, personally, believe that the strategy directing those efforts has sometimes been flawed.

Nonetheless, they have tried and no one should doubt their efforts.

On the other hand, I take reports of their “victory” with a  pinch of salt. They may have been vindicated by some of the language used in the letter they received from UEFA, seemingly acknowledging, at least implicitly, that the SFA failed in its duty of governance of the matter of Rangers' licence to play in European competition.

(And the essence of transparency is that information is widely disseminated, not held by trusted sources.)

They may even have written evidence pointing to malfeasance but the vindication of having someone in high office telling you what you already knew is some way short of a victory.

No, victory would be some measure of justice – appropriate punishment for the offenders and compensation for the injured parties.

We know Rangers can't be punished because they were last seen in 2012 and are now throwing hammers around that great field of dreams in the sky.

We know this. Fans of every club in Scotland know it, too, and yet the fact that the “established” media resolutely close ranks behind the Scottish football authorities to deny this patent truth leaves a sense that the injustices that began when Rangers started cheating through tax avoidance continue to the extent that the accompanying lies are inscribed in silver.

Celtic and other wronged clubs are unlikely to be compensated because they seem to have no interest in saying, “Let right be done”. There may be pragmatic reasons for that in terms of the practicality of recouping financial losses or lost potential earnings.

And if, as has been mooted, the appropriate penalty against the “member association” that is the SFA would mean all teams being banned from European competition, that would be too steep a price to pay for most – though not all – fans.

On the face of it, any “victory” that may be pursued could be described as pyrrhic, though that does not excuse an abject failure to lead by Celtic PLC and others.

But if the lessons of the past are to remain an open wound, it would surely be some kind of victory if they led to a better future.

One in which football was run for the fans and the good of the game itself; where fair play took precedence over financial imperatives.

Is that likely to be achieved in Scotland under the present structure?

Recent years saw the received wisdom of the nylon blazers challenged by two men, now both sadly departed.

The late Paul McBride QC, to put it politely, scared the bejaysus out of the SFA. When arguably the most formidable criminal lawyer of his time was railing against the heady mix of corruption and incompetence guiding the Scottish game, the SFA office-bearers were shown up, not so much as paper tigers as sleekit cowrin tim'rous beasties.

McBride threatened to rock the football establishment to its foundation and there appeared a genuine chance that he would almost single-handedly force a new, binding constitution for the modern age before his tragic death.

The other figure was, of course, the late Turnbull Hutton. The one-time “conscience of Scottish football”, who “stood up for the 'wee' clubs”, Hutton projected a moral force that, coupled with his executive-level experience at Diageo, was more than a match for patsies and yes-men occupying senior roles in Scottish football.

Turnbull Hutton and Paul McBride: Should fans need heroes?

These two men gave – pro-bono – their time and talents in pursuit of the greater good of the beautiful game.

And yet, it is entirely wrong that fans who wish to believe in football should be left waiting for heroes to emerge to fight their corner.

Fans should not have to fight the governing body; it should exist to fight for them.

And yet let's look at this organisation, in its own words.

The Scottish FA exists to promote, foster and develop the game at all levels in this country.
Founded in 1873, Scottish football’s governing body has recently undergone the most radical changes in its history, enabling us to lead the game into a new era. The launch of our strategic plan Scotland United: A 2020 Vision outlines the vision, values and goals that underpin the organisation and its many facets.
The plan encompasses four strategic pillars:
•    Perform and Win
•    Strong Quality Growth
•    Better financial returns
•    Respected and Trusted to Lead

Two things may immediately jump out from the above.

Firstly – and disgracefully – nowhere in those “four strategic pillars” is there any mention of fans.

Is it the fans who are expected to “respect and trust” the SFA or are they to be led by it? Or is the sole relevance of fans to the Scottish Football Association in relation to “better financial returns”?

The second point leads on from the first – that the SFA appears to fail on all of its stated key aims.

In fact, going back to 1873, when has the SFA ever achieved anything of note? The “golden era” of the Scottish national team consisted of qualifying for five consecutive world cup finals and going home at the earliest opportunity every time.

A simpler question would be: in what areas is the SFA actually a success?

I would argue that the answer is: none, ever.

And I would further argue that the SFA is inherently dysfunctional: structurally, institutionally, in terms of its personnel and its apparent inability to ever repair its standing in the eyes of the fans, without whom there can be no ticket sales and no domestic marketing opportunities.

The SFA has about as much chance of realistically aspiring to its “four pillars” as a Mafia-owned restaurant, run for years as a money-laundering joint, has of aspiring to a Michelin star.

And when that happens, what? As was once said in a famous film, “You bust the joint out – you light a match.”

In these sensitive times, I must quickly urge you to keep your pyros in your pocket. This bonfire must be a metaphorical one – of the vanities of the stuffed shirts, scoffing at the principles of fair play, good governance or even key performance indicators.

The Scottish Football Association is “not fit for purpose” and is beyond reform. Its office-bearers should be invited to a ceremony to be given thanks, a 9ct-gold-plated watch and a gentle boot out the door.

Only a completely new body – with new people – has any hope of bringing Scottish football back to a position of repute.

As a starting point, I'll offer my four “cornerstones”, to underpin the current pillars:

1. Football, without fans, is nothing. We exist to bring football to the fans of all clubs and of all our national teams. We listen to the fans; we respect the fans; we endeavour to meet the aspirations of the fans in all our activities.
2. We commit ourselves to excellence. We measure that excellence primarily on the success and quality of performance of every Scottish national and club team.
3. We are committed to supporting Scottish football at all levels, through providing support in the forms of facilities, coaching and best practice to nurture player development and a continued strengthening of both the quality and entertainment value of the game from grassroots-level to international competition.
4. We will work with fans, clubs, the media and commercial partners to strengthen Scottish football commercially in keeping with the ethos of financial fair play.

Okay, so my “four cornerstones” are cobbled-together ideas and I do not expect that they would form a framework for anything at all.

My point is that I don't believe a multi-million-pound study from a former East Fife player, who left his last political job under a cloud was needed to do a better job of defining what should be the aims of a body entrusted with the task of moving the game forward.

A new body should mean new personnel – from diverse professional backgrounds, including several from outside Scotland (preferably not simply replacing one club tie with another), who are unlikely to rely on “old certainties”.

People with fresh ideas, a willingness to engage and a track record of success.

And – who knows – maybe it would even be “respected and trusted to lead”?
Wouldn't that, in itself, be a victory?
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The Scottish football media - a special shower

That fans of a Celtic persuasion tend to distrust the Scottish football media is nothing new. Those of us old enough to remember Don Morrison and Alex “Candid” Cameron needed little convincing that being anti-Celtic was rarely, if ever, to the detriment of any aspiring young journalist's career.

But, even in those days, the Scottish sports press had the odd reliable maverick, such as Ian Archer, the cautiously respected like Alan Davidson and the rare pearl that was Hugh McIlvanney whose retirement in March of this year surely pulled down the curtain on Scotland's last great sportswriter.

It now seems ironic, if not fanciful, to note that one of the would-be heirs to McIlvanney's mantle was one James Traynor, formerly of the Glasgow Herald parish. There is a whole generation of football fans too young to remember those heady days and most are reluctant to believe they existed.

Traynor, like no other, embodies the collapse of professional and ethical journalistic standards and the derision heaped on those who followed him into the profession.

I sometimes wonder what prompted Traynor to propel himself from understated respectability to the sort of man who would represent the worst form of dishonest tabloid journalism to the darkest tactics in PR – sometimes blurring the two roles.

Once, Scottish football fans simply laughed at Darryl Broadfoot and his “Greek Saga” prose. But few are laughing now – from within the ranks of the media or their consumers at any club.

However, since the events preceding – and subsequent to – the liquidation of Rangers, there has been the sort of psychotic meltdown that one might only expect when facing Armageddon.

With shock troops rallied by Traynor and Jack Irvine before him, a climate of fear has arisen concerning any mention of Rangers.

Chris McLaughlin was banned from Ibrox, with scarcely a whimper raised publicly by his peers. Graham Spiers was forced to leave his freelance gig at the Herald, after a gutless performance by Magnus Llewellyn, who is now to be his new editor at The Times.

And only recently Tom English and Stuart Cosgrove were named in an “enemies-of-Rangers” style press release that some viewed as an incitement to disorder. Again, the defence of both men was muted, to say the least.

But if some would say this calls into question the intestinal fortitude of the press pack, they have pulled no punches in attacking the readers, listeners, new media interlopers and their fellow inhabitants of “Socialmedialand”.

In this, few provide better exemplars than Neil Cameron, normally a relatively low-key player on the scene. After a warning to Herald & Times staff came from Barclay McBain, Cameron quickly took to social media with a “what the boss said” Tweet that, to some, may have looked like a bit of career opportunism.

But Cameron has been more full-blooded in his online spats with retired journalist Brian McNally and particularly Phil Mac Giolla Bháin, who Cameron has described as both “a vile man” and “a scab”.

Some Neil Cameron Twitter exchanges

Now, Phil is not everybody's cup of tea, including a number of Celtic supporters, but he remains a figure who challenges the natural order, being on the outside of the Scottish media tent pissing in, against years of tradition and patronage in the private members' club.

And yet there is something desperate in all of this. Some have questioned why Cameron should have been so silent on the fate of Spiers (and Angela Haggerty) yet so abusive to Mac Giolla Bháin, invoking their common membership of the National Union of Journalists, as if the number one rule of the club is “Omerta”.

It's relatively easy to attack McNally as he presumably has few strings to pull for young journalists and has had the irritating habit of enjoying his retirement by criticising coverage of football issues. For this, he has drawn abuse from, among others, Keith Jackson.

Much of the current talk is of a column by Gordon Waddell, who has insisted that only the word of journalists on the scene at Hampden can be taken at face value over the events of the Scottish Cup Final.

The likes of Cameron and Spiers, naturally enough, support this while playing down Jackson's claim that every Rangers player was assaulted after the final.

But there's the rub. There is barely a shred of trust, respect or sympathy left for any Scottish sports journalist – and they have brought that state of affairs entirely on themselves.

Spiers remains the one who has done most to stand up for the integrity of his profession but he has got less fearless as time has gone on. And Spiers retains a haughtiness, sometimes verging on a sneering tone directed at the plebs who follow this game that he graces with his words, an attitude that is amplified by English, who seems to feed his not-inconsiderable ego by putting fans down.

Spiers and English will mock their own readers as derisively as Jackson (if a little more pithily), laugh up their sleeves at the antagonistic antics of Hugh Keevins and blindly ignore the absurdity of their fellow journos Chris Jack, Matt Lindsay et al.

And for this, they expect what – our trust? The people that have gone into every contortion possible to resist saying that Rangers Football Club was liquidated and the evidence of corruption at the heart of the Scottish game expect respect?

Cameron eventually did something to mention The Offshore Game report into corruption, after Spiers acknowledged its existence.

But it is an indictment on the entire industry that the best and most comprehensive treatment of the issue was by Robbie Dinwoodie – again retired – writing for the independent Bella Caledonia (aptly titled The Unreported).

And, after so conspicuously failing to stand together on real interference and even intimidation, why should they expect a level of regard so much higher than that which they (fail to) show the football public?

Will any of these journalists of note rally to the aid of Rachel Lynch, the latest writer to be harassed for saying things that are off-script – or will they offer her the same support that Jim Spence enjoyed?

What they are struggling to accept is that their relevance is diminishing as fast as the esteem in which they may once have been held.

Frankly, we don't need to know that a journalist was sent to Monaco to watch a draw that was broadcast live by UEFA.

We don't need to hear their ill-qualified insights into events of matches that were televised live (especially when some of those match reports have been written by people who weren't even at the game).

And for their “eye-witness reports” to carry any weight, those delivering them must have more than a long-lost sliver of credibility.

The one enduring skill of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish football media pack is to irritate fans enough to get a reaction to feed off.

In other words, the term, “football journalist”, has become synonymous with being a troll.

But, like a troll, that will soon all be water under the bridge – most of their careers are sailing down the river.

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Where's Warbo? And just what's going on at Ibrox?

One of my most embarrassing days as a Celtic fan came in March 1994.

After much fan unrest, press derision and scoffing by our big-spending city rivals, the club called a press conference to say they had pulled a very big rabbit out of a magic hat.

Despite all suspicions that the Board of Directors were dishonest, incompetent buffoons lining their own pockets while Celtic disintegrated, we were told that the most improbable of plans for a £50m stadium had the green light.

Where's Warbo?

I can still hear Patrick McNally's voice replying “Gefinor”, when asked who had put up the funding for the project.

Of course, within days it had become clear that there was no funding, no stadium – only the pathetic folly of men who knew the ball was on the slates.

My youthful self learned a few things then about taking anything at face value when it doesn't seem to fit with the available facts – and that people under the most extreme pressure act differently.

When they know the game is up, they will put their last grand on 32-Red to try to save their house and, of course, the ball inevitably lands on 0-Green.

And, somehow, the surreal events in Scottish football since Anthony Stokes equalised for Hibernian and then David Gray delivered the Hibs their first Scottish Cup for 114 years seem reminiscent of that fateful time in 1994.

That's not to say that the Scottish game has been short on surrealism in recent times. From Whyte to Green to King, the Fit-&-Proper criminal. From the company that was never a club that never died, though the new club and the old club co-existed and King of the new same club suggested reversing the liquidation of the old same club.

From Apocalypse to Armageddon, from football dreams to fighting on the field; we've had all this and so much more.

But on Saturday, the violins started to be played to the strains of Stadivarious c.1994.

So The Rangers lost – nothing new there, nor in the bit of thuggery at the end. And the bleating: well, it's to be expected.

But watching the eerie light from phones pointing to Jim Traynor as he read out his statement explaining that the players couldn't receive their medals because they had been assaulted, something wasn't right.

Primarily, it was too soon after the events. Often that's a sign that something has been pre-planned but clearly not in this case, unless you believe that the actions of thousands of fans was orchestrated.

No, but when there is genuine alarm, events tend to take a different turn. Firstly, the most important thing is to make sure everyone is accounted for and in a place of safety. That will most likely include guests and loved ones of the entire party, so as to reassure the players and staff.

Then there will be a consultation with police, match officials, stadium security, the SFA and, almost certainly, the sponsors, who expect full bang-for-their-buck.

Typically, briefings are informal because the club communications people have to establish the facts and liaise with their SFA counterparts. Holding statements – brief summaries of the club's position that commit to little – are released.

And then, when the dust settles, decisions have been made and order restored, there will be a press conference. A proper one – not one man in a darkened room reading out a statement he has just put together, when he could not possibly have taken all of the aforementioned steps

Add to that that not one club official or player has commented on the game – unprecedented in my lifetime of watching football – and there is room for suspicion that Jim Traynor's statement was not relaying facts or genuine concerns but, instead, was moving quickly (a little too quickly) to create the media narrative.

What was the reason? We don't yet know. Did one of those victimised players or officials have a rush of blood and do something he expected to get into serious trouble for (who was the official aiming a kick at a supporter)?

Did Traynor know that the club was facing disaster due to the loss of potential Europa League revenue and season ticket sales, as some have suggested?

What we do know is that the Ibrox spin machine went haywire in claiming victimhood.

We were even told that every single Rangers player and official was assaulted, which had already been refuted before that statement was made.

What are we supposed to believe – that Kenny Miller, who Anthony Stokes praised for sportingly congratulating every Hibs player in their dressing room – has no words for the supporters after what will surely be his last Scottish Cup final?

That Mark Warburton is similarly derisive of the club's fans after a season in which they have just been promoted?

That not one player has agreed to talk to the media? If that is the case, there are only two conceivable reasons – that they have been warned to shut up or that they, collectively, have refused to say what the club wants them to say.

And then they signed self-confessed, Celtic-supporting, IRA-sympathising, Rangers-baiting, Royal-hating Joey Barton on £100,000-a-month*– and only Davie Weir is there to greet him.

Is this one last despairing move to shift season tickets to try to keep the club solvent? Does the club know that an insolvency event will render his contract meaningless? Or is his salary being paid by Gefinor?

The Ibrox club management have shown themselves incapable of financial governance and, at the same time, made the game ungovernable.

But could the “Big House” of cards finally be about to fall down?

*The original version of this said £100k-a-week. Thanks to the readers who pointed out the typo.
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Surely they won't fool the Children of the Resolution

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

I have a professional contact, who loves to point out how hard she works. And she does work hard, too, emails from the early hours backing up her assertion that she spends most of the day at her PC.


But – it's a big one – she's hopelessly, haplessly inefficient. One of the reasons that she works so hard is that she has no concept of processes. And she rebuffs any suggestion that she might do things differently because she has always done things this way and therefore it is right.

And that impacts on me, as well as everyone who works with her. If I need information, she can't give it to me when I need it. She does everything strictly in the order that it comes up, with no view to time sensitivity, relative importance, knock-on effects, etc.

In short, if she worked less hard and was more receptive to the view that she might take a different tack, my life would be easier and her strong work ethic would be a source of admiration from me rather than frustration, noting her apparent assumption that she is doing things the only possible way.

I admire hard work where it is necessary or achieves a better result than a less industrious approach but I'm always wary of people who praise sweat for its own sake, when approaching a problem from a different angle might have been more effective.

So I am ready for brickbats from some quarters if I do not lavish unqualified praise on those who are working hard for a result on behalf of Celtic that they are highly unlikely to achieve.

And so we come to the hard-working people who are trying to pursue the aims of the now-infamous Resolution 12.

In short, Resolution 12 was put to the Celtic AGM and withdrawn because the majority shareholders indicated that they intended to vote it down. Had it been passed, it would have required the board to refer the Scottish Football Association's decision to submit Rangers' application to play in the Champions League to the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) to examine what appeared to be a breach of the rules on Financial Fair Play.

Specifically, that, as Rangers had not paid their tax bill in 2011, they should not have been allowed to participate in any UEFA competition.

By all accounts, the main protagonists, notably “Auldheid” and “Brogan, Rogan, Trevino and Hogan” of Celtic Quick News fame put forward a carefully-researched proposal, backed by as much evidence and legal advice as could be reasonably available to them.

However, one of the notable things about AGMs in recent years has been that they are largely a charade, as far as fans being able to use their shareholdings to influence the direction of the club. Simply put, any policy that the directors and major shareholders dislike can be voted down.

So those proposing Resolution 12 had to rely on their carefully-researched case persuading the big hitters at the club that it was in their interests to act.

And that could only be based on another assumption – that those who wield power at Celtic Park view their interests and those of the club in the same way as the overwhelming majority of fans.

It is here that the pragmatism of their efforts can be called into question. CQN has long been the site most loudly banging the drum for the corporate “plan”, and Peter Lawwell's strategy for achieving it. And all the evidence to date seems to show that the Resolution 12 proponents maintain an unshakable faith in the integrity and good faith of those running the club.

With due respect to Auldheid and BRTH, that confidence is not universally shared amongst supporters.

The result is the now farcical situation whereby the Resolution 12 supporters, having invested years of effort in trying to pursue sporting integrity are defending a board that refuses to even request an investigation into the possibility that the club was cheated out of a chance to compete in the Champions League, and denied potential earnings of up to £15 million.

“In the intervening period of time, there have been numerous meetings and consistent correspondence between those shareholders and officials of Celtic PLC, all with a view to furthering the aims of Res 12, and there is no doubt that the Celtic board have played a full part in taking the resolution to where it now stands,” they have claimed, omitting to mention that “playing a full part” would have involved Celtic, as a member club, formally requesting action by the SFA, the absence of which would logically dictate that a formal complaint would be made to UEFA.

“Working together, the board and the shareholders have seen to it that formal letters of enquiry have been sent to the SFA, together with various pieces of documentation and supporting evidence.

“Through the shareholders’ lawyers, the SFA were asked to answer specific detailed questions in relation to their procedures, however the SFA responded by saying they would not answer any questions other than through the “member club” i.e. the board of Celtic PLC.”

Throughout the process, the board of Celtic PLC have consistently failed to exercise their rights as a member club, knowing full well that their refusal to act allowed the SFA the only get-out in a situation that was at best demonstrative of incompetence and at worst corruption.

Instead, the club have insisted that the shareholders should pursue any action.

It beggars belief that meetings where the club's representatives demonstrated verbal support that was inconsistent with their inaction should be seen as facilitating anything. The shareholders of any company are not required to act in the interests of the board; the case is quite the reverse.

For the CFCB to open an inquiry, its members would almost certainly have to consider that a group of minority shareholders, without authorisation from the board of directors of the club or any resolution passed at AGM were somehow legitimate stakeholders in representing the club.

There is little to support that position. Does anyone really imagine that UEFA would set a precedent of allowing any minority group with a handful of shares to precipitate the machinations of their investigative and disciplinary processes?

Theoretically, the CFCB could decide, unilaterally, to open a case but in the absence of a complaint from the allegedly aggrieved party, to do so would be a remarkable decision.

Which takes us back to assumptions and Occam's Razor, quoted at the top of this piece. When business people are reported to hold private views that are in direct conflict with their actions, it can be assumed that their actions are a more accurate indication of their intentions.

And when a club declines to take a complaint, where it appears that it has unfairly incurred a loss, it requires fewest assumptions to conclude that its representatives do not wish to have the outcome that such a complaint might bring about.

We could only speculate on their motives. But we can state with certainty that the club has not pursued its interests in this matter and infer why that might be.

In the meantime, the shareholders have been left to submit a complaint that the CFCB has no responsibility to consider and – crucially – resolve the entire matter before July 2016, when its own statute of limitations on this issue would run out.

In other words, the shareholders will almost certainly be rebuffed and the board will then say, “Sorry, but it's too late to do anything now.”

If that scenario comes to pass – and, in the absence of direct fan pressure on the board, it is difficult to see how it will be avoided – we will have been witness to one of the greatest betrayals in football history.

Of course, that last assertion would prove outrageous, if the board can be relied on to act in good faith, in pursuit of the club's best interests, fairness to its fans and sporting integrity.

Can we assume that to be the case?--

Desperate U-turn won't solve great Herald fiasco

Only three weeks after the fiasco that saw The Herald Executive editor apologise for one writer, who promptly said he had nothing to apologise for and then jettison another one who tweeted her solidarity, the management at the group have decided on an unexplained U-turn.

But then, much has been unexplained since Group Editor Magnus Llewellin tweeted, “It's

Shredded: The Herald titles' reputation

complicated,” and his side-kick, Barclay McBain – allegedly a former NUJ representative sent a message to all staff warning that freedom of speech on social media would not earn their good graces.

For those lucky enough to have been cloistered away from the strangeness that occurs when the Scottish media intersects with Scottish football, the much admired/reviled Graham Spiers questioned the will of some directors of the identity thieves calling themselves Rangers to tackle the most obscene guttural utterances of their loyal hordes of follow-followers.

As evidence, he cited little other than the fact that the club is conspicuously doing nothing about it and a direct communication from a senior Ibrox figure indicating that some of the ditties currently considered criminal are in keeping with the values of the club. (Any ironic reference is mine, rather than that of Spiers.)

Facing a legal threat that “could not be defended” and – Llewellin insisted – no commercial pressure whatsoever, the editor buckled, misrepresenting one of the most high-profile writers in Scotland.

He then torpedoed a column by the, normally publicity-shy, Angela Haggerty for tweeting solidarity with Spiers, whining that she had undermined that false apology.

It cannot be often that England rugby internationals feel fascinated by Scottish football but, for this, Brian Moore described Llewellin as “spineless” in what could be described as a cowardly stab in Llewellin's invertebrate back.

Sunday Herald editor Neil Mackay “fought hard”, capitulated, Tweeted that he was washing his

hands of the affair and then posted a picture of a glass of wine, which we can presume he then promptly sent the same way as the rest of his bottle.

Mackay (r) challenging Llewellin (l) as McBain watches

There was justifiable outrage that the “free” press was so easily cowed into becoming self-censoring in the face of intimidation and the shredder was plugged in for the last hint of respectability for two once-honoured news titles.

In a difficult newspaper environment, one in which the Independent has already announced the end of its “paper” edition, management face many challenges. However, The Herald and Sunday Herald have faced more than most.

A catastrophic independence referendum campaign during which The Herald was often accused of doing the bidding of the Scottish Labour media office, saw much of the remaining confidence that the title had retained lost.

In contrast, The Sunday Herald was riding the crest of a wave, largely due to then editor Richard Walker's stewardship of the paper and winning the support of a large proportion of Yes voters. The transition to Mackay's editorship has not been a smooth one, with plummeting figures as the title seems to have lost its way.

Would Walker have remained in post as one of the writers he picked was axed? It's hard to say but for all the “nice guy, great friend” defences of Mackay, he can have done little to instil fearlessness in his team.

“These people have families and mortgages,” was the defence. Quite – as do the many public figures who are routinely called on to resign for misdemeanours unfitting to their positions.

The fury that greeted the stranding of Spiers and Haggerty was justified and yet, the decision to reinstate the former-editor-of-a-well-known-Celtic-fan's-book should not be expected to bring readers flocking back – she had far more defenders of her rights than admirers of her writings.

Haggerty has faced appalling online abuse from certain sections of Scottish society (and indeed Mackay called on all Scottish men to defend her about a fortnight before leaving her high and dry) but Llewellin is as likely to salvage his titles through his reverse-capitulation as a soldier waiting for reinforcements without realising that the war is over.

Spiers, in the meantime, has been emboldened to explicitly defend the truth of his original piece. Curiously, this does not seem to have been met with the “indefensible” defamation action that had Llewellin hearing things going bump in the night.

Whether or not that calls into question the veracity of Llewellin's claim that no commercial pressure was involved is a matter for sheer speculation.

The future can be predicted with greater certainty. Haggerty's reinstatement will be welcomed but that will neither inspire any renewed confidence in the integrity of the Herald titles, nor a slowing of the decline in their sales.

With a paper-free future surely looming, it will perhaps dawn on Llewellin that what has settled over the titles is not the dust from the stramash, but a layer of ashes.

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Stokes lack of ambition befuddles Matt Lindsay

Befuddled: Blame Stokesy

In a world of austerity and belt-tightening, many in Britain are staring at uncertain times.

A cruel Tory government is launching a relentless attack on the poor and vulnerable, with the bedroom tax and hacking cuts to support services bringing misery to many.

But there's always someone worse off, so they say, and at present that someone appears to be Matt Lindsay.

Matt's a curious chap in that his writing is often surprisingly upbeat. Vying in healthy competition with his close colleague, Chris Jack, he has had a laudable tendency towards (royal) Blue Sky thinking, admittedly mostly when predicting halcyon days at Ibrox. (Giving succour to the suckers, you might say).

But in recent days Matt seems to have been turning lemonade back into lemons – and, not for the first time, Anthony Stokes is prompting the disharmony.

Stokesy, it seems could “start a fight in an empty hoose” but he has exceeded all previous expectations by creating conflict in the inner sanctuary of Matt's comfortably-furnished mind.

A mere fortnight ago, he was on fine form, lauding Mark Warburton's capture of two players from Accrington Stanley and mentioning a whole clutch of Celtic failures to boot.

This was Matt in his pomp. Sycophants have come and gone, tilting for his crown but Matt shows a deftness in his lionising of the club currently calling itself The Rangers, urging those with a less nuanced appreciation of the game to recognise the unique qualities of lower-division football.

Stokes:All mouth - no ambition

But in a matter of days, the bachal that is Stokes and Ronny Deila somehow contrived to upset the cart leaving Matt floundering under a deluge of them apples that he clearly doesn't like at all.

On Friday, he was citing Ronny's decision to loan Stokes to Hibs (after agreeing terms with at least two other clubs) as causing “Rangers concerns”, noting “the striker could help to prevent Rangers from winning promotion to the Premiership”.

“The switch has been queried by many in Scottish football,” he wrote without naming anyone who had queried the move outside his own swivel chair, “because Hibs are currently vying with Rangers, who are just five points clear in the second tier table with 16 games remaining, for a place in the top flight.”

Scurrilous stuff and the fact that other clubs should be allowed to strengthen their squads to challenge for the Championship title, is indeed cause for concern.

By today, Matt had found a new one of his not insubstantial broadsides to deliver. The fact that Stokes chose his former club suggests to Matt that Ronny: “had good reason to harbour misgivings” about Stokes.

“The fact the 27-year-old decided to go to a lower league club which is situated within a short commute of his West Lothian home leaves him open to accusations that he lacks ambition and a desire to resurrect his career,” Matt thwacked, apparently forgetting that Championship football is where its at and where the UK's most prolific goalscorer-cum-penalty-taker has his stamping ground.

“Is O’Neill going to be bowled over if he scores against Alloa or Dumbarton?” Matt asked, seeming to have forgotten that victories over such clubs have appeared to have got Matt very excited indeed in recent memory.

In questioning the ambition of a player choosing the Championship Matt sails dangerously close to the rocky waters of denigrating players at other lower-division teams.

Matt concluded that success or failure for Stokes would be disastrous for Deila: “But he is in a no-win situation here. If Stokes does shine at Hibs – and he started his time there in an encouraging fashion at the weekend when he came off the bench and scored in a 3-1 victory over St Mirren at Easter Road – it will give ammunition to those who maintained he should have been featuring all along at Celtic.”

But, something about the flimsiness of that barb seemed to suggest that our esteemed sportswriter had lost heart.

It is difficult to see how this can end well for Matt. Perhaps Michael O'Halloran will yet leave St Johnstone to sign for a Championship club and that might cheer him.

But, of course, much will depend on O'Halloran's ambition.

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Rangers chairman's loose tongue causes more problems

Jim Traynor says it didn't happen - but Chick Young was there!

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Time for Celtic to abandon Scotland?

No, it's not that old “let's go to the Premiership” line that we know is not going to happen in the foreseeable future. It's an even older line – but one that seems to have reached its peak at the most improbable time – the relationship between Celtic as a club and body of fans with the Scottish national football team and association.

This angst goes back at least as far as Jimmy McGrory, the highest goalscorer in the history of British football who was awarded just seven international caps – scoring seven goals.

Many will hark back to the era of Jimmy Johnstone and deciding to turn their back on the national team after hearing Scotland fans boo a man who was acknowledged as one of the finest players in the world. Others will point to the absurd – the surprise omission of Kenny Dalglish from the Scotland squad coincidentally preserving the consecutive caps record of former Rangers player George Young.

Sit in any company of Celtic fans and each will have his favourite story of a Celtic player overlooked for selection (Harry Hood being a decent example) or abused by the Tartan Army at Hampden (too many to name – let's plump for Brian McClair).

Yet somehow, today's Scottish football hierarchy has contrived to scale new heights in alienating the Celtic support, discarding all honour in their efforts to assuage the ire of Rangers fans – within and without the Scottish media.

In the interests of accuracy, it should be noted that honour – or even basic fairness – have never been attributes highly valued by the SFA. In the 1990s – when Rangers were riding high and Scotland still occasionally qualified for tournaments, the period was remarkable for the national team's ability to reach the latter stages despite sudden call-offs from certain Rangers personnel who were almost invariably fit for their club's domestic and European encounters.

Far from being criticised for their repeated acts of disloyalty, the practice was almost invariably either dismissed as bad luck or seen as some sort of virtue: to lead the charge for Rangers but let the country fend for itself. There were no worse offenders than the future Scotland and Rangers assistant manager, Ally McCoist and the terrorist-supporting criminal associate Andy Goram, who were nevertheless reinstated without question when the glamour matches came around.

However, even in those days – when Celtic fans had more pressing worries – there was rarely the level of unqualified anger that has surrounded the relationship between the Scottish football establishment bodies and their favourite team.

Ever since the media clamour to sack the incumbent Berti Vogts and replace him with Walter Smith (with then media pundit Gordon Duffield Smith the vanguard Bear), the SFA has flitted between accommodation and capitulation to the interests of Rangers FC, regardless of the conduct of their officials or rabble element amongst their players.

Walter Smith, who had been out of work as a manager since his sacking by Everton 18-months previously, had clearly briefed pundits such as Duffield who were able to say that they “knew” he was willing to take the job.

For this salvation from football's scrapheap, he rewarded his employers by abandoning the country without notice at a vital moment in a Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. David Taylor claimed to have been very unhappy about the whole show yet compensation was never pursued, Smith was praised in the sections of the media that would like to claim to be impartial and the interests of Rangers were seen to be still paramount in 21st-century Scotland.

Back at Rangers, and far from having any sympathy with George Burley, (who had replaced another former Rangers manager at the national team), Smith's players continued the policy of his previous period of tenure – some selective withdrawals added to loutishness and malice to the point of sabotage. Some, like Kenny Miller and David Weir, continued to support their nation's cause on the football field.

But the scurrilous behaviour of Kris Boyd, Lee McCulloch, Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor would have appalled any Scottish fan who cared about his country. It appeared neither to worry Walter & Ally nor Gordon & George (Peat), who made occasional rumblings about behaviour being unacceptable before making Burley the scapegoat for all the episodes. Is it a coincidence that all the issues of conflict or ill-discipline in Burley's Scotland came from players of the club whose players withdrew from squads most regularly?

Given that Duffield and Peat admitted to meeting with Rangers officials to change the date of the Scottish Cup final to give Rangers an advantage in their SPL campaign and announced this to the Daily Record without consulting their members or the other finalists, it might have been thought that the Ibrox hierarchy would feel a personal debt if not one of national allegiance.

But the story of Scottish football remains that the Rangers manager is untouchable – by the authorities or the reporters like Darryl Broadfoot, well-known Murray and Rangers lapdog, who finds himself appointed as a media professional by the SFA.

Duffield and Smith are adopting old-time policies in a new media age, which makes their reinstatement of the Ibrox four all the more apparently an act in the interests of Rangers over Scotland. Their control over the referees seems only to extend to supporting decisions that have clearly disadvantaged Celtic and in the process silently abandoning the much-vaunted anti-diving campaign that, if implemented, would have robbed Rangers of the services of Kyle Lafferty and Nacho Novo along with Miller and Boyd.

In the face of media complaints – from hacks close to the Rangers manager – Celtic players are disciplined retrospectively with the SFA refusing to define the rules of procedure when Celtic wish to appeal. When Lafferty carries out one of the worst fouls seen in Scotland in recent times on Andreas Hinkel, there is silence. When Boyd elbows a player, the definition of offence is altered by the referee to obstruction, allowing him to avoid suspension, though a direct free-kick was awarded.

McGregor is involved in an “incident”, which he declines to report until it has been reported in the media, and Fraser Wishart – another former Rangers player involved in “fixture-gate” – decries an “assault” on a footballer “just for the jersey he wears”. He should be called as a witness as McGregor allegedly told police he did not know what happened or even where, frustrating their efforts to examine CCTV footage.

When the naked bias only involves tabloid headlines, we can choose to ignore it. But the insidious relationships at the heart of Scottish football are now blatantly undermining fair competition. For too long Celtic players have carried the immigrant's burden – having to try harder to show loyalty in order to earn an acceptance that is often grudged and rarely translated into “equality of esteem” as our ASBO neighbours might call it.

Amongst Celtic fans, it is always a contentious issue with many thousands born in Scotland every bit as passionate about their country as fans of any other club. However, the SFA-RFC-SPFA axis (with dishonourable mention to the SPL, led by another former Rangers player) has shown itself to disdain all normal rules of fair competition. The only pressure Celtic can exert is by boycotting the games – at least as fans. In the meantime, some of those hard-nosed executives and directors at Celtic should make their own voices heard in the corridors of power.

The inescapable conclusion seems to be that you can now support Celtic or Scotland – not both.
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