“Former Scottish Labour politician and ex-East Fife player Henry McLeish’s 74-page Scottish Football Review was finally released to the public yesterday, recommending, among other things, the establishment of 20 football academies to save Scottish football from what McLeish calls ‘chronic underachievement’ at both the club and national level.” (Pitch Invasion)
“He’s had a career in Scottish football that has spanned over 15 years. In that time he has savoured the joy and ecstasy of scoring the equaliser in a Scottish cup semi final against Celtic, and the pain and frustration of being sidelined for 18 months through injury. Kevin James has gone through just about every emotion known to man in a playing career packed full of euphoric highs and devastating lows.” (The Away End)
“When the draw for the Scottish Cup semi-finals was made all the talk was of Rangers and Celtic being kept apart for a potential Old Firm final. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Rangers didn’t even reach the semis in the end, losing to a scruffy but deserved last minute goal in their quarter-final replay at Dundee United; but it’s Celtic’s semi-final humiliation at the hands of Ross County which is the real story.” (twohundredpercent)
Self-interested SPL clubs must push for change
“Motherwell travel to Celtic tonight for the second time this season, but it won’t be the last. Thanks to the Scottish Premier League’s remarkably pointless innovation of splitting the league in two with five games to go, Motherwell have been allocated a third visit to Parkhead on May Day. The SPL rules guarantee ‘so far as reasonably practicable’ that teams will play an equal number of home and away fixtures, but the Lanarkshire club will end up with 18 home games and 20 away, and has announced that it will exhaust ‘all avenues of protest’ to complain about the lopsided allocation. Expect to see manager Craig Brown chained to the gates of Hampden Park any day now.” (WSC)
“Neil Lennon, when given the chance to cut his managerial teeth at Celtic following Tony Mowbray’s dismissal, cited Pep Guardiola as proof that inexperience was not necessarily an impediment to success. It was an unwise comparison to draw and, in the light of Celtic’s calamitous Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, looks all the more wildly misplaced.” (ESPN)
“Tony Mowbray breezed into Parkhead in the summer of 2009, looking every bit the likely messiah. Nine months later his reign came to an inglorious end – nominally ‘by mutual consent’ but smacking every bit of a forced exit. A popular Celtic player in his day, he had earned his managerial stripes in the SPL helping Hibernian to overachieve while playing eyecatching football – a philosophy further developed while taking West Brom into the Premier League.” (World Soccer)
“It’s hard for an incomer to get used to, but Scotland is just the most extraordinary and spectacular country. One of my favourite drives is the drop down off the M9 into Perth. If you’re passing through the city, you’ll negotiate a series of roundabouts on the city’s edge, and you’ll see signposts pointing, temptingly, to something called ‘The Stadium.’ They make it sound like the Nou Camp, but the signs actually refer to the home of St Johnstone F.C. , McDiarmid Park, and they commemorate a superb gesture by a local farmer, Bruce McDiarmid. Bruce gave St Johnstone £400,000 worth of his land for a new ground “as a gift to the city” when Asda bought up the old ground. He’s not one for the spotlight, and had to be strong-armed into accepting any kind of recognition for his generosity.” (More Than Mind Games)
Map: Ordnance Survey One-inch “Popular” edition, Scotland, 1921-1930
“It seems appropriate that, in the week after rumours of his departure from the managerial position at Ipswich Town started to do the rounds, our Video Of The Week should be about one of the more complex characters of the last twenty years or so of English football, Roy Keane. Keane’s journey from Cobh Ramblers to Manchester United and the captaince of the Republic of Ireland has been well documented, but this programme tells his story as well as anywhere, including his fractious relationship with Brian Clough at his first club, Nottingham Forest, the inconsistent explanations over that tackle on Alfe-Inge Haaland and his dispute with Mick McCarthy prior to the 2002 World Cup finals, a dispute that ended his international career long before it had run its natural course.” (twohundredpercent)
“The fallout of Tony Mowbray’s sacking at Celtic leaves behind a trail of blame, bitterness and recrimination – but one person has come out as the winner from Mowbray’s disastrous reign. Neil Lennon. The Parkhead hero has been drafted in as the interim manager, bringing with him former team-mate and good pal, Johan Mjallby to try and salvage something from such a turgid season, but the fact that he has been handed the job when Mowbray had barely left the manager’s seat is not the reason why.” (ScotZine)
“For many, the word “ultra” conjures up images of violence on the terraces or on the streets around the stadiums in countries such as Italy or Greece and in some parts of South America. Incessant chanting, mass crowd participation, choreographed displays and fireworks are all integral parts of the ultra culture throughout the world. But ultras and hooligans are different things and eventually the authorities here will come to realise that. The first group to endorse the phenomenon in the UK were Aberdeen fans, the Red Ultras. Formed over a decade ago, the group announced recently that they would be disbanding with immediate effect.” (WSC)
Tony Mowbray
“In Scottish football parlance, Wednesday night in Paisley marked Tony Mowbray’s George Burley moment. As Steven Thomson slammed home a fourth St Mirren goal against Mowbray’s Celtic, the manager’s job finally became untenable. Just, indeed, as did that of Burley as Scotland fell to a shambolic friendly 3-0 defeat in Wales last November.” (Guardian)
Chile 2-0 Italy, World Cup first round, 1962.
“Chile was recovering from an earthquake that had killed nearly 6,000 people, and didn’t have much money in the first place, so its countryfolk weren’t particularly disposed to tolerate the two Italian journalists who swanned into Santiago ahead of the World Cup finals, sifted through the wreckage, and sent home dispatches painting a picture of Chile’s capital as a poverty-stricken hole full of loose women.” (Guardian)
“Everyone knows footballers live a life less ordinary, but Brian Laudrup must be in a select band of one to have personal experience of the inside of a car boot after being whisked away from the clutches of irate Fiorentina fans. ‘It was a complete nightmare,’ Laudrup told Soccernet of his first season of calico, the topsy-turvy 1992-93 campaign which saw La Viola metamorphose from title pretenders to relegation fodder. ‘The fans were so disappointed. I don’t think they wanted to beat us up, but it was a very hostile atmosphere. Cars were set alight, armed police on the streets, so it was quite hectic’.” (ESPN)
“Some ill-advised comments made by the Celtic chairman John Reid at last year’s club AGM may now be coming back to haunt him, as rivals Rangers seem to be coasting to a Scottish Premier League championship. Mark Murphy takes a look at how the two clubs have progressed this season and finds that Reid’s bullishness couldn’t have come with much worse timing.” (twohundredpercent)
“It’s springtime, so discussion has started again about how to make the game in Scotland more exciting but, as Gavin Saxton reports, none of those that are being put forward are likely to do much about the two or three elephants that live in the room that is Scottish football.” (twohundredpercent)
“Hidden away in the back pages of a couple of local newspapers, another football club is dying. It’s a club that has been to the brink before and, unlike, other, bigger clubs that have faced financial problems this season, they haven’t exactly hogged the headlines over the last couple years or so.” (twohundredpercent)
“Noticing the lack of decent writing about the post-devolution Scottish experience, Gary Hassan turns his attention to the superior insights available in – of all places – recent books about Scottish football…” (More Than Mind Games)
Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi
“Rangers moved a step closer to securing a second successive Scottish Premier League title with victory over 10-man Celtic in a pulsating Old Firm derby. Robbie Keane was denied a debut goal when Allan McGregor twice saved brilliantly to thwart the striker. Rangers had a Maurice Edu goal chalked off for Kenny Miller’s handball. Celtic captain Scott Brown was controversially red-carded following a clash with Kyle Lafferty before Edu scrambled home the winner at Ibrox.” (BBC)
Tony Mowbray queries standards of referees but sees no bias against Celtic
“Tony Mowbray is a man who prefers to deal with statistical evidence, rather than conspiracy theories. So the Celtic manager will be hoping that his number comes up in more ways than one when he takes his side to Ibrox tomorrow.” (TimesOnline)
No paranoia at Celtic, says Tony Mowbray ahead of must-win Old Firm clash
“It is a safe assumption that the leak was designed to put the performance of Sunday’s referee – in this case, Dougie McDonald –under even more intense scrutiny than is normal on such occasions. However, Mowbray made it clear that Celtic, like any other Scottish club, have exercised their right to discuss such matters with the SFA’s head of refereeing development, Hugh Dallas.” (Telegraph)
“Old Firm games rarely fail to throw up controversial storylines and juicy sub-plots ahead of the big kick off, which only serve to add even more appeal to the famous fixture. Throw in an alleged attack, alongside the pending debut of a new hero and the events leading up to the latest blockbuster between the two arch rivals could scarcely have been more colourful.”> (ESPN)
Rangers v Celtic
“Rangers goalkeeper Allan McGregor will be in the squad for Celtic’s visit to Ibrox on Sunday. McGregor has recovered from injuries sustained in a night out incident, while midfielder Lee McCulloch is expected to shake off a knock. Celtic striker Robbie Keane has not trained all week and will be assessed before the lunchtime kick-off.” (BBC)
Scott McDonald backs ref to handle Old Firm pressure
“Former Celtic striker Scott McDonald says ref Dougie McDonald is more than capable of handling any extra pressure put on him for Sunday’s Old Firm derby. His former club this week expressed fears over refereeing standards.” (BBC)
“Such is the hysteria that engulfs Glasgow ahead of Old Firm derbies, even dogs on the street have a view on who’s going to win. On Sunday, Rangers play Celtic in front of 50,000 emotionally-frazzled fans at Ibrox. Countless more will be viewing and listening at home; while others, unable to watch, pace the room until the madness of the derby of derbies is over.” (BBC)
“Sorry, I can’t be arsed blogging too much today as I’ve got a lot to do before I’m away on my holidays at the end of the week. Besides, I missed most of the weekend’s action due to sheer apathy, so I’m not exactly a fountain of stroke-yer-beard insights theday. The following is pretty much all I could muster as I sat staring into my mulligatawny soup and sweaty cheese sandwich over lunch this afternoon.” (Inside Left)
England against Scotland in 1877
“Let’s talk about Scottish football for a bit. We’ve obviously visited this ground before; back in November, Fuse did an incredibly intricate and in-depth series of posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4) looking at the troubles of the Scottish League, In it, he surmised that the easiest way to fix the problem of declining revenues and quality was to consolidate several local clubs into one team; the revenues to keep lower league teams (and, truthfully, some upper league teams) are just not there to support one club per 20,269 citizens.” (Avoiding the Drop)
“Rangers and Celtic’s financial futures look a little bleaker today. Scotland will only have one entrant in the UEFA Champions League for the 2011-12 season, after falling below Belgium in the rankings used to determine each country’s qualifiers. Moreover, their champions will not advance automatically to the group stage, and will instead have to navigate through three qualifying rounds.” (Pitch Invasion)
“The state and importance of Scottish football both fascinates and repels large parts of Scotland – but there can be little doubt that the condition of the game and how we see it throws light on Scottish culture and society. In the last week, I have watched Motherwell v Rangers and Aberdeen v Celtic live on TV, and went to the St. Johnstone v Dundee United cup tie. Taking all three of these together gives a number of pointers about the health of the game.” (Gerry Hassan)
“The great musician Gil Scott-Heron is touring with an album (I’m New Here). He’s stirring up all sorts of excitement in fans of ‘the godfather of rap,’ who are thrilled to hear new music from the genre-defining/bending artist who has struggled in recent years with addiction.” (From A Left Wing)
“A manager on the brink of quitting would typically walk head-down along the touchline after the defeat which seals their fate, ignoring abuse from fans nearby. But as Bradford’s 1-0 loss to Bury on Saturday spelt the end for Stuart McCall – his resignation was confirmed on Monday – he embarked on a lap around the pitch at the final whistle to applaud supporters. Putting aside two and a half years of frustrating League Two failure, almost everyone inside the stadium applauded him back.” (WSC)
“Sorry this is a bit late, I’ve been otherwise engaged. That generally involves eating biscuits and pretending to do DIY, but don’t tell the mrs. Anyway, to the football. I’ll admit it. I was stunned to see Robbie Keane at Celtic Park on the transfer deadline day. It was a real coup for the club, and one which has certainly captured the imagination of the Celtic support, myself included.” (The Great Footballing Circus)
“James Richardson invites Barry Glendenning, Kevin McCarra and John Ashdown to round up all the big football stories, some of which don’t involve takeovers, administration and bedroom shenanigans. FA Cup replays are on the agenda, after Spurs ended Leeds’s spirited run and Palace knocked out Wolves with a perfect hat-trick from Danny Butterfield, of all people.” (Guardian – James Richardson)
Scott Brown
“Rangers are still 10 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premier League after a 3-0 win over Falkirk at Ibrox. In honesty, it was a pretty flat game with the class of Steven Davis playing a big part in deciding the result. The Northern Irish midfielder scored the first for Rangers after 18 minutes with a superb free-kick from 25 yards out. Davis then notched his 13th assist of the season with a lovely pass across the face of goal for the on-rushing John Fleck who managed to sneak the ball into the net.” (Soccer Lens)
A 10 point-gap in the SPL: is the season over?
“Travelling back home through Gatwick last night, I quickly checked the football scores before switching off the phone for the flight. At the time, Rangers where winning 1-0 against St Mirren and Celtic where 1-0 up against Hibs. Nothing unusual in that I thought, but as an illustration of the fragility of the Old Firm this season, by the time I landed in Rotterdam, Celtic had somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and websites across the nation decreed the end of the Scottish football season for 2009/10.” (Inside Left)
Hamilton 0 – 1 Celtic
“Morten Rasmussen bagged his first Celtic goal to set up an unconvincing win at Hamilton Accies. The Danish striker immediately marked his arrival as a substitute with a sharp turn and shot on 67 minutes. Prior to Rasmussen’s strike, Celtic had toiled to break down stubborn, if unadventurous, opponents, with little goalmouth action to excite the fans.” (BBC)
“Since Scottish league football began in the 1890’s, the game north of the border has been dominated by the two Glasgow giants, Rangers, with 52 titles, and Celtic, with 42. This dominance is partly due to the size of Glasgow itself, and the Greater Glasgow area, which boasts approximately 2.3 Million people, around forty percent of Scotland’s population. Also the size of their respective fan bases rightly puts them among the biggest and most well supported clubs in Europe, indeed the world.” (First Touch Online)
Celtic pick up their own ‘Duncan’
“Celtic manager Tony Mowbray’s bid to freshen up his squad has taken another step forward as Danish striker Morten ‘Duncan’ Rasmussen sealed his £1.8 million move from Brondby following the obligatory medical check in Glasgow.” (ESPN)
SPL Team of the Week – January 25
“MARC-ANTOINE FORTUNE (Celtic): The cynics claimed that he was a waste of money, but the best way for any striker to silence the doubters is to do his talking on the pitch and Fortune conjured up a quite superb goal to level matters against St Johnstone, before adding to his tally as the Celts shrugged off their initial torpor.” (ESPN)
Drawings of the first international between England and Scotland in 1872 show some of the virtues of the burgeoning British style
“Celtic travel to Morton today for a Scottish fourth round Cup tie that assistant manager Mark Venus has declared to be ‘a really difficult game against a team that is going to be fired up.’ It’s also against a team that has won twice at home all season and is third from bottom of the Scottish First Division.” (WSC)
Scissors Kick 