500

Regular readers will know that this blog is pretty much a stranger to planning.

So it's really nothing more than a fortuitous coincidence that the Blogger dashboard is informing that I've reached my 500th post on the same day as the 2010 World Cup kicks off.

And, if I had really planned it, I'd have had something to say.

Maybe I'd have said something profound about how, even though FIFA is corrupt and inexcusable, even though football is now a bloated, commercialised, egomaniacal disgrace, there is still going to be something emotional, something incredible, about the World Cup kicking off in Africa for the first time.

Maybe I'd have delivered a rant about how, despite 499 posts and almost four years of blogging, Scottish football is no further forward than when I started. Not, you understand, that I expected this blog to make a difference. Just that the game might have made some progress. In fact, when I consider that George Peat is currently both president and chief executive of the SFA, we appear to be hurtling backwards.

Maybe I'd have written something witty and self deprecating about Hibs now failing to win the Scottish Cup in 500 blog posts as well as what feels like 500 years.

Maybe I'd have worried about the financial plight of Scottish football and the resounding wall of silence in the game when people go looking for answers.

Maybe I'd have noted with weary resignation that nothing ever changes. That in this blog's first season the Old Firm finished first and second in the SPL and Kris Boyd finished top goalscorer.

Maybe I'd have done some blatant self promotion for my Twitter account or the Scottish Football Blog Bookshop.

Maybe I'd have done one of these things. Or all of them. Or none of them.

But I hadn't planned anything.

So I'll just say thanks for reading some of the 500 posts and even occasionally letting me know what you think about my ramblings.

No doubt in the next 500 posts I'll return to some of the subjects I've written about before. Sometimes I'll write something worthwhile, though provoking or entertaining. Once in a while I might even pull off all three.

And sometimes I'll write a lot of rubbish. You're more than welcome to point this out. You can say what you like. After all, I moderate the comments myself.

It won't be long before our five brave clubs begin the annual assault on Europe, the league's get back to business and we see if Craig Levein's revolution is going anywhere.

The McLeish Report needs to be implemented. Football's debts need to be addressed. Somebody, somewhere needs to work out how to make Scottish football sustainable.

Along the way I'll be amused, annoyed, depressed, optimistic and convinced that we're all doomed.

Nothing much does change after all.

In the meantime enjoy the World Cup. And stick a fiver on Holland.