Hibs: Returning to the scene of the crime

Do Hibs feel the hand of Scottish Cup history on their shoulder? Or does it have them by the throat, threatening to throttle them once again?

They head to Hampden as favourites to beat Falkirk in the semi final - 1.6 to win at Unibet to Falkirk's 5.5 - but demons lurk in every corner.

What do we chew on at the betting online feast? Back the SPL side against a team 20 points off the pace in the First Division?

But what if the SPL side haven't won this cup for 111 years, are attempting to reach back to back finals for the first time since 1924 and haven't played at Hampden since suffering their most traumatic defeat there last May?

What if the SPL team is Hibs?

A third Scottish Cup trip to Hampden for Pat Fenlon in less than two seasons in charge.

He might wish it was only the second but, as I said before last year's final "incident," his record in reaching finals in Ireland proved attractive to the Hibs board when they gave him the job. The limited evidence to hand suggests he might struggle to convert finals into trophies but, still, he got us there.

That Fenlon has brought Hibs to consecutive semi finals in the Scottish Cup belies his league record. While Fenlon inherited a mess from Colin Calderwood, just 15 wins from over 50 SPL games shows how difficult he's found it to wade through the rubbish.

The league form includes a run of just 16 points from the last 60 available, just one more than Dundee. A season of progress?

So Hibs, being Hibs, battle not just history this weekend but also fling a dollop of dreadful form into the mix.

What's gone wrong?

It seems a long time ago that they were topping the table in the autumn, putting together an early run of results that looked like making a top six place little more than a formality.

Players have lost form, an over reliance on Leigh Griffiths - who has so often sparkled on the pitch and covered a myriad of his team's sins - has been exacerbated by a roster of senior strikers that includes only the departing Eoin Doyle and the never-quite-here Shefki Kuqi.

Injuries and loss of form have highlighted a lack of cover in defence and if the signing of midfielders - extending beyond the transfer window with the reintroduction of Kevin Thomson - has become a fetish, it's not always led to satisfaction in the middle of the park.

At times inept, occasionally overly cautious and often just devoid of ideas, the promise of an Easter Road resurrection has been replaced by hints of insurrection.

Rod Petrie's towering 'tache might not yet be twitching but there are many in the support now convinced that a Petrie board has yet again picked the wrong manager.

Despite it all, just like they did last year, Hibs have carried on regardless in the Scottish Cup.

A mildly cathartic deflection in the Edinburgh derby, a hen's tooth of a stotter from Gary Deegan against Aberdeen, a Griffiths hat-trick at Kilmarnock.

And now just another 90 minutes away from a chance to laugh at 111 years of history while curing a little of the post traumatic stress suffered in Leith since last year.

Better to forget all that. Hibs have suffered at Hampden as underdogs and as favourites, Falkirk have upset the odds against better teams than this.

A semi final win is the only thing that can energise this comatose season at Easter Road.

Why wouldn't Falkirk revel in the chance to deny Hibs even an outside shot at redemption? Nothing sweetens an upset like the sight of suffering on the other side.

Hibs must find focus where too often they've looked detached, leaders must rediscover their qualities, players who have spent too many games coasting must find a spark.

Defeating 111 years of misery can wait, this semi final is about throwing off the pain of another wasted season.

What's gone before will show itself in empty terraces but there will be passion there.

Passion too from Falkirk. Will the Hibs players match it?

I'll troop loyally to Hampden once again, joining the rest of the victims returning to the scene of the crime.

All too often I've been mugged by own team.

Not this time, boys. Please, not this time.

Falkirk v Celtic

Saturday 15th October 2011.

Celtic, fresh from a defeat at Tynecastle, are 3-0 down at half time to Kilmarnock.

Winning the title looks a long way off, Neil Lennon's managerial coat seems to hang on an ever shooglier peg.

They came back to draw 3-3, three goals in a 10 minute burst from Anthony Stokes and Charlie Mulgrew salvaging a point. And, with hindsight, transforming a season.

That draw was the start of a run that has seen Celtic lose just one game in 21. That defeat came against Atletico Madrid in the Europa League. The last point they dropped in the SPL was at home to Hibs on 29th October.

Along the way they've scored 41 goals across four competitions and conceded - including those three at Rugby Park - just 13.

An emphatic turnaround powered by form that looks - from this distance at least - to carry treble winning potential.

That, for Falkirk, is the depressing reality that punctures dreams of semi final glory at Hampden today.

Lose a two goal lead and then beat Rangers in injury time. Come from behind in extra time to beat Dundee United on penalties.

And then face another mountain to climb at Hampden. If Falkirk are to get to the league cup final they'll have done it the hard way.

Neil Lennon has been a model of admiration on the topic of Falkirk and their manager Steven Pressley this week.

Even allowing for hackneyed managerial chat - and, perhaps, attempts to defuse any lingering ill-feeling from a past personality clash - it's easy to see why.

Written off and the butt of a thousand internet jokes, Pressley has persevered. Instructed to cut his cloth in line with Falkirk's poverty, he's built a young team with determination and imagination. Today's semi final is a just reward.

A just reward but a mission just about impossible. It's true that Celtic's recent run has been hugely impressive without being scintillating in every game.

But they win and they win and they win. Celtic could have an off day, Falkirk could play as well they've ever played. And Celtic might still find a way past them. It's a habit they've got at the moment and it's proving a hard one to break.

Maybe if Falkirk can get an early goal, maybe...

Another semi final, another win for an SPL club. I'd not bet against it.

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Falkirk: Bairns Learn History?

Falkirk face Celtic in a semi-final knowing that Kilmarnock lie in wait in the final.

It's the 1997 Scottish Cup all over again. History doesn't repeat itself, does it?

Mind you, Falkirk don't have the best of records in the league cup. They qualified for the second final back in 1947/48 and promptly lost 4-1 in a replay against Second Division East Fife.

Celtic, meanwhile, have won the trophy 14 times and played in 28 finals.

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Scottish Cup: Latapy Rises In The East

Edinburgh City v Irvine Meadow in the Scottish Cup today.

And, it seems, a City debut for Russell Latapy.

A remarkable signing. A union, fittingly, sealed in an Edinburgh nightclub.



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Forgotten Scotland Players: Eddie Connachan

1961. Scotland continue to just about hold their own the world stage. But not when it counts. The Sixties have dawned on the back of two chastening World Cup experiences. The decade will go on to swing but its major championships are denied a tartan tinge.

In November 1961 Scotland travel to Belgium for a World Cup qualification match against Czechoslovakia. It’s the third meeting between the sides in a year after a 4-0 reverse in Bratislava and a 3-2 win at Hampden.

Both sides had beaten group whipping boys Republic of Ireland so, despite the far superior Czech goal difference, a clash at the neutral Heysel Stadium was required.

Three team qualification groups. No place for goal difference or a head-to-head count back: a different world.

The Beatles were still learning their trade in Hamburg, JFK had only been in the Oval Office for a matter of months. Man was nowhere near the moon. The Prague Spring would have seemed inconceivable in a Czechoslovakia still in the clench of Stalinism.

It’s unlikely that any of this preoccupied the Scottish Football Blog’s sixth Forgotten Scotland Player as he prepared for his international debut.

In the winter of 1961 Eddie Connachan must have felt something of a spring in his step. Jock Stein might have been the architect of Dunfermline’s 1961 Scottish Cup victory but it was Connachan, the goalkeeper, who was vociferously celebrated.

His heroics as custodian (when did "custodian" drop out of common parlance?) in the final and replay against Celtic had seen his euphoric teammates carry him shoulder high from the pitch and led Celtic captain Billy McNeill to say:

"I have never seen anything like it. He broke our hearts and did as much as any `keeper I have ever seen."

450 minutes of cup football and not a single goal conceded. And, as a miner from Prestonpans, Connachan had even done his shift underground on the Monday and Tuesday before the Wednesday night replay.

By the time Scotland travelled to Belgium Connachan’s Dunfermline had already made it through to the quarter finals of the Cup Winner’s Cup.

Four years after arriving at East End Park at the age of 21, signed from Dalkeith Thistle, Eddie Connachan was scaling football heights from the Kingdom of Fife.

And now a Scotland cap.

No ordinary debut either. A World Cup place at stake, the unusual surrounds of a neutral venue and a big international being played in front of only 7000 fans.

It was an unsettled time for Scottish goalkeeping. Lawrie Leslie had played in three of the World Cup qualifiers but was replaced Tottenham’s Bill Brown for the Hampden game against the Czechs. Earlier in the year, of course, the unfortunate Frank Haffey had conceded nine goals at Wembley and carved out his own place in the hall of infamy.

So it was Connachan, the mining ‘keeper, who manager Ian McColl turned to for the biggest game of all.

Given the national team’s predilection for getting so far and then going no further it was always going to be a tough test for a rookie goalkeeper. And so it proved.

Scotland, a team riddled with names like Baxter, Law, Brand and White, took a first half lead through Ian St John.

Czechoslovakia equalised in the seventieth minute but the advantage was restored moments later when St John got his second. With 15 minutes to go Czechoslovakia equalised again and this time Scotland couldn’t find a response.

Two more Czech goals in extra time rounded off a 4-2 victory.

It must have been an agonising debut. Four goals conceded and the familiar feeling of that familiar failing: Scotland getting close but not close enough.

Yet Connachan had domestic form and age on his side. And this was a Scotland team that conceded 18 goals across eight games in 1961. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t feature again.

And he only had to wait until May 1962 for his next cap. A home debut, over 67,000 fans and a visit from Uruguay.

Having played for 120 minutes in his first international, Connachan’s second - and final - cap would last only 45 minutes.

Two goals down at half time McColl chose to make his goalkeeper the victim of the still relatively rare phenomenon of the friendly international substitution. He was replaced by Billy Ritchie of Rangers who immediately conceded a goal in what would be his only international appearance.

Late goals from Jim Baxter and Ralph Brand offered up a more respectable 3-2 defeat but the match remains an oddity for bringing the curtain down on two very short lived international goalkeeping careers.

By 1963 Dunfermline were prepared to let Connachan when an offer of £5,500 was received from Middlesbrough, then languishing with only middling success in England’s Second Division.

Almost 100 league appearances followed but Ayresome Park was witnessing a decline in fortunes. By 1966 Middlesbrough found themselves relegated to the Third Division and Connachan was back in Scotland with Falkirk.

He spent only two years at Brockville making less than 30 league appearances before moving to South Africa in 1968 - by which time his old boss Stein had won the European Cup with Ronnie Simpson, five years Connachan’s senior, in goal. The fluctuating fortunes of football.

While playing in England Connachan had taken his coaching badges and when he retired from playing chose to stay in South Africa as coach of East London United.

Still resident in South Africa today, Eddie Connachan was inducted into Dunfermline’s Hall of Fame in 2007 and returned to East End Park earlier this year to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his Scottish Cup shutout.

Forgotten Scotland Players number 6: Eddie Connachan, Dunfermline Athletic. 2 caps.

Dunfermline: Pars Party Up

Outwardly benign, really rather malevolent.

Inviting your enemies round for a house party is a nice gesture. Until they realise that most of the guests have only turned up to celebrate your achievements.

Cruel that.

Spare a thought for Falkirk’s fans. Off the pace in the First Division title race, financially suspect, offloading players here, there and everywhere and stuck with a divisive manager for another season.

The last thing they’ll want is to be part of Dunfermline’s title shindig.

But that’s exactly what they will be on Saturday. I suspect the faithful at East End Park won’t let them forget it. Not for a second of those ninety minutes.

It’s been an exciting First Division title race. A battle forged and fought in Fife but, for some, overshadowed by the ghost of Dundee’s aspirations.

That’s unfair. Dundee erred and were punished. A harsh punishment? Perhaps. But others have faced more stringent penalties.

It's said that without the punishment Dundee would have won the league. Would they? It surprises me some people can say that with such confidence. Prohibitive favourites, ahead and seemingly cruising they found a way to blow it last season. The truth is we don’t know.

People also tell me that it is the fans who suffer when such punishments are handed out. True that. And the Scottish Football League should be more consistent in dealing with such incidents. But the fans really suffer when cowboys, idiots, crooks and egotists turn up and ruin their football club, not because someone then has to hold those villains and ne’er-do-wells to account.

Dunfermline, and I’m sure they don’t anyway, need feel no guilt at Dundee’s expense.

As East End Park rocks, there will be thoughts of what might have been in Kirkcaldy.

In many ways Raith were the success of Scottish football this season. Their rise was surprising and sustained, in John McGlynn they delivered the manager of the year and they offered a new, enthralling plot to our stale footballing narrative.

Was I alone in relishing the look on the faces of some of our self styled SPL aristocrats when “little” Raith took their seat at the top table?

But it wasn’t to be.

Dunfermline saw them off and deserve their return.

Let’s hope those fans who snaffled tickets for their last derby showdown with Raith retain their enthusiasm and turn out in numbers for their SPL games. Certainly Dunfermline’s average gate over the last two seasons in the First Divsion will compare favourably with Hamilton’s in the top flight.

Manager Jim McIntyre has suggested he already has the nucleus of an SPL team. He might well look at the bottom six and think that, with a few additions, he doesn’t have too much to fear. I’ve already heard rumours linking him with a move for Hibs’ Ian Murray. There will be other competent SPL performers available should he feel he needs a touch more experience.

It’s not been a season without setbacks and stumbles. Considered among the favourites, and always one of the bigger teams in the league, Dunfermline did a fair bit of huffing and puffing along the way.

But they kept enough form throughout the season to lay the building blocks when the momentum did come. And well timed it was.

The last eleven games negotiated without defeat, including wins over Falkirk and Raith and a draw against Dundee when Barry Smith’s men looked determined to at least still have a say in the title race.

Impressive stuff. Championship winning, promotion garnering stuff.

A lot of the hard work will only start now. But, just before it does, there’s time for a bit of a party.

Try and remember to be nice to the Bairns.

Falkirk: More Financial Woe

This evening, as Scottish football continued the season's strange trend towards self immolation, Falkirk were beating Partick Thistle at Firhill.

Not massively remarkable in itself. But a welcome break for Falkirk fans in a season of growing worry.

On the pitch there's a common belief that Steven Pressley is not the right man for the manager's job.

Again that's not remarkable. Winning over hearts and minds in Falkirk is not easy, they're an unforgiving bunch.

More worrying than Pressley's continued presence is the news that Falkirk are skint. Potless.

At a fans meeting last night assurances were given that there is not any threat of administration, that neither the bank nor the taxman were due any outstanding amounts.

But there is a cash flow problem. One, Falkirk forums are suggesting, so severe that season ticket sales for next season are the only reliable way the club have of clambering to the relative safety of summer.

At which point players can be jettisoned, the wage bill cut and belts tightened to the point of corsetry.

Which is a hand to mouth existence. An existence that depends on the continued faith of fans who have been let down by their board before.

And an existence that seems to offer those fans only survival rather than the promotion push they want.

So it's a business plan but it doesn't look like the most watertight of strategies.

Perhaps the board's apparent confidence is well placed, a readjustment to new financial constraints will prove this to be no more than a blip.

But right now Falkirk look part of the ever growing list of Scottish football clubs that can make no claim on being sustainable businesses.

When the board is unpopular, when the manager is disliked and the squad is about to be asset stripped, relying on the continued faith of the fans is precarious.

As Scottish football is dragged towards civil war we're in danger of forgetting that large chunks of our game appear to be bankrupt.

As our arguments become ever more vituperative we risk ignoring that the SPL's Neil Doncaster is the only person to have articulated a strategy for saving the game.

And, sadly, his is a plan that looks as flimsy as Falkirk's plea to keep calm and carry on.

John White: Memories of The Ghost Live On

I'm looking forward to reading the new biography of John White, The Ghost of White Hart Lane, written by his son Rob White and Julie Welch.

White, of course, formed part of a tartan trinity with Bill Brown and Dave Mackay that helped drive Spurs to the Double in 1961 and the Cup Winner's Cup two years later.

Plucked from Falkirk in 1959 (Brown joined Spurs from Dundee, Mackay from Hearts), White was to be the fulcrum of Bill Nicholson's revamped Spurs in the mid sixties when tragedy struck.

Killed by lightning while golfing at the age of 27, White's career was cut tragically short.

A 2008 Scotland on Sunday article reported:

[Dave] Mackay asked the other day why we were writing about White now but then quickly answered his own question. "Ah, son, you don't need a reason." How good was he, we asked Jimmy Greaves. "Had John lived," said Greaves, "he could have been one of the greatest footballers of all time." How did the fans take to him? "I've been going to the Lane since 1952," says Peter Barnes, a diehard Spur. "Before me, my dad went from 1926. We cover a lot of history between us and John White was at the top table of greats of this club."

He was discovered the old fashioned way as well. Musselburgh born, White's career took him from East Lothian youth football to Bonnyrigg Rose in the juniors to Alloa and Falkirk in the professional leagues.

Spurs persevered where other big English clubs had given up, put off by his slight stature. The wily Nicholson apparently used his army contacts to discover that White's time in the services included a stint as a cross country running champion. Assured of his stamina, Nicholson signed his man.

Holding his own with players like Greaves in the Spurs side and linking up with Denis Law and Jim Baxter in his 22 Scotland games, White was clearly a rare talent.

"Will o' the wisp" is a phrase you often hear in people's recollections of him, the "Ghost" nickname coming from his ability to arrive in the box as if from nowhere.

In a week when Spurs are enraptured by a multi-million pound squad assembled from around the world, it's strange to think that Mackay and White, from Edinburgh and Musselburgh, were the heartbeat of a side that won British football's first European trophy.

That the book is co-authored by White's son delivers an added poignancy. Rob White was barely six months old when his father was killed.

It should at least be another step to ensure that the memory of Spurs' Ghost lives on.

Kenny Milne's Wicked Wiki

Bizarrely enough Kenny Milne, once of Hearts, Cowdenbeath, Partick Thistle and Falkirk, is given the full Wikipedia treatment.

The entry begins:

Milne endured a difficult upbringing in life and was raised and looked after by a pack of wolves in the Scottish Highlands. The wolves are meant to be the only remaining one who still remain in Scotland and the bond created between the wolves and Milne was said to have stunned the experts who continued to watch this amazing real life Jungle Book story until they felt it was safe to remove Milne from his adopted parents and move him onto human parents. Nicknamed Mowgli by the adoption centre he was taken to, Milne was adopted to a married couple and began a normal upbringing in Alloa, although some people thought he would have been safer being left in the wild with the wolves. Each year Milne would spend a week back in the Highlands with the wolves until the passing of the mother wolf in 2001, the father wolf was never seen again and to this day has never been found.

More here.

Thanks to @loveandgarbage

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Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent

Is summer football going to become a bugbear of mine? Probably not. But there is a problem with our schedule. And that's mixed in with my traditional moan: our inexplicable problem with scheduling home-away-home-away games for clubs.

Do we want to make it more difficult for fans to watch Scottish football? It seems so.

Here's an exert from The Scotsman today:

The scheduled SFL game of the day at the weekend was in Falkirk, with Raith Rovers supposed to be the visitors. A crowd in excess of 5,000 had been anticipated; that figure is unlikely to be matched if the teams play on the rearranged date of 14 December. Hospitality packages purchased with Saturday in mind will suffer an inevitable drop-off for a Tuesday night; all in all, it is a costly process for the home club.

"It's a funny one because normally we would have moved heaven and earth to make sure the game went ahead," said Falkirk's managing director George Craig.

"We had everything in place - gritters, snow ploughs and the like but we had to take a view. Even if we managed to get the game on, what would have been the possibility of people being prepared to travel?

"People have struggled to get the schools and their work all week, were they then likely to come out for the football on a Saturday? With that in mind, it was probably one of the easiest decisions we have had to make. And that's not even taking into account the pitch, which is sitting with ten inches of snow on it just now."

The balance sheet, though, will feel the impact of Falkirk's current situation. "We are not due to have a home Saturday game until 18 December," Craig added. "That will mean a six-week gap between them. When you are in the SFL, gate receipts basically are your income."

As The Scotsman points out Alloa's game against Peterhead went ahead, the artificial pitch proving its worth.

But a fake surface wouldn't really have helped Falkirk this week.

Clubs are being crippled by winter weather. Dare I say that we're also not seeing our players at their best because we ask them to play at the wrong time of the year.

Major leagues in Europe don't have winter breaks or summer football. Well, we're not a major league. We need to do everything we can to improve the quality of our football and maximise our earning potential.

Summer football or a total (three month?) shutdown? I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's time for a serious discussion.

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Big Bairns don't cry

The relegation post.

Don't like writing these. Always feel like it's intruding on private grief. Or tempting fate for next season.

But it has to be done.

So farewell Falkirk. Unable to repeat last season's final day heroics, a no scoring draw with Kilmarnock sealed their fate.

Some of us feared for them from the start of the season. The appointment of Eddie May was an admirable move by a club that likes to reward its own and craves stability. But it was also the cheap move. It proved costly.

May had neither the experience nor the funds to solve the problems that saw Falkirk sink into the relegation battle last season.

37 goals was enough for 38 points and third bottom a year ago. 31 goals was enough for only 31 points and relegation this year. How fitting that it was a goalless draw that tipped them over the edge.

Let's not leave May shouldering all the blame. He hardly inherited a world beating squad from John Hughes and key players were allowed to leave without the resources for adequate replacements.

When May bowed to the inevitable the club turned to Steven Pressley. He brought more cohesion and his outspoken attacks on anyone and everyone brought the bunker mentality that was needed.

But here was another untried manager trying to turn things around. It was a risk. In both appointments the Falkirk board might have pointed to the presence of Alex Smith as a wise head to help bring stability. It seems that neither May or Pressley were quick to seek his counsel.

So it has come to this. The more I write, the more I feel a depressing inevitability to the whole thing. I'm sure some Falkirk fans will feel the same.

No matter how pretty the passing, how pure the ideals, a team as blunt as Falkirk will always struggle. Last season was the warning. Someone at the club chose not to listen.

So now they find themselves stuck in the First Division. Where to from here? League reconstruction might yet save them.

If not they'll be looking to win a competitive league with an even tighter budget and a still relatively untried manager.

I wish them good luck. I suspect they'll need it.

Things could be a lot worse

I've barely been able to sleep these past few nights, my peaceful nights ripped asunder by the gnashing of teeth as Hibs fans digest yet another derby defeat.

John Hughes has claimed 100% backing from the fans. I suppose this is in much the same way that Peter Mandelson might claim 100% backing from the electorate.

But amid the doom people should remember that things could be a lot, lot worse.

So why not try and break the cycle of insomnia with some masochism?

Hibs fans: a mid season collapse is not the end of the world.

Falkirk and Kilmarnock: this is what you're playing to avoid on Saturday.

It's now or never

Given their current predicament and the recent SPL trend for the more mature manager we might have expected Falkirk to go from May to December.

Instead they've replaced the inexperienced Eddie May with the inexperienced Steven Pressley.

It's a major vote of confidence from the Falkirk board, entrusting their SPL survival to a newcomer who only gave up playing a few months ago.

Well, no, it isn't really. It's a cheap option made by a club that must already be budgeting for the cost of relegation. If Elvis keeps them up then he'll have exceeded expectations. If they go down then they are not lumbered with a big contract for an established manager.

Pressley's contract runs only until the end of the season. At that point the club will know if they need to replace him with someone who can win them promotion.

Joining him in the dugout is Alex Smith who filled the Director of Football role with Eddie May. Smith's role never seemed well defined when the new team was unveiled following John Hughes' departure for Easter Road. As assistant coach he should at least be able to use his experience in a practical role without stepping on any toes.

And what experience he has. Fittingly he was born on Christmas Day because he is as old as Santa. No, he's not really but he is older than old Father Time himself. Or Craig Brown as he's known in Motherwell.

The Falkirk fans, although aware that the club have taken the Poundland approach to managerial recruitment even in this darkest of hours, should be comforted by Smith's emergence in a more hands on role. Eddie May seemed intent on asserting his own authority where a calmer, older head might have offered sage advice.

But Elvis is the figurehead and he'll need to deal with the suspicious minds (chortle, chortle) on the terraces. He used his press conference today to predict Falkirk's survival, hardly a surprise as few managers have ever taken a job while predicting a club's relegation.

Sadly fighting talk doesn't distract anyone from the gravity of the situation. Falkirk have 15 games to avoid Heartbreak Hotel, to escape Crying In The Chapel, to avoid the relegation that would make even a Wooden Heart bleed. (That's enough.)

Nothing we've seen from them so far suggests that this Falkirk team are capable of building the momentum that will propel them to safety. Steven Pressley doesn't appear to be the kind of guy who shirks a challenge.

Just as well, because he somehow needs to bring confidence to a team with none, consistency to a side bogged down in mediocrity and persuade a group of players of varying abilities that they can somehow develop the cohesiveness and spirit that they surely need to stand even a fighting chance of condemning someone else to relegation.

I wish him well but I don't envy him the job. I think he might surprise us at times, that results might pick up a little bit. But I've got a horrible feeling that, come May, we'll be saying that "Falkirk have left the building."

May Day

If eyebrows were raised when Eddie May was appointed as Falkirk manager last summer there can have few gasps of surprise that has tenure has not lasted the full course of the SPL campaign.

Indeed the only shock might be that it has taken so long for the axe to fall.

This has been a desperate campaign for May and his players. 12 league defeats and only three wins mean bottom place has become the Bairns' natural playground.

Last night's defeat to Kilmarnock sent them crashing back down to earth after a win at Aberdeen had given hope and lifted them to the heady heights of eleventh place.

His final game seemed to sum up May's whole tenure: a meek capitualtion at home to relegation rivals hints at a team that finds itself powerless to halt the slide, of a manager who is unable to turn the tide.

Despite a long association with the club May has never seemed comfortable as manager. His coaching career has been spent doing solid work in the shadows, from the moment of an embarassing European exit to a team that seemed to define the term minnows he has looked uncomfortable in the limelight.

Falkirk have lost 14 players since John Hughes departed. Finances have dictated that they have not all been replaced and the players that have come in have not all been of a similar standard. All this from a squad that only narrowly avoided relegation last year. It would be understandable if May felt he could see the writing on the wall the moment he came to write down his first teamsheet.

A confidentiality agreement will likely deny us the chance to hear his true thoughts but it seems clear that he felt he was given assurances from the board that they failed to deliver on. The feeling that his hands were tied will have increased his unease in the role.

At times these frustrations have tumbled out - as seen by a series of digs at his predecessor, out of character outbursts that helped create an entirely erroneous impression of the man.

So the Falkirk is a hard job but not an impossible one for the right man.

Sadly Eddie May was the wrong man.

The very qualifications he brought to the job were part of the problem. As he left yesterday he said:

The Celtic match at Falkirk was a particular high for me as a manager, I was proud to manage the team which included 9 academy graduates.

Academy director and manager are very different roles. May might have known his players better than anyone but he may not have known how to handle them in his new role. They, in turn, might well have felt a confusion in reacting to a man who was so recently their mentor and was now their master.

The rudderless season they have endured points to these tensions remaining unresolved throughout the campaign.

Falkirk now have 15 games to save themselves. I'm sure, despite it all, Eddie May will be willing them on every step of the way.

21 steps to Scotland's European failure

21 games. Each with its own background, its own unique circumstances. The cumulative effect is a European nightmare for Scottish football. Since July we've appeared about as comfortable on the continent as Norman Tebbit at a Eurovision convention.

21 games. In blogs, phone ins, forums and newspapers fans scream for change. It seems to fall on deaf ears. What else needs to happen for somebody, somewhere to step in and say “enough?”

21 games. Something is horribly wrong. Some blame it on money. And we're not rich but we've lost European games to teams from Lichtenstein, Wales, Romania, Israel and Albania. It's not powerhouses of world football that are making us look like amateurs: Rangers, our champions, lost 4-1 at home to a team that had never, ever played top flight football before 2006.

21 games. Is it the coaching, the players, the training regimes, a generation of players who just don't care? I don't know but something has got to change.

21 games.Six teams, half our top league, set off on foreign adventures this summer. Four were knocked out before August was finished and a fifth, Celtic, had been demoted to the second tier competition.

21 games. Something has to change.

21 games. I've collated all the results - and highlighted a few stats that leapt out at me. I'm sure you'll have your own facts and figures to illuminate the sheer horror of our failings but these will get you started.

• 21 games played
• 5 games won
• 2 games drawn

• 4 games have seen Scottish sides concede four or more goals (Rangers twice, Aberdeen and Hearts)
• 8 games have seen Scottish sides concede three or more goals (Rangers, Motherwell and Aberdeen twice, Hearts and Celtic)
• 3 ties have seen Scottish sides concede five or more goals on aggregate (Celtic, Motherwell and Aberdeen)

• Only 3 games have been won at home (Falkirk, Motherwell and Hearts)
• Only 2 games have been won away (Motherwell and Celtic)
  

• 24 goals have been scored by Scottish clubs (Motherwell's 8 in one game inflates that figure and provides a little light relief)
• 42 goals have been conceded (an average of two a game)

• Only Falkirk and Hearts have managed to keep a clean sheet at home
• Only Celtic and Motherwell have managed to keep a clean sheet away

Falkirk 1 – 0 FC Vaduz
FC Vaduz 2 – 0 Falkirk

Motherwell 0 – 1 Llanelli
Llanelli 0 – 3 Motherwell

Flamurtari 1 – 0 Motherwell
Motherwell 8 – 1 Flamurtari

Steaua Bucharest 3 – 0 Motherwell
Motherwell 1 – 3 Steaua Bucharest

Aberdeen 1 – 5 SK Sigma Olomouc
SK Sigma Olomouc 3 – 0 Aberdeen

Dinamo Zagreb 4 – 0 Hearts
Hearts 2 – 0 Dinamo Zagreb

Celtic 0 – 1 Dinamo Moscow
Dinamo Moscow 0 – 2 Celtic

Celtic 0 – 2 Arsenal
Arsenal 3 – 1 Celtic

Hapoel Tel Aviv 2 – 1 Celtic
Celtic 1 – 1 Rapid Vienna

VfB Stuttgart 1 – 1 Rangers
Rangers 1 – 4 Sevilla
Rangers 1 – 4 Unirea Urziceni

Reading the tea leaves

OK, I'll admit I got just about every call wrong last year – although I did redeem myself slightly by identifying Tony Mowbray the moment wee Gordon stepped away from Celtic.

But like Yves Makalambay I'm prepared to pull my gloves back on, hurl myself back into the fray and flirt with yet another calamity. These, then, are the Scottish Football Blog's SPL predictions for 2009/10.

Champions: Celtic, Celtic, Celtic. I said that last year but I'm even more convinced this time out that Rangers won't be able to match the pace Celtic set. Last year Rangers relied on a late push as Celtic stumbled. This year I'd guess their chance comes if they hit the ground running as Mowbray's philosophies and endless talk of looking players in the eye takes time to bed in. Even then I'd fancy Celtic to reel them in.

Third place: Will Lazlo keep Hearts in the hunt? I'd expect Dundee United to challenge (I got that wrong last year as well) and Craig Levein will be smarting at their failure to make Europe last season. So despite the Jam Tarts' iffy pre season I'll say third place is a fight between the tangerine half of Dundee and the maroon part of Edinburgh.

Mid table mediocrity: Jim Gannon seems to have a track record of performing in difficult circumstances. That might be enough to keep Motherwell free of relegation worries. There is a Yogi fuelled buzz at Easter Road but John Hughes will know himself that there are deficiencies throughout the team. Hibs will throw off last season's torpor but the top six that the board demand will be the height of their ambitions. St Johnstone should be able to make a decent show of themselves but will be hoping that Derek McInnes remains in charge throughout the season while St Mirren will be hoping to prove that they are definitely well established in the top flight.

Looking over their shoulders: Falkirk and Aberdeen are condemned to start the season after European humiliations that got the reigns of Eddie May and Mark McGhee off to the worst possible starts. How the managers and players react will define their seasons but I don't think either will do much other than flirt with the bottom before surviving with something to spare.

Condemned men: Hamilton face the difficult second season syndrome and they face it without their star player. That will lead to some squeaky bum moments but they will be spared as Kilmarnock go into freefall. Rugby Park is offering all the home comforts that so beguiled the young Oliver Twist when he first arrived at the orphanage. Jim Jeffries is a good manager and a good man but this year the constraints placed on him will be simply too much.

First for the chop: Casba Lazlo must be setting some sort of Romanov managerial longevity record but you still feel the axe constantly hovers. Jim Jefferies might well walk sooner rather than later with his season promising to turn into a tragicomic epic. Eddie May has much to prove but Falkirk are noted for their loyalty. A bad run for Rangers might see Wattie shuffled upstairs before the season's out. But my best guess is that with so many changes over the summer this will be a season of relative stability in the SPL dugouts.

Star man: It's not been a summer of marquee signings. Celtic will hope Marc Antoine Fortune gets over his Dinamo disasters to make an impact. Elsewhere the new signings seem to offer more hope than expectation. If Hibs can find a cutting edge then the role of Merouane Zemmama will be crucial. If they can't then all his trickery will be more window dressing than anything else.

One to watch: The Old Firm is an inhospitable place for young players. John Fleck seemed set to break that trend. He still might but it will be interesting to see if can stop acting like an idiot long enough to establish himself. At the moment he risks being the poor man's Barry Ferguson. The campaign to install Stephen McManus as a tartan John Terry overlooked some of the Celtic captain's limitations and ignored the fact that England's John Terry is somewhat limited himself. This is a season for him to prove himself.

An impact from leftfield: The signing of Danny Cadamarteri seemed to shock the Arabs. A career of unfulfilled potential has been given an SPL lifeline. Craig Levein will be hoping for an Indian Summer from the one time next big thing.

I will, of course, revisit this in May 2010 to provide further credence to the theory that I should never be allowed to cross the threshold of PaddyPower's fine website.

The bleak mid summer

The SPL does Europe in style

I ended last season moaning about the quality of football on show in Scotland's top flight. If last year's SPL bunfight depressed then the close season has piled doom upon misery for Scottish football watchers.

Setanta's demise gave Lex Gold the chance to prove his assertion that the SPL remained an attractive proposition. Turns out that it's not attractive enough for Sky and ESPN to jump headfirst into a bidding war.

Cash strapped already the SPL clubs suddenly found a chill wind blowing through the holes in their accounts. Cloth had to be cut accordingly leading to perhaps the least exciting transfer window for some time.

Dundee's spending spree apart the story down the league's has been equally gloomy. Livingston survive for now but the Scottish Football League's decision to spare a business that looks all but unsustainable will, no doubt, have ramifications down the line.

The fantastic campaign by Stirling Albion's support brought optimism but not success. Big and small, football's prostitution to the ego's of businessmen is increasingly difficult to reverse.

And then came Europe. Where to begin? Falkirk slumped out before August began. Motherwell heading the same way and Aberdeen humiliated. Summer football cry some. But the lack of fighting spirit Aberdeen displayed points to a deeper malaise. Massive cultural shift though it would be, changing the calendar is an exercise in cosmetics. Rudderless and broken, Aberdeen would have struggled if they'd been playing for six months.

Celtic might survive their trip to Moscow but the odds look like favouring a drop into the Europa League. Tony Mowbray's new dawn took 90 minutes of squandered chances to disappear into the night.

Rangers, of course, are already into the Champion's League proper. But any of the Ibrox faithful who are still shutting their eyes to the financial crisis in Govan must have had that blind faith sorely tested by the club's inability to buy a single player. Walter Smith knows that he'll need miracles to eke another season of heroics out of his honest but inferior squad.

Coefficients will tumble. Bank managers and creditors will become increasingly nervous. And the fans will still be expected to pay for a product that doesn't look like it's in a position to improve. The new season will be as interesting as ever but all the pointers just now suggest that it's unlikely to be particularly entertaining, far less a stage for top class football.

A root and branch review is underway. It's sorely needed but it will almost certainly be an opportunity missed. It's one of the many quirks of politics that incompetence is rewarded with consultancies and directorships: for a review of Scottish football to work it would need to think the unthinkable and be presented by a personality capable of uniting and inspiring. If that was the job description then we can only assume that Henry Mcleish got JR Tolkien to write his application.

So we are, in the words of a Great Scot, doomed? Well, no. We will survive like we always have. The season will throw up the normal stories and subplots. Already the case of young John Fleck looks intriguing and throws up more questions about discipline at Ibrox, even with Barry Ferguson's peg lying empty in the dressing room.

Vladimir Romanov, even if he remains absent, will serve up stories at Tynecastle. On the pitch Tony Mowbray will stick to his philosophy and how long Celtic's players take to learn it will have a massive bearing on the outcome of the title. Craig Levein will look to improve on last season and have United going the distance in the battle for third while Easter Road is purring at the return of Merouane Zemmama.

So we will march forward or, at the very least, trudge in the general direction of forward.

But this close season has thrown up a number of hard truths for Scottish football. How they are digested and how we respond to them will shape how brightly we emerge from the depths of our current despair.

End game

All that glitters?

And so we're finished. The cup final remains, of course, but the SPL is done and dusted.

Survival Saturday. Helicopter Sunday. Combined they turned out to be the footballing equivalent of a wet weekend in Blackpool.

Lex Gold took to the airwaves to boast about how exciting the SPL was, how the last day drama was proof of the thrilling brand this is his SPL.

And there was drama. But it wasn't provided by the gleaming quality of our 12 top teams. Rangers and Celtic were still locked in a battle because they are each as poor as they have been at anytime since the mid 90's. Falkirk, Inverness, St Mirren: did any one of them have more claim on survival than the other two.

This is a league topped by mediocrity, stuffed with averageness and rounded off by the truly awful. A helicopter at Gleneagles won't change that.

Will it improve? God alone knows. But, I'd predict, we will all be back, frustrated and enthralled as ever, come July.

Back to the future

And so the end is near. Time, I think, to revisit that glorious time in August when we look forward to the season ahead, confident that our predictions will make Nostradamus look like a fairground fortune teller selling false hope for the future because she can no longer get away with selling her body.

Time, in fact, for me to get more egg on my face than Ibrox Masterchef Kirk Broadfoot.

First managerial casualty:

Mixu. Almost certainly. If the rumours have an ounce of truth in them then a humping by Clyde could mean he's away before the start of the season. To be swiftly followed, I'd guess, by Rod Petrie.

Hands up who didn't agree with me? The fans still remain undecided (actually the impression I get is that a majority are firmly decided that the axe should fall) but Mixu hangs on.

A top five win over Hearts and a reworking of Davy Crockett's tactics in back to back draws with the Old Firm ensure he'll be there next season. Only a cynic would say that a lengthy, compensation winning contract has persuaded the normally lavish spending Rod Petrie to keep his powder dry.

Third place:

Dundee United. I've got a feeling that Craig Levein (man least likely to be sacked) will have got United even stronger this season. Could be third at a canter.

So they came close in the end but, in truth, Hearts 3-0 clinching win over United was deserved over the season. A bad start to an emotional season for United left them with too much to do although missing out on Europe completely would be a punishment too far. Levein remains, however, the man best placed to launch a "best of the rest" challenge next year.

Relegated:

I've got a feeling Hamilton might make a strong enough start to survive. So take your pick from St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Hibs (see above).

Hamilton started strongly (one prediction I got right) but still left final confirmation of safety late. Hibs improved on the close season, Kilmarnock survived a predictable slump and St Mirren were better than Inverness and Falkirk.

A season of reasonable contentment:

Falkirk. Top six again. A cup run. Yogi's stock will rise further.

Two cup runs in fact. But also the threat of relegation and demands for his head. If they beat Inverness and Rangers it will be a bloody brilliant season. I reserve judgment on this one!

Champions:

Celtic again I think. There's a chance Rangers might struggle a bit this year. Celtic might not need to do much to keep the title.

I am alone in thinking Rangers did struggle? This is a poor Rangers side. It's evidence of the oddly unsatisfactory Gordon Strachan reign that Ibrox now seems the most likely destination for the title. Celtic should be miles ahead. They're not and that's a problem.

Last Chance Saloon:

Csabo Lazlo. Just because the Heart's job is last chance saloon in perpetuity. Jimmy Calderwood, bit of an enigma at Aberdeen - needs to get the fans back. Kenny Miller, surely now is the time to deliver.

Vlad's done a runner and Csabo's done a grand job. Jimmy's future may now hang on Sunday's results but the fans will remain unconvinced even with European qualification.

For me the problem with Kenny Miller was summed up in Amsterdam. One touch, two touch, three touch, tackle. To his credit he always gets back up for more. And he'll see a title win as vindication.

Scottish football gossip: Part one

A few snippets of (possibly untrue) gossip:

Hibs' Shelton Martis is to rejoin Darlington after falling foul of John Collins following the player revolt at Easter Road. Greg Shields is also on his way with Michael Stewart hoping to start again in the English Premiership with old mate Roy Keane’s Sunderland: the two kept in touch after Stewart left Manchester United and met up again when Keane joined Celtic. Faced with the prospect of playing a seven-a-side team next season Collins is to snap up MK Don’s striker and lower league journeyman Clive Platt

Hearts have filled Hibs' boots and now look set to host Barcelona at Murrayfield in July – Dundee United will also play the Catalan minnows. Larry Kingston is staying at Hearts. Or Kingston is going: with his agent and dastardly Vladimir Romanov in cahoots to use his appearances at Hearts as a way of bumping up his transfer fee.

John Hartson is not ruling out a return to Celtic Park. Although as nobody seems to be ruling it in, the giant Spam Man’s comments seem somewhat optimistic. Thomas Gravesen will not leave Celtic despite interest from LA Galaxy and Roy Keane.

Gordon Strachan does have his eye on Southampton old boy James Beattie and Reading’s Steve Sidwell. Sidwell has now been linked with 5006 clubs. But Artur Boruc is offski – Aston Villa are primed and ready to pounce. Strachan himself is staying put despite alleged interest from serial flirters Manchester City and Newcastle.

Swiss defender Stephen Keller is on trial at Falkirk. Dutch side RKC Waalwijk are happy to see him go. Sorry, that should have read happy to let him go. John Sutton will be playing for Yogi next season after signing a pre contract agreement - but John Hughes is to ship six players out.

More, almost unavoidably, soon.