Like children before Christmas we wait with increasing excitement for the all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final.
For those of us with an emotional attachment, of course, this Santa delivers either the greatest gift of all or a ginormous slap in the face.
High stakes.
Given I can think of little else it was a pleasure to join The SPL Podcast for a cup final preview show.
We also took a look at the SPL season that was with Celtic flying high and Dunfermline plumbing the depths.
Thanks to Robert (@RMcCracken91), Paul (@steakheed) and Simon (@SFurnivall) for the hospitable welcome.
Listen here or subscribe on iTunes.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Scottish Cup: Hibs head for the (Irish) hills
Some consternation among the fourth estate as Hibs announce that their media open day ahead of the Scottish Cup final will be held in Ireland.
An away media open day.
With budgets being squeezed across the land, sports editors might be loathe to send journalists off on a Ryanair adventure.
It is us, dear reader, who will suffer, denied the insight and access that make the build-up to the cup final so unique every year.
A void needs filled.
Fear not.
Here's exclusive filler for that very void: The Scottish Football Blog's Copy and Paste Hibs Media Guide.
Speaking at his side's training camp in Ireland, captain James McPake said:
"All the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans."
From his team's luxury training base outside Dublin, on-loan striker and boyhood Hibs fan Leigh Griffiths said:
"We'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game."
At the side's training camp across the Irish Sea, Lewis Stevenson, one of the true Hibs fans in Pat Fenlon's squad, said:
"It will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history."
Masterminding Hibs' final challenge from a luxury base in Ireland, manager Pat Fenlon said:
"The fans all know the history, all the boys know it will be a huge but hard occasion, we'd love to win it."
Billy Brown, Fenlon's assistant who started the season with cup final opponents Hearts, speaking at the side's Irish training camp, said:
"The fans and the boys all know the history, obviously for me there's even more recent history as well. But that's football and there's a job to do here.
"The occasion will be both huge and hard but I'd love to see us win it for both the boys and the fans."
Me? I'd quite happily hibernate until 3pm on Saturday 19th May.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
An away media open day.
With budgets being squeezed across the land, sports editors might be loathe to send journalists off on a Ryanair adventure.
It is us, dear reader, who will suffer, denied the insight and access that make the build-up to the cup final so unique every year.
A void needs filled.
Fear not.
Here's exclusive filler for that very void: The Scottish Football Blog's Copy and Paste Hibs Media Guide.
Speaking at his side's training camp in Ireland, captain James McPake said:
"All the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans."
From his team's luxury training base outside Dublin, on-loan striker and boyhood Hibs fan Leigh Griffiths said:
"We'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game."
At the side's training camp across the Irish Sea, Lewis Stevenson, one of the true Hibs fans in Pat Fenlon's squad, said:
"It will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history."
Masterminding Hibs' final challenge from a luxury base in Ireland, manager Pat Fenlon said:
"The fans all know the history, all the boys know it will be a huge but hard occasion, we'd love to win it."
Billy Brown, Fenlon's assistant who started the season with cup final opponents Hearts, speaking at the side's Irish training camp, said:
"The fans and the boys all know the history, obviously for me there's even more recent history as well. But that's football and there's a job to do here.
"The occasion will be both huge and hard but I'd love to see us win it for both the boys and the fans."
Me? I'd quite happily hibernate until 3pm on Saturday 19th May.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Rangers: Miller's tale leaves SPL adrift
"It's Miller time."
If I had a pound for every time I've heard that since Tennessean truck tycoon Bill Miller was confirmed as the preferred bidder for Rangers I'd...
Well, I'd have a sizeable amount of money and I wouldn't even consider piling it all into a wager that Rangers will now avoid liquidation.
It turns out that Miller time is no time at all. Just days separated the announcement that his bid had found favour and the announcement that he was, after all, not going to bother.
Reasons? That he cited the treatment he received from Rangers fans might have brought a wry smile to the faces of those who have felt that, in recent weeks, certain supporters have taken an unjustly scatter-gun approach to spreading the blame for this financial farce.
My exposure to the tow truck industry in the United States is limited. I imagine, however, it breeds a deal of earthy characters. The sort of chaps that might not take too kindly to Miller's profits through austerity business model.
I'm unconvinced that even advancing years will have turned him into the shrinking violet that his statement hinted at. In which case one must conclude either a degree of insincerity at play or such a level of abuse from fans that some supporters are themselves are an obstacle to finding a saviour. Prudence should dictate that the more bombastic supporters are now encouraged to shut up.
Perhaps more telling was the suggestion that he'd swallowed the false optimism of administrators Duff & Phelps only to discover that reality was somewhat harsher.
The legacy of years of mismanagement combined with a ban on European participation, as yet unknown domestic sanctions and the possibility that his hybrid newco and liquidation by any other name scheme wouldn't stop the demands from creditors.
It all added up to more than - an admittedly naive - Miller either had or was willing to risk.
So he was gone. Turns out his unconditional bid had a secret condition attached after all: if the mess was bigger than he thought he could bugger off with indecent haste.
And Rangers, it appears, are no closer to a resolution than they were when the administrators were appointed back in February.
Not that Paul Clark and David Whitehouse of Duff & Phelps are likely to admit that.
Like a happily drunken Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee the pair of them have somehow conjured up three new bidders over the bank holiday weekend, a weekend when they were apparently working on Miller's bid.
Who these mysterious people are we don't yet know. It's expected that Paul Murray and Brian Kennedy's Blue Knights will climb once more onto their trusty steeds.
Will they have found the money now that they didn't have last week?
Certainly they don't seem to have the ability to pull off a CVA in the traditional way, a route that the administrators announced as closed last week.
Are we to accept that the three bidders have heard Miller's reasons for turning his back on the deal and not questioned just what it is they will find when they begin their own due diligence?
And what comfort should fans take from the suggestion that one of these bids comes close to matching Miller's bid just hours after Miller has let it be known that his own offer wasn't enough to carry out the necessary salvage work.
Duff & Phelps-land seems like a jolly pleasant place to be but there is an increasing wariness about its apparent disconnect from reality.
There's a risk, given the exposure we've all had to this sorry saga over the past few months, that laymen start pontificating like experts.
I'm a layman. My non-expert opinion is that Rangers are now doomed.
Liquidation seems a racing certainty. The whens, ifs and buts of that will be dictated by the timing of contract deadlines and by how jumpy the creditors are getting at the unerring ability of Duff and Phelps to bring further disharmony where there is already plentiful discord.
There might yet be further grenades ready to explode. The big tax case, the second contract stramash, the next move of Craig Whyte, a police investigation.
I'm not sure how a route to survival can be navigated through that lot. I'm not sure that pleading mitigation because football is a strange industry and Rangers are a special case can really work much longer.
I'm not sure where any good fortune is going to come from.
Certainly the clock seems to be ticking. If Miller's claims of earning limitations and legacy expenses are true then each day makes things worse.
And since Valentine's Day - maybe even over the course of the last decade - nobody has arrived on the scene with clout, the determination or the wit to save the situation.
The window for last gasp heroics is getting ever smaller.
Throughout it all the fans remain helpless, agog like the rest of us as the club awaits its fate.
The other SPL clubs and the SFA are also left to watch from the sidelines.
It seems that representatives of the SPL did get drawn into hypothetical discussions with Bill Miller over the future.
Hypothetical discussions with a hypothetical owner.
That was a misjudgement that shouldn't be repeated with any other potential buyers.
SPL football needs to kick off next season with or without Rangers. Contingency plans for every eventuality need to be put in place.
Neither the administrators nor any future owner are in a position to dictate the terms of those plans, the crisis has now stretched on too long for that, the club is too stricken and too many unanswered questions remain.
Shutting their eyes and hoping it all blows over is no longer an option for the league.
Someone has to take responsibility for planning the future. Rangers will just need to fit into those plans when and if they're ready to do so.
How can the SPL grab the initiative?
Given the cack-handedness of the last few weeks it won't be easy.
Here's an idea though: if we've been taught anything by this imbroglio it is that the SPL experiment has been completely flawed.
It's delivered our clubs not into riches but into a state of beholden servitude, prostrate at the feet of their TV or Glasgow masters.
So kill the league.
Vote it out of existence. Tighten belts, swallow pride and return to the SFL fold.
Give every Scottish senior club a chance to shape the future. And, a convenient benefit this, let every club shoulder the collective responsibility of deciding just what to do with a problem like Rangers.
A single structure would also increase the options for negotiating the entry of what is increasingly looking like a Rangers newco into the league structure.
It would be an odd irony if the SPL's Neil Doncaster was the first redundancy of Rangers' collapse. It might console him that he would likely not be the last.
For an organisation so adept at snatching humiliation from the jaws of defeat this would be a dramatic move but an audacious suicide pact might just allow them to salvage enough respect to give the game some sort of positive future.
It's unlikely to happen.
But five years ago many people would have thought it unlikely that Rangers would today stand on the brink, the possibility of the gates being locked at Ibrox looming ever larger.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
If I had a pound for every time I've heard that since Tennessean truck tycoon Bill Miller was confirmed as the preferred bidder for Rangers I'd...
Well, I'd have a sizeable amount of money and I wouldn't even consider piling it all into a wager that Rangers will now avoid liquidation.
It turns out that Miller time is no time at all. Just days separated the announcement that his bid had found favour and the announcement that he was, after all, not going to bother.
Reasons? That he cited the treatment he received from Rangers fans might have brought a wry smile to the faces of those who have felt that, in recent weeks, certain supporters have taken an unjustly scatter-gun approach to spreading the blame for this financial farce.
My exposure to the tow truck industry in the United States is limited. I imagine, however, it breeds a deal of earthy characters. The sort of chaps that might not take too kindly to Miller's profits through austerity business model.
I'm unconvinced that even advancing years will have turned him into the shrinking violet that his statement hinted at. In which case one must conclude either a degree of insincerity at play or such a level of abuse from fans that some supporters are themselves are an obstacle to finding a saviour. Prudence should dictate that the more bombastic supporters are now encouraged to shut up.
Perhaps more telling was the suggestion that he'd swallowed the false optimism of administrators Duff & Phelps only to discover that reality was somewhat harsher.
The legacy of years of mismanagement combined with a ban on European participation, as yet unknown domestic sanctions and the possibility that his hybrid newco and liquidation by any other name scheme wouldn't stop the demands from creditors.
It all added up to more than - an admittedly naive - Miller either had or was willing to risk.
So he was gone. Turns out his unconditional bid had a secret condition attached after all: if the mess was bigger than he thought he could bugger off with indecent haste.
And Rangers, it appears, are no closer to a resolution than they were when the administrators were appointed back in February.
Not that Paul Clark and David Whitehouse of Duff & Phelps are likely to admit that.
Like a happily drunken Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee the pair of them have somehow conjured up three new bidders over the bank holiday weekend, a weekend when they were apparently working on Miller's bid.
Who these mysterious people are we don't yet know. It's expected that Paul Murray and Brian Kennedy's Blue Knights will climb once more onto their trusty steeds.
Will they have found the money now that they didn't have last week?
Certainly they don't seem to have the ability to pull off a CVA in the traditional way, a route that the administrators announced as closed last week.
Are we to accept that the three bidders have heard Miller's reasons for turning his back on the deal and not questioned just what it is they will find when they begin their own due diligence?
And what comfort should fans take from the suggestion that one of these bids comes close to matching Miller's bid just hours after Miller has let it be known that his own offer wasn't enough to carry out the necessary salvage work.
Duff & Phelps-land seems like a jolly pleasant place to be but there is an increasing wariness about its apparent disconnect from reality.
There's a risk, given the exposure we've all had to this sorry saga over the past few months, that laymen start pontificating like experts.
I'm a layman. My non-expert opinion is that Rangers are now doomed.
Liquidation seems a racing certainty. The whens, ifs and buts of that will be dictated by the timing of contract deadlines and by how jumpy the creditors are getting at the unerring ability of Duff and Phelps to bring further disharmony where there is already plentiful discord.
There might yet be further grenades ready to explode. The big tax case, the second contract stramash, the next move of Craig Whyte, a police investigation.
I'm not sure how a route to survival can be navigated through that lot. I'm not sure that pleading mitigation because football is a strange industry and Rangers are a special case can really work much longer.
I'm not sure where any good fortune is going to come from.
Certainly the clock seems to be ticking. If Miller's claims of earning limitations and legacy expenses are true then each day makes things worse.
And since Valentine's Day - maybe even over the course of the last decade - nobody has arrived on the scene with clout, the determination or the wit to save the situation.
The window for last gasp heroics is getting ever smaller.
Throughout it all the fans remain helpless, agog like the rest of us as the club awaits its fate.
The other SPL clubs and the SFA are also left to watch from the sidelines.
It seems that representatives of the SPL did get drawn into hypothetical discussions with Bill Miller over the future.
Hypothetical discussions with a hypothetical owner.
That was a misjudgement that shouldn't be repeated with any other potential buyers.
SPL football needs to kick off next season with or without Rangers. Contingency plans for every eventuality need to be put in place.
Neither the administrators nor any future owner are in a position to dictate the terms of those plans, the crisis has now stretched on too long for that, the club is too stricken and too many unanswered questions remain.
Shutting their eyes and hoping it all blows over is no longer an option for the league.
Someone has to take responsibility for planning the future. Rangers will just need to fit into those plans when and if they're ready to do so.
How can the SPL grab the initiative?
Given the cack-handedness of the last few weeks it won't be easy.
Here's an idea though: if we've been taught anything by this imbroglio it is that the SPL experiment has been completely flawed.
It's delivered our clubs not into riches but into a state of beholden servitude, prostrate at the feet of their TV or Glasgow masters.
So kill the league.
Vote it out of existence. Tighten belts, swallow pride and return to the SFL fold.
Give every Scottish senior club a chance to shape the future. And, a convenient benefit this, let every club shoulder the collective responsibility of deciding just what to do with a problem like Rangers.
A single structure would also increase the options for negotiating the entry of what is increasingly looking like a Rangers newco into the league structure.
It would be an odd irony if the SPL's Neil Doncaster was the first redundancy of Rangers' collapse. It might console him that he would likely not be the last.
For an organisation so adept at snatching humiliation from the jaws of defeat this would be a dramatic move but an audacious suicide pact might just allow them to salvage enough respect to give the game some sort of positive future.
It's unlikely to happen.
But five years ago many people would have thought it unlikely that Rangers would today stand on the brink, the possibility of the gates being locked at Ibrox looming ever larger.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Hibs: Another second chance
It's a strange one: sticking around at a stadium to greet like heroes a squad that has just escaped from the struggle of their lives.
Pat Fenlon called last night's acclaim for his Hibs team "embarrassing," stressing that this was more an opportunity to thank the fans rather than an occasion of unadulterated joy.
Football inspires daftness though. And a season long struggle with inadequacy, an inability to plot safe passage through the bog of relegation, can drive a supporter mad.
Last night, then, was a howl of relief as much as anything. Supporters thankful for the escape, thankful to finally have a reason to celebrate.
It took Hibs until their last home game to record a second home league victory, to attract their highest crowd of the season, to deliver a performance that the fans could really respond to and finally finish off the lingering threat of Dunfermline.
Until the last home game of the season, in fact, to offer up any sort of evidence that fans weren’t completely demented to put their faith in the team.
Not just blind faith either. Season tickets might have broken down to as much as £31 per home point and £23.82 per home goal. With kick off times ever more unpredictable, that’s a hefty price to pay for doom and gloom with only sporadic outbursts of football.
Fenlon has had his struggles since inheriting Colin Calderwood’s listing ship. His search for a first home league win went to the wire.
He’ll have been heartened that those three points were won thanks to an impressive team display. Six of the his starting eleven and two of his substitutes have arrived at Easter Road since his first game in December. At the last, his team finally came together.
It’s not been the most rapid of quick fixes but the club was in disarray when he took over. And he has, as he said he would, got the job done.
For that achievement to be truly worthwhile the cycle of loan deals and January window signing sprees has to be broken.
Last season a good February was enough to save Hibs from a prolonged relegation battle.
This season they have not even enjoyed that sort of purple patch. One good month in two seasons is a poor return.
Last summer was defined not by the root and branch rebuilding job that was required but by an obstinate board standing by a disconnected manager.
With the guardian of football matters and the guardians of the purse strings both distracted Hibs drifted aimlessly into the new season.
It took until last night to free them from the obvious consequences of that mismanagement.
They can't afford a repeat.
This summer needs sensible, competitive investment in the team. A reinvigorated scouting policy. The fabled but faded conveyor belt of young talent chugging back into life.
The sort of sound management of footballing matters that has somehow eluded Hibs of late.
A permanent deal for on-loan captain James McPake would be a fine starting point. A show of ambition, a symbol of determination, a sound building block for both the immediate future and a signing to develop a team around in the long term.
It would also be a far more meaningful "thank you" to the fans than a lap of honour in the immediate aftermath of a win over the SPL's bottom club.
Fenlon has a part to play. Some fans still need to be convinced that he's the right man for the job. More perhaps are happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, impressed with his commitment and his desire to put right the wrongs of the past.
He can't do that alone. There are others at the club who have survived managerial changes and presided over the general decline into this malaise.
They've made plenty of mistakes. This summer must surely be their last chance to show that lessons have been learned.
Last night showed that the fans will respond to meaningful games and will react to fine performances.
They shouldn't have to wait until the last home game of the season with SPL survival on the line to prove it.
Of course the landscape might change yet again. Somehow this patchwork team, so often frustrating in the league, find themselves on the brink of the club's biggest ever game.
The Scottish Cup final against Hearts draws ever closer.
A victory there would create legends, make history.
But it wouldn't hugely change the summer's priorities.
A Hampden win would be a hell of a success, one I can hardly begin to comprehend.
Another summer of failures, however, would render it a solitary one.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
Pat Fenlon called last night's acclaim for his Hibs team "embarrassing," stressing that this was more an opportunity to thank the fans rather than an occasion of unadulterated joy.
Football inspires daftness though. And a season long struggle with inadequacy, an inability to plot safe passage through the bog of relegation, can drive a supporter mad.
Last night, then, was a howl of relief as much as anything. Supporters thankful for the escape, thankful to finally have a reason to celebrate.
It took Hibs until their last home game to record a second home league victory, to attract their highest crowd of the season, to deliver a performance that the fans could really respond to and finally finish off the lingering threat of Dunfermline.
Until the last home game of the season, in fact, to offer up any sort of evidence that fans weren’t completely demented to put their faith in the team.
Not just blind faith either. Season tickets might have broken down to as much as £31 per home point and £23.82 per home goal. With kick off times ever more unpredictable, that’s a hefty price to pay for doom and gloom with only sporadic outbursts of football.
Fenlon has had his struggles since inheriting Colin Calderwood’s listing ship. His search for a first home league win went to the wire.
He’ll have been heartened that those three points were won thanks to an impressive team display. Six of the his starting eleven and two of his substitutes have arrived at Easter Road since his first game in December. At the last, his team finally came together.
It’s not been the most rapid of quick fixes but the club was in disarray when he took over. And he has, as he said he would, got the job done.
For that achievement to be truly worthwhile the cycle of loan deals and January window signing sprees has to be broken.
Last season a good February was enough to save Hibs from a prolonged relegation battle.
This season they have not even enjoyed that sort of purple patch. One good month in two seasons is a poor return.
Last summer was defined not by the root and branch rebuilding job that was required but by an obstinate board standing by a disconnected manager.
With the guardian of football matters and the guardians of the purse strings both distracted Hibs drifted aimlessly into the new season.
It took until last night to free them from the obvious consequences of that mismanagement.
They can't afford a repeat.
This summer needs sensible, competitive investment in the team. A reinvigorated scouting policy. The fabled but faded conveyor belt of young talent chugging back into life.
The sort of sound management of footballing matters that has somehow eluded Hibs of late.
A permanent deal for on-loan captain James McPake would be a fine starting point. A show of ambition, a symbol of determination, a sound building block for both the immediate future and a signing to develop a team around in the long term.
It would also be a far more meaningful "thank you" to the fans than a lap of honour in the immediate aftermath of a win over the SPL's bottom club.
Fenlon has a part to play. Some fans still need to be convinced that he's the right man for the job. More perhaps are happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, impressed with his commitment and his desire to put right the wrongs of the past.
He can't do that alone. There are others at the club who have survived managerial changes and presided over the general decline into this malaise.
They've made plenty of mistakes. This summer must surely be their last chance to show that lessons have been learned.
Last night showed that the fans will respond to meaningful games and will react to fine performances.
They shouldn't have to wait until the last home game of the season with SPL survival on the line to prove it.
Of course the landscape might change yet again. Somehow this patchwork team, so often frustrating in the league, find themselves on the brink of the club's biggest ever game.
The Scottish Cup final against Hearts draws ever closer.
A victory there would create legends, make history.
But it wouldn't hugely change the summer's priorities.
A Hampden win would be a hell of a success, one I can hardly begin to comprehend.
Another summer of failures, however, would render it a solitary one.
Like this? Like the Scottish Football Blog on Facebook.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
SPL: Finding meaning, finding belief
Quite a Sunday ahead.
Celtic hosting Rangers and Hibs continuing their long, frustrating struggle to shake off relegation rivals Dunfermline against St Mirren. Two games that might normally have the Betfair football betting experts scratching their heads.
Today's match at Celtic Park is both essentially meaningless and yet crammed full of meaning.
The league title is already Celtic's. Rangers will likely claim a second place that will be rendered redundant by their current suspension from European competition.
One of these dull, go-through-the-motions, end-of season affairs then?
Perhaps not.
Some are trying to label this a bookend game: the final act in a dramatic rivalry that began on 28 May 1888.
That's unlikely. Rangers will still be around next season although it's impossible at the moment to predict where or in what form.
Yet even if the sense of closure is somewhat false there's reason for players and fans to view this as a big game.
Celtic, revelling in the role of conquerors, have a chance to drive home the feeling of triumphalism in front of a home crowd that will, surely, be high on the madness that swirls round their oldest rivals.
But what a boost a strong showing here would be for Rangers and their supporters.
Battling on a hundred fronts, swiping like punch drunk pugilists at enemies real and imagined, moving no closer to the resolution they crave.
Duff & Phelps, Rangers' administrators, have presided over a process that has delivered only delays and conditional bids, a process that has seen them look ever more like the boys who cried wolf, rescue packages still tantalisingly out of reach.
Today's match offers a 90 minute distillation of that drama, a game without tangible rewards but packed with enough meaning to ensure fans on both sides care more than ever.
How will it pan out?
I find predicting these things increasingly unpredictable, it's a game that can inspire some and leave others looking bereft.
The bookies though, and heaven knows my expertise is limited, would seem to be offering unusual generosity in their verdict on Rangers.
The club is, unavoidably, in a crisis of gargantuan proportions but recent form has seen the players show an admirable fortitude in the face of such ructions. We need look no further than the last Old Firm game to illustrate that an unknown future hasn't fulling snuffed out the danger that lurks in this team.
Fence sitting, as ever, suggests erring on the side of a draw but I'd still be surprised if Celtic don't win this one.
This, however, has been a season of surprises.
As the dust settles on the Old Firm game our attention can turn once again to the relegation travails of Hibs and Dunfermline.
Hibs fans are doing a fair impression of Michael Corleone at the moment. Just when they think they are out of the mire, Dunfermline pull them back in.
So it proved yesterday. A 3-0 win over Aberdeen was enough to give the Fifers their first home victory of the season, cut to three points the lead Hibs enjoyed and even make something a dent in the goal difference imbalance.
If Dunfermline wanted to switch the pressure back on to their fellow strugglers then yesterday was mission accomplished.
Hibs and pressure. What does manager Pat Fenlon see when he looks around the side that he's cobbled together with less than convincing results?
A team that can turn up Paisley today and deliver the riposte needed to halt any Dunfermline revival before it has properly begun?
Or a team that, like so many before them, St Mirren will see as easy touches, a welcome home three points to inject some fun into the dying embers of the season?
Hibs fans will hope he sees some resolve, sees the realisation dawning that his team have it in their gift to save themselves.
But those fans have been looking for the right answers to those questions all season long. Too often they've been disappointed.
Hope rather than expectation has guided emotion in Leith this season.
That continues today.
Another commanding performance from James McPake in defence, some incision from Garry O'Connor and Leigh Griffiths, something more cohesive from a misfiring midfield.
Deliver that and three points can be within reach today.
Fail - and they've failed a lot this year - and St Mirren have quality enough to prolong the suffering.
The stakes are high.
Time for the Hibs players to take a gamble and believe in themselves.
Even that might not be enough.
But they have to hope that it will let them crawl over the finish line.
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Celtic hosting Rangers and Hibs continuing their long, frustrating struggle to shake off relegation rivals Dunfermline against St Mirren. Two games that might normally have the Betfair football betting experts scratching their heads.
Today's match at Celtic Park is both essentially meaningless and yet crammed full of meaning.
The league title is already Celtic's. Rangers will likely claim a second place that will be rendered redundant by their current suspension from European competition.
One of these dull, go-through-the-motions, end-of season affairs then?
Perhaps not.
Some are trying to label this a bookend game: the final act in a dramatic rivalry that began on 28 May 1888.
That's unlikely. Rangers will still be around next season although it's impossible at the moment to predict where or in what form.
Yet even if the sense of closure is somewhat false there's reason for players and fans to view this as a big game.
Celtic, revelling in the role of conquerors, have a chance to drive home the feeling of triumphalism in front of a home crowd that will, surely, be high on the madness that swirls round their oldest rivals.
But what a boost a strong showing here would be for Rangers and their supporters.
Battling on a hundred fronts, swiping like punch drunk pugilists at enemies real and imagined, moving no closer to the resolution they crave.
Duff & Phelps, Rangers' administrators, have presided over a process that has delivered only delays and conditional bids, a process that has seen them look ever more like the boys who cried wolf, rescue packages still tantalisingly out of reach.
Today's match offers a 90 minute distillation of that drama, a game without tangible rewards but packed with enough meaning to ensure fans on both sides care more than ever.
How will it pan out?
I find predicting these things increasingly unpredictable, it's a game that can inspire some and leave others looking bereft.
The bookies though, and heaven knows my expertise is limited, would seem to be offering unusual generosity in their verdict on Rangers.
The club is, unavoidably, in a crisis of gargantuan proportions but recent form has seen the players show an admirable fortitude in the face of such ructions. We need look no further than the last Old Firm game to illustrate that an unknown future hasn't fulling snuffed out the danger that lurks in this team.
Fence sitting, as ever, suggests erring on the side of a draw but I'd still be surprised if Celtic don't win this one.
This, however, has been a season of surprises.
As the dust settles on the Old Firm game our attention can turn once again to the relegation travails of Hibs and Dunfermline.
Hibs fans are doing a fair impression of Michael Corleone at the moment. Just when they think they are out of the mire, Dunfermline pull them back in.
So it proved yesterday. A 3-0 win over Aberdeen was enough to give the Fifers their first home victory of the season, cut to three points the lead Hibs enjoyed and even make something a dent in the goal difference imbalance.
If Dunfermline wanted to switch the pressure back on to their fellow strugglers then yesterday was mission accomplished.
Hibs and pressure. What does manager Pat Fenlon see when he looks around the side that he's cobbled together with less than convincing results?
A team that can turn up Paisley today and deliver the riposte needed to halt any Dunfermline revival before it has properly begun?
Or a team that, like so many before them, St Mirren will see as easy touches, a welcome home three points to inject some fun into the dying embers of the season?
Hibs fans will hope he sees some resolve, sees the realisation dawning that his team have it in their gift to save themselves.
But those fans have been looking for the right answers to those questions all season long. Too often they've been disappointed.
Hope rather than expectation has guided emotion in Leith this season.
That continues today.
Another commanding performance from James McPake in defence, some incision from Garry O'Connor and Leigh Griffiths, something more cohesive from a misfiring midfield.
Deliver that and three points can be within reach today.
Fail - and they've failed a lot this year - and St Mirren have quality enough to prolong the suffering.
The stakes are high.
Time for the Hibs players to take a gamble and believe in themselves.
Even that might not be enough.
But they have to hope that it will let them crawl over the finish line.
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Thursday, April 26, 2012
Rangers: Enemies at the gate
Ally McCoist is annoyed.
Mark Hateley is annoyed.
The Rangers supporters are so annoyed that they've reached a hysteric stage of fandemonium.
Yes, there's been a lot of rage flying around Scottish football this week. Most of it emanating from an enfeebled Ibrox.
An SFA Judicial Panel, basing their decisions on the evidence provided by an independent inquiry, went after Rangers in a big way.
Some of the financial punishments dished out were the maximum allowed in the SFA's own guidance.
The additional punishment of a 12 month transfer embargo stopped short of the maximum sanction - expelling the club from the SFA - but it remained surprisingly punitive.
The sanctions were aimed at both Craig Whyte - banned for life from any involvement in Scottish football - and Rangers, the club he has helped on the road to ruin.
One of the things that so annoyed McCoist was that Rangers were punished alongside Whyte.
In these things the club and the owner - and Whyte is still, to the best of anyone's knowledge, Rangers' biggest shareholder and the man with the keys to both Ibrox and Murray Park - are indistinguishable.
That's a hardship for the club but a reality. It's how these things work.
McCoist is naive and disingenuous to believe otherwise. Apart from anything else Rangers enjoyed an artificial advantage because the club - even if this was at the sole direction of Whyte - were able to sign, retain, pay and play players by completely bumping the tax man.
Not only should the club be punished for that but a transfer embargo actually seems a reasonable enough fit for the crime in question.
You can be sure that if - or when - UEFA come sniffing around this particular mess they won’t make the distinction between fly-by-Whyte and Rangers and they’d not look kindly on the SFA's panel making the distinction.
McCoist, Hateley and many fans have also argued with a certain vehemence that the Judicial Panel issued the punishments with a complete disregard for the future wellbeing of Rangers or the Scottish game.
Which is exactly as it should be.
The remit of this investigation into the gross mismanagement of a football club could not and should not have been:
"Go easy lads, Rangers are in a bit of a fix."
Doesn't work like that.
I can accept that these SFA sanctions don't help Rangers and that it would be easier if both the SFA and the SPL were able to deliver verdicts and punishments simultaneously, rather than this gradual drip-drip of bad news, of Rangers driven to financial insanity by a Chinese water torture of fines and sanctions.
But such is the football environment that Rangers helped create. And, on these particular charges, it wasn't for the panel to make life easier for Rangers or for potential new owners like Bill Miller or Paul Murray's Blue Knights.
The SFA, and any disciplinary procedures it has, should serve the game, not serve Ally McCoist, Rangers' administrators or the Rangers Supporters Trust.
But, say some, whither the SFA when Craig Whyte took the reigns?
An absurd revisionist history is growing up that suggests the SFA could and should have stopped Whyte from taking over.
It's true that the SFA's fit and proper procedures are shambolic, setting an honesty threshold that would shame a bad online dating site.
But the SFA can't stop someone buying shares. Whyte - encouraged by the warm backing of Rangers supporters - wanted to buy the club, Sir David Murray and Lloyds TSB were absolutely desperate to get a financial Titanic off their hands.
Even if they'd raised objections the SFA would have been powerless to stop Whyte paying his pound and installing someone like Gary Withey as chairman and perhaps someone from Duff & Phelps as company secretary.
And, you know, if they'd done that at the time I'm fairly certain that a number of Rangers fans would have lost their heads over unfair interference in the commercial interests of their club.
So Ally McCoist is wrong. And those who have backed his stance are wrong.
The Judicial Panel acted within their remit and handed out a punishment that was certainly remarkably stringent but quite within their power.
As is correct Rangers, who were represented at the hearing, will have a right to appeal.
That is how the SFA's disciplinary procedures work. It was the system voted on unanimously by all clubs - including Rangers - just last summer. A new process that, at the time, appeared to create an unusual but welcome unity and cohesion in the Scottish game.
And it was a system that had the anonymity of panel members at its heart. A mechanism required, we must concede, because of the schism in Glasgow football. An assurance that the game remained governable.
If I'm allowed to jump on the bandwagon of rage, what's left me seething is the way that McCoist, egged on by cheerleaders in the press, has decided that it's a process that's not fit for purpose if it delivers a verdict that Rangers don't agree with.
I'll accept that it was nothing but anger that led McCoist to call for the anonymity of the three panel members to be lifted.
Anger at the predicament his club finds itself in, frustrated rage at the dying of the Ibrox light, at the realisation that this is a club which, even if they had the money, simply cannot buy a break at the moment.
An anger that led him to a moment of gross irresponsibility, an unreasonable demand supported by a sneering and misguided dig at the independence of the panel.
It didn't take too long for his words to have an impact.
The names were posted across the internet, the police raised concerns about the safety of the three men, the SFA issued the following statement:
Mark even names the three members of the panel. Proving that where Twitter leads the Record’s nutters will follow.
The Telegraph pitched in with an odd Roddy Forsyth article that not only named the men but apparently felt the need to offer up some sort of half hearted attack on their suitability for the job.
I would agree that there should have been more transparency. The reasons for the decision should have been delivered at the same time as the judgements.
But there was no need to name names. No need to essentially destroy a new disciplinary system before it had been properly evaluated.
No need to make it even more difficult for the game to attract knowledge and expertise from across society - the sort of people we need to clear up myriad messes caused by the "football men" that Hateley seems to think should be left in glorious isolation to ruin the game as they see fit.
No need to take Scottish football another step on this destructive path, this hysterical belief that if you don't agree with something you're perfectly within your rights to leave the game all but ungovernable.
All of which could have been avoided if McCoist had slowed down, taken a breath and, if he didn't already know, asked a colleague who was on the panel.
He chose not to, jumping instead on his soapbox for a bit of rabble rousing.
Maybe he thought the fans needed a rallying cry, maybe he thought there was danger of administration fatigue setting in and an injection of passion was required.
Maybe, and this is the worst possible scenario, he thought that such callous treatment of the original panel would ensure that an appeals panel would be fearful enough to treat Rangers leniently.
Maybe he wasn't thinking at all.
Whatever the reason, his misjudgement was huge.
What now?
Rangers will appeal.
I don't think the SFA should agree to hold that appeal before they've properly investigated any disciplinary issues that need to be addressed following McCoist's comments.
I don’t think they should agree to an appeal until after they have properly investigated who leaked the names of the original panel.
Those issues need to be resolved because there are those - inside Ibrox, in the press and in the Rangers support - who have gone out of their way to ensure that an appeal cannot be held without “fear or favour.”
If these things are not addressed then each individual on the SFA’s list of potential panellist must surely consider disengaging from the organisation and refusing to sit in judgement of an appeal hearing.
If that prolongs Rangers' agony then so be it. The SFA need to show a commitment to their own procedures and their own panels before they commit to the future of one club. And Rangers won’t need to look far to apportion blame for any delay in the process.
Would the end of Rangers also kill Scottish football? Possibly. But almost certainly not.
Still Rangers people - supporters and those within the club - seem to think they qualify for special treatment, that they are above normal standards because they “are” Rangers, that they can bully and threaten now because if Scottish football doesn’t do what Rangers want then Rangers will make Scottish football pay at some unspecified date when the club is not a financial basket case.
"The whole world's agin us, but we will rise and smite our enemies."
It’s a position that relies on the brassiest of brass necks and a tenuous grasp of just how deep in the mire Rangers find themselves.
I’ve said before that a little humility would go a long way. This week it was sadly lacking as McCoist flew off the handle, as Hateley launched his rant or as Sandy Jardine promised "sanctions" against those teams who don't respect Rangers the way they should.
They are doing their club no favours.
Faced with this kind of backlash it’s hard not think that the other clubs should just take the risk and give them no special treatment at all.
Maybe, as the Gurkha motto has it, it's better to die than to be a coward.
The sad thing about this week, and the long-term damage it might still do to the governance of the Scottish game, is that it's all something of a storm in a teacup.
Maybe a welcome one for Duff & Phelps, those beleaguered administrators at Ibrox, a deflection from their own travails.
Four days on from the deadline they set we still wait patiently for the announcement of a preferred bidder.
And wait and wait and wait.
Where do we stand?
Who knows? The longer it drags on the more convinced I am that Bill Miller's interest will fizzle out and that Paul Murray's Blue Knights can't gather the cash they need to satisfy the requirements of the administrators.
A sorry mess and one that must now mean liquidation is the by some distance the most likely outcome.
The Judicial Panel's appeal hasn't changed that one way or another. I doubt it will even speed up or slow down a process that is now surely geared to simply getting Rangers to the end of the SPL season.
Given the way a number of people have behaved this week it's likely that any sympathy for that predicament has sharply receded.
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Mark Hateley is annoyed.
The Rangers supporters are so annoyed that they've reached a hysteric stage of fandemonium.
Yes, there's been a lot of rage flying around Scottish football this week. Most of it emanating from an enfeebled Ibrox.
An SFA Judicial Panel, basing their decisions on the evidence provided by an independent inquiry, went after Rangers in a big way.
Some of the financial punishments dished out were the maximum allowed in the SFA's own guidance.
The additional punishment of a 12 month transfer embargo stopped short of the maximum sanction - expelling the club from the SFA - but it remained surprisingly punitive.
The sanctions were aimed at both Craig Whyte - banned for life from any involvement in Scottish football - and Rangers, the club he has helped on the road to ruin.
One of the things that so annoyed McCoist was that Rangers were punished alongside Whyte.
In these things the club and the owner - and Whyte is still, to the best of anyone's knowledge, Rangers' biggest shareholder and the man with the keys to both Ibrox and Murray Park - are indistinguishable.
That's a hardship for the club but a reality. It's how these things work.
McCoist is naive and disingenuous to believe otherwise. Apart from anything else Rangers enjoyed an artificial advantage because the club - even if this was at the sole direction of Whyte - were able to sign, retain, pay and play players by completely bumping the tax man.
Not only should the club be punished for that but a transfer embargo actually seems a reasonable enough fit for the crime in question.
You can be sure that if - or when - UEFA come sniffing around this particular mess they won’t make the distinction between fly-by-Whyte and Rangers and they’d not look kindly on the SFA's panel making the distinction.
McCoist, Hateley and many fans have also argued with a certain vehemence that the Judicial Panel issued the punishments with a complete disregard for the future wellbeing of Rangers or the Scottish game.
Which is exactly as it should be.
The remit of this investigation into the gross mismanagement of a football club could not and should not have been:
"Go easy lads, Rangers are in a bit of a fix."
Doesn't work like that.
I can accept that these SFA sanctions don't help Rangers and that it would be easier if both the SFA and the SPL were able to deliver verdicts and punishments simultaneously, rather than this gradual drip-drip of bad news, of Rangers driven to financial insanity by a Chinese water torture of fines and sanctions.
But such is the football environment that Rangers helped create. And, on these particular charges, it wasn't for the panel to make life easier for Rangers or for potential new owners like Bill Miller or Paul Murray's Blue Knights.
The SFA, and any disciplinary procedures it has, should serve the game, not serve Ally McCoist, Rangers' administrators or the Rangers Supporters Trust.
But, say some, whither the SFA when Craig Whyte took the reigns?
An absurd revisionist history is growing up that suggests the SFA could and should have stopped Whyte from taking over.
It's true that the SFA's fit and proper procedures are shambolic, setting an honesty threshold that would shame a bad online dating site.
But the SFA can't stop someone buying shares. Whyte - encouraged by the warm backing of Rangers supporters - wanted to buy the club, Sir David Murray and Lloyds TSB were absolutely desperate to get a financial Titanic off their hands.
Even if they'd raised objections the SFA would have been powerless to stop Whyte paying his pound and installing someone like Gary Withey as chairman and perhaps someone from Duff & Phelps as company secretary.
And, you know, if they'd done that at the time I'm fairly certain that a number of Rangers fans would have lost their heads over unfair interference in the commercial interests of their club.
So Ally McCoist is wrong. And those who have backed his stance are wrong.
The Judicial Panel acted within their remit and handed out a punishment that was certainly remarkably stringent but quite within their power.
As is correct Rangers, who were represented at the hearing, will have a right to appeal.
That is how the SFA's disciplinary procedures work. It was the system voted on unanimously by all clubs - including Rangers - just last summer. A new process that, at the time, appeared to create an unusual but welcome unity and cohesion in the Scottish game.
And it was a system that had the anonymity of panel members at its heart. A mechanism required, we must concede, because of the schism in Glasgow football. An assurance that the game remained governable.
If I'm allowed to jump on the bandwagon of rage, what's left me seething is the way that McCoist, egged on by cheerleaders in the press, has decided that it's a process that's not fit for purpose if it delivers a verdict that Rangers don't agree with.
I'll accept that it was nothing but anger that led McCoist to call for the anonymity of the three panel members to be lifted.
Anger at the predicament his club finds itself in, frustrated rage at the dying of the Ibrox light, at the realisation that this is a club which, even if they had the money, simply cannot buy a break at the moment.
An anger that led him to a moment of gross irresponsibility, an unreasonable demand supported by a sneering and misguided dig at the independence of the panel.
It didn't take too long for his words to have an impact.
The names were posted across the internet, the police raised concerns about the safety of the three men, the SFA issued the following statement:
"The Judicial Panel consists of volunteers from across the spectrum of sport and business in Scotland. They are appointed on the basis of anonymity yet all three panel members have reported intrusion into their personal and work lives, including abusive and threatening communication.A couple of weeks ago the Daily Record’s Jim Traynor was ruminating on the awfulness of Twitter:
"This has been extended to directors of the Scottish FA, whose private details have been published on internet sites and who have, themselves, been victims of abusive communication.
"This culminated tonight in a visit by Strathclyde Police, who are taking seriously the threats made towards the individuals involved. We are thankful for their advice and support in these matters."
“Too many halfwits with twisted agendas are attracted to these sites but if these very platforms allow people to let off steam and expound their half-baked theories they probably are of some use to the rest of society. They probably cut down on the number of nutters roaming the streets muttering to themselves.”That was very good of Jim. Because it offers a wonderfully lucid description of the “half baked” rant that passes for Mark Hateley’s column in today’s Record.
Mark even names the three members of the panel. Proving that where Twitter leads the Record’s nutters will follow.
The Telegraph pitched in with an odd Roddy Forsyth article that not only named the men but apparently felt the need to offer up some sort of half hearted attack on their suitability for the job.
I would agree that there should have been more transparency. The reasons for the decision should have been delivered at the same time as the judgements.
But there was no need to name names. No need to essentially destroy a new disciplinary system before it had been properly evaluated.
No need to make it even more difficult for the game to attract knowledge and expertise from across society - the sort of people we need to clear up myriad messes caused by the "football men" that Hateley seems to think should be left in glorious isolation to ruin the game as they see fit.
No need to take Scottish football another step on this destructive path, this hysterical belief that if you don't agree with something you're perfectly within your rights to leave the game all but ungovernable.
All of which could have been avoided if McCoist had slowed down, taken a breath and, if he didn't already know, asked a colleague who was on the panel.
He chose not to, jumping instead on his soapbox for a bit of rabble rousing.
Maybe he thought the fans needed a rallying cry, maybe he thought there was danger of administration fatigue setting in and an injection of passion was required.
Maybe, and this is the worst possible scenario, he thought that such callous treatment of the original panel would ensure that an appeals panel would be fearful enough to treat Rangers leniently.
Maybe he wasn't thinking at all.
Whatever the reason, his misjudgement was huge.
What now?
Rangers will appeal.
I don't think the SFA should agree to hold that appeal before they've properly investigated any disciplinary issues that need to be addressed following McCoist's comments.
I don’t think they should agree to an appeal until after they have properly investigated who leaked the names of the original panel.
Those issues need to be resolved because there are those - inside Ibrox, in the press and in the Rangers support - who have gone out of their way to ensure that an appeal cannot be held without “fear or favour.”
If these things are not addressed then each individual on the SFA’s list of potential panellist must surely consider disengaging from the organisation and refusing to sit in judgement of an appeal hearing.
If that prolongs Rangers' agony then so be it. The SFA need to show a commitment to their own procedures and their own panels before they commit to the future of one club. And Rangers won’t need to look far to apportion blame for any delay in the process.
Would the end of Rangers also kill Scottish football? Possibly. But almost certainly not.
Still Rangers people - supporters and those within the club - seem to think they qualify for special treatment, that they are above normal standards because they “are” Rangers, that they can bully and threaten now because if Scottish football doesn’t do what Rangers want then Rangers will make Scottish football pay at some unspecified date when the club is not a financial basket case.
"The whole world's agin us, but we will rise and smite our enemies."
It’s a position that relies on the brassiest of brass necks and a tenuous grasp of just how deep in the mire Rangers find themselves.
I’ve said before that a little humility would go a long way. This week it was sadly lacking as McCoist flew off the handle, as Hateley launched his rant or as Sandy Jardine promised "sanctions" against those teams who don't respect Rangers the way they should.
They are doing their club no favours.
Faced with this kind of backlash it’s hard not think that the other clubs should just take the risk and give them no special treatment at all.
Maybe, as the Gurkha motto has it, it's better to die than to be a coward.
The sad thing about this week, and the long-term damage it might still do to the governance of the Scottish game, is that it's all something of a storm in a teacup.
Maybe a welcome one for Duff & Phelps, those beleaguered administrators at Ibrox, a deflection from their own travails.
Four days on from the deadline they set we still wait patiently for the announcement of a preferred bidder.
And wait and wait and wait.
Where do we stand?
Who knows? The longer it drags on the more convinced I am that Bill Miller's interest will fizzle out and that Paul Murray's Blue Knights can't gather the cash they need to satisfy the requirements of the administrators.
A sorry mess and one that must now mean liquidation is the by some distance the most likely outcome.
The Judicial Panel's appeal hasn't changed that one way or another. I doubt it will even speed up or slow down a process that is now surely geared to simply getting Rangers to the end of the SPL season.
Given the way a number of people have behaved this week it's likely that any sympathy for that predicament has sharply receded.
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Friday, April 20, 2012
Albion Road: Risk and opportunity
As promised I've made a swift return to the halcyon pages of Albion Road.
This week I'm taking a look at the outstanding SPL issues of the season as four go mad for Europe and two are driven crazy by relegation pressure:
I'll be back on Albion Road in May with a round-up of the SPL season. And I might even take a look back at the Scottish Cup final.
albionroad.com
@albion_road
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This week I'm taking a look at the outstanding SPL issues of the season as four go mad for Europe and two are driven crazy by relegation pressure:
Just five games left now in the 2011/12 SPL season.Read the whole article here
The rather artificial construct that sees the league fracture into a top and bottom six clubs just a few weeks from the finish line runs the risk of creating something of an anti-climatic SPL conclusion.
That risk is heightened when, as with Celtic this year, the title is done and dusted with a handful games to spare.
We're left searching for alternative distractions. This season an intriguing battle for Europe and a prolonged relegation struggle should be enough to keep interest alive.
At the bottom we wonder just how good a season could this yet be for Hibs?
Remarkably it could be one of their best since their league-winning glory days in the 1950s.
Remarkable because for the largest chunk of this season Hibs have been a weak impersonation of a top flight football club.
I'll be back on Albion Road in May with a round-up of the SPL season. And I might even take a look back at the Scottish Cup final.
albionroad.com
@albion_road
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Thursday, April 19, 2012
Talking balls
Delighted to be back on theFootypod this week with host Scott Johnston, regular guest Brent Artema and indefatigable blog/pod main man Simon Furnivall.
Topics included the Champions League semi finals, cups north and south of the border, Saturday night's El Clasico and some brief thoughts on the long, drawn out saga of league reconstruction in Scotland.
We also took the chance to pick our all time English Premier League XI which, in my case, owed much to Denis Law, alcoholism and an erstwhile member of Girls Aloud.
Get your ears on it through iTunes or have a listen right here
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We also took the chance to pick our all time English Premier League XI which, in my case, owed much to Denis Law, alcoholism and an erstwhile member of Girls Aloud.
Get your ears on it through iTunes or have a listen right here
- Find Scott @thefootyblognet and www.thefootyblog.net
- Brent tweets @GFT_Brent and takes control of www.globalfootballtoday.com
- Simon is on Twitter @SFurnivall and is the creative mind behind lovelyleftfoot.com and www.hamiltoncrescent.net
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