Football's search for Murray magic

Andy Murray meets Hibs' Keith Wright

Another huge day in the massive career of Andy Murray.

After the nerve jangling five sets against Fernando Verdasco comes the challenge of the giant, big serving Jerzy Janowicz in the Wimbledon semi final.

Like his national football team, Murray is no stranger to putting his fans through the wringer.

Unlike Scotland, Murray - four finals, five semi finals and a quarter final in his last ten grand slams - has a knack of getting the job done.

On the BBC website this week he revealed that he occasionally wonders if he might have thrived on the football pitch:

"If I could finish my tennis career and then somehow go back and try again at football, I would have been interested to have given it a go. I have absolutely no idea if I'd have made it but I would have given it a good shot, I would have tried hard."

What Gordon Strachan would do to have someone of Murray's talent and dedication swapping his Adidas tennis shoes for Adidas football boots (like these).

It's an intriguing thought.

It became a recurring theme of last year's Olympics to compare Team GB's medal winners to footballers.

Footballers generally didn't fare well in the comparison.

That was unfair. There are a lot of footballers who work hard to sweat every ounce of value from their talent. Sadly their stories don't sell newspapers.

And recent generations of Scottish footballers haven't had the talent of Murray to use as a stepping stone to headline grabbing greatness.

Certainly when Murray was a Hibs supporting youngster contemplating a trial with Rangers, few people would have imagined Scotland producing a world class tennis player before we produced another world class footballer.

But here he is. Murray, the golden boy holding his own in a gilded generation, as successive Scotland football teams huff, puff and fail.

His success won't turn us into a nation of tennis lovers, the general impression is that it is Murray's career rather than the sport that is followed.

We don't - yet - have the sporting infrastructure to support a new generation of mini-Murrays holding their own on the world stage.

But he will inspire a lot of youngsters to choose tennis over other sports when they shop at one of the big boys like Millet Sports.

Sportsmen might not ask to become role models but it is a position they are expected to fill. It might make Murray uncomfortable but he does it almost faultlessly.

Since sport became a 24 hour media obsession, Scottish football has failed to produce an on field talent that has come close to enjoying his stature.

For most of the tennis year he grabs the spotlight - turning it away from the ginormous failure that is the LTA's vision for British tennis.

He gives the sport a narrative that grabs the imagination.

Lacking a world class lightning rod, Scottish football sees the focus shift to administrative squabbles, financial shenanigans and soul searching over repeated failures.

The reserved Murray has the talent to create a feel good factor that carries his sport to the front pages for the right reasons.

How Scottish football would benefit from another Denis Law, another Kenny Dalglish coming along and doing the same.

For now we'll just need to make do with the vicarious pleasure of following Murray. Winning Wimbledon has become a hoodoo for British men's tennis to rival his Hibs team's Scottish Cup travails.

We have to hope that tennis, unlike Hibs, has finally found its man.

Scotland v England: In the beginning

Just a few weeks out from a return to the fray against the Auld Enemy.

Always nice to drop in on a friend to celebrate their birthday. 150 years of the English FA, 140 years of the SFA, 141 years of international football and a first Scottish trip to the new Wembley.

14 years on since our last clash, the Tartan Army will snap up their England vs Scotland tickets and arrive in London en masse.

England fans, more used to friendlies against the world's best, could be a little less enthusiastic.

They could be missing out. Because it might be that, even as we've drifted apart over the years, we share more than ever. A nagging sense of disappointment, a shared frustration borne from very different ambitions forever unfulfilled.

Certainly when you buy your football tickets for this one, you're buying a piece of football history.

110 games stretching back to 1872. 45 England wins. 41 Scotland wins. 24 draws. 192 England goals. 169 Scotland goals.

Successive generations on both sides of the border might have done their best to widdle whatever inheritance they got up the wall but still, this is a game with a hell of a heritage.

So, in the run up to the match at Wembley on 14th August, the Scottish Football Blog will revisit some of those previous 110 games, celebrating football's oldest international through the medium of (mainly) Scottish wins.

But I'll start where international football started. The West of Scotland Cricket Club, Glasgow. St Andrew's Day, 30th November 1872.

There were over 3000 spectators.

Scotland were represented by 11 players from Queen's Park, selected by their goalkeeper Bob Gardner.

This was before the SFA existed. In selecting an international team that could perform to a level of competence, Gardner managed on his own what hundreds of men have struggled to do as part of SFA committees in the intervening 141 years.

England arrived as the favourites, a team full of the best talents from the best team in the country.

A portent of what was to come?

The scratch side of scratch players didn't quite click.

The Scots might have been less celebrated as individuals but they knew how to play as a team. If they couldn't quite vanquish the prototype 'golden generation' they could at least hold their own.

England huffed and puffed in a 1-2-8 formation. Scotland, the blue shirts borrowed from Queen's Park, seemed innovative in their adoption of the more balanced 2-2-6.

Enjoying the better chances Scotland came close to scoring a couple of times.

One attempt was ruled to have gone over the (pre crossbar) tape. Additional assistant referees or goal line technology might have seen it differently.

It wasn't to be.

A scoreless draw that could be read as a moral victory. A Scottish habit formed early.

As was international football. Expecting to break even, Queen's Park were rewarded with a sizable profit.

International football made money. International football was here to stay.

SPL: A pie for a new era?

Is the homogenisation of the football experience set to take another giant leap forward?

Reports this week suggest that Greggs, highly visible high street purveyors of steak bakes, are in talks to take over the catering franchises at every SPL club.

The Greggs phenomenon has pretty much passed me by. I've tried them, of course, but I've never found anything particularly worthy of queuing up for at lunchtime.

Plenty obviously disagree. And if you're happy to queue up in the rain on your own time, you'd probably be happy to queue up at half time.

It would deliver the SPL a high profile commercial partner - could we have the Greggs Sausage and Bean Melt SPFL SPL in a couple of seasons - and deliver Greggs a captive market.

I don't know exact figures for these things but current catering franchise tactics at football grounds seem to be based on selling the lowest standard of food for highest possible price while, I'll uncharitably suggest, not paying top dollar to attract top quality staff.

It's idle speculation to say how much Greggs would recognise in that particular model.

I'm the sort who wallows in nostalgia, who harks back to the days when the local High Street didn't have the uniform sequence of bookie, Greggs, charity shop, bookie, Cash Converter, pound shop, pawn shop, charity shop.

I'm not like the SPL, an organisation defined by its desire to explore new worlds.

That their explorations in football have been a failure does not mean they shouldn't be encouraged to find a new frontier in meat filled pastry products.

One day a contented Neil Doncaster will be able to sit back and say that, when Hearts were in administration and Kilmarnock in uproar, he "had a very productive chat about pies."

For their part a Greggs spokeswoman said:

"Currently we have no plans to supply the Scottish Premier League but are always open to new business opportunities."

Which might mean this is all bunkum.

Because it's been a long time since anyone saw the Scottish Premier League as a business opportunity.

Edinburgh Street Football Festival

Amid the tumult of the close season, there's some football to watch in the heart of Edinburgh this weekend.

Edinburgh's first Street Football Festival kicks off this morning and runs over Saturday and Sunday at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens.

Supporting the Homeless World Cup, held at the same venue in 2005, the four-a-side tournament will see youth organisations, school teams and corporate sides strut their stuff in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.

The festival, supported by Sykes Global, aims to raise awareness of the Homeless World Cup which will this year be held in Poland in August.

Through its global network of football projects the Edinburgh-based Homeless World Cup helps thousands of people change their lives through football each year.

With four players on each side and a stress on attacking, games are fast-paced and full of goals. Draws are decided by sudden death penalty shoot outs.

That pace should provide some amusement on Sunday afternoon when a Hibs-Hearts Select - including Mickey Weir, Keith Wright, Henry Smith and Jimmy Sandison - take on players from local teams.

Goals, Henry "The Cat" Smith and free entry.

What's not to like?

Edinburgh Street Football Festival schedule

The Edinburgh Street Football Festival kicks off at 10 am this morning and finishes at 5.30 pm on Sunday.

Friday 14 June
10 am - 7 pm

Edinburgh Youth Cup and Edinburgh Corportate Cup group stages

Saturday 15 June
10 am - 6 pm

Edinburgh Primary Schools Cup and Edinburgh U13 Girls Cup group stages

Sunday 16 June
10 am - 5.30 pm

Semi finals and final of Edinburgh Youth Cup, Edinburgh Corporate Cup, Edinburgh Primary Schools Cup and Edinburgh U13 Girls Cup including:

1.30 pm - 2.30 pm
Hibs/Hearts Legends Select

Full schedule available at the Street Football website

Croatia v Scotland: Gord almighty

It was a result predicted only by the deluded and Scottish Sun sage Kenny Millar.

Gordon Strachan conceded at full time that a win for Croatia was 90 percent certain.

Somehow Scotland made the most of their ten percent chance.

Percentages figured highly. It was, said captain James Morrison, a victory earned by players giving 110 percent to the cause.

Like Morrison I'm not a mathematician, but even I can see that our 110 trumps their 90 percent.

He'd wrapped a sound point in the cliche though. During the slump of recent years we've fielded teams full of hard workers but too often under George Burley and Craig Levein individual endeavour failed to become a cohesive collective effort.

Not last night. A team effort and a team win.

A meaningless win? Our qualifying race has already been run, last night was typically Scottish: glory when there's nothing left to play for.

Not quite. It certainly wasn't a meaningless game, Robert Snodgrass rammed a hole in Croatia's attempt to win automatic qualification.

This wasn't Scotland taking three points from a dead rubber.

It also gave an inexperienced squad a taste of beating a team ranked above them in the qualifying draw. The first time we've pulled that off since the win over Ukraine in 2007.

Only Alan Hutton and Shaun Maloney from last night's team featured in that 3-1 win at Hampden, four managers and almost six years ago.

When failing in the tougher games is all you know it becomes a hard habit to break.

A tangible benefit from last night is remaining in the group of fourth ranked nations for the next round of qualifiers - an anaemic measure of success but an achievement that prevents a hard task becoming even more difficult.

But the real meaning of the win in Zagreb might only become evident over time.

Strachan has looked frustrated since taking over as manager. Under Levein Scotland were going backwards, the new manager needed a platform to halt the decline.

What he got were limp performances from ever changing squads. The run up to the Croatian game was similarly disrupted by call offs but it also featured a fortnight free from domestic football, almost two weeks for the coaching staff and a young squad to figure out how to get the best from each other.

And if, as I mentioned before the game, Strachan's previous conservatism in selection attracted criticism he showed more flexibility here.

It's true that many changes were forced on him. But he appeared to embrace them and passed that adaptability on to his players.

He spoke last night of giving Russell Martin four weeks notice of his switch to the centre of defence. Morrison was asked to not only take on the responsibility of captain but also take on more of the defensive burden in midfield than he is used to.

Leigh Griffiths was fairly peripheral in attack but ceaseless in his effort, backing Strachan's decision not to send a late SOS to Canada for the experienced but rusty Kenny Miller.

Searching for his first win, Strachan wasn't risk averse. It's hard to imagine his immediate predecessors making the same choices or getting the same response from the players.

We should, of course, be wary of false dawns.

Strachan himself spoke of a performance that still leaves room for improvement. It's also true that Croatia stuttered when big chances came their way.

We remain second bottom of the group and we'll watch yet another tournament on the TV. There are still weaknesses and a lack of cover in certain areas.

What we might have seen is an evolution of the squad, players beginning to react to the demands of a new manager and that manager figuring out how to communicate his methods to a young squad, a squad full of players that will face our next qualification challenge.

Certainly Strachan has found his platform. He now has to build on it.

If we can have more days like this, of waking up to hangovers delivered by celebratory toasts instead of drowned sorrows, he'll be doing something right.

Croatia v Scotland: Gord help us

A two week build up to a Scotland qualifying match. Mounting excitement, ballooning optimism.

Not quite. More a growing sense of foreboding, a lengthening injury list, the challenge posed by Croatia looming ever larger.

That fortnight between the end of the domestic season and tonight's game always looked like it might prove problematic.

A squad already missing some familiar faces has had seven more withdrawals. When the players picked as cover fall by the wayside what is Gordon Strachan left with?

The game already looked daunting. Scotland are without a win in this campaign. Croatia are joint top and looking for their sixth win in seven games. We've only won six games in our last 22 competitive matches.

The experts at betting-news.co.uk will not be falling over themselves to back Scotland.

Much as I find the FIFA rankings an odd tool, recent form suggests the scores of team separating Scotland from Croatia's lofty top five position don't represent skewed statistics.

Strachan has spoken of the likelihood that Croatia will dominate possession. Hardly earth shattering tactical insight but a prospect that becomes grimmer still when you look at the lack of cover in central defence and the dearth of defensive midfielders.

It's also true that many griped that Strachan's first Scotland squads were too fixated on the conservatism that so infuriated his predecessor's detractors.

The manager might argue that it was a conservatism borne from a desire for consistency, to build a platform for a managed transition.

He'll be forced to embrace change tonight though. A new captain, a squad with a mighty 14 international goals between them, inexperience throughout.

Compare and contrast. Croatia have goals, experience, the confidence that comes from winning games and recent qualifications for major championships.

Their manager, Igor Stimac, said this week that "the Scotland team is a dangerous one. I will not allow you to take points from here."

A statement that straddles the fine line between the generosity of a welcoming host and the threatening demeanour of a nightclub bouncer.

But he'll know that - with Belgium enjoying a superior goal difference at the top of the table - a Croatian defeat tonight is unthinkable.

Just one point would do us. It looks depressingly likely that we'll need Stimac's team to show a collective generosity to their visitors for us to get even that.

Iceland, Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania. The teams we've beaten in qualifiers in the last five years. Croatia won't fancy joining that list.

Gordon Strachan would be forgiven for occasionally thinking that there are better ways to earn a living than this.

As much I hope for a pleasant shock, tonight looks like providing more evidence of the scale of his task rather than any answers about he's going to fix a broken team.

Tonight might just leave us all in need of a holiday.

Gary Lineker: Finding his voice?

It might not have been the tweet "heard around the world" but the impact wasn’t bad for a brief bout of sermonising in the aftermath of a nondescript football match.

Thousands of retweets and replies, questions immediately put to the England manager, hundreds of news articles.

In fact it took Gary Lineker more than a tweet to express his dismay at England’s performance on Wednesday night.

Just three tweets though. 415 characters:

 

Don't like England playing this system. So easy to play against. Brazil will thrash us if we line up the same way. Predictable and dated.

Even though results haven't been great, felt tactically England were maturing, but this is a step back to the dark ages of 2 lines of 4.

It's not about playing in straight lines, it's about playing between the lines. Depth gives flexibility, passing alternatives, creativity.

A former England captain having a dig at the current England team is nothing new and England’s performance against Ireland was distinctly lacking.

But the domestic season is done and dusted and column inches still need filled, even after a dullard friendly. So Angry Gary, 52, from Leicester, made headlines.

That Roy Hodgson, his blazingly red proboscis perhaps hinting at sunstroke, cited largely unseen comparisons to Borussia Dortmund and then asked for a definition of "dark ages" prolonged the teacup’s localised storm.

Silly season. All good fun for the detached observer.

The real shock was that this was maybe the most extensive punditry I’ve witnessed from the usually conscientiously mild Lineker all season.

Even previous Twitter "spats" have involved broadcasting rivals and Joey Barton rather than a discourse on tactics.

Amid the cloying cosiness of the Match of the Day studio, Lineker the ringmaster lets his mates get away with it, even now apparently too mindful of his switch to presenter to challenge Al, Alan or Lawro with any insight of his own.

His verdict on England might not have been the most incisive dismantling of an England performance but it tops almost anything Alan Shearer can offer about a Premier League game.

Maybe Lineker is one of those "typical twitterers" we used to hear about, sitting in his underpants being brave behind a keyboard only to revert to inoffensive conformity when he leaves the house, hawking anodyne puns and bags of crisps, existing in a state of constant complacency brought on by not being Adrian Chiles.

Saying not a lot and always looking a bit too confident of his place in the affections of the nation, little more than a Walkers branded Queen Mum.

No longer. Something finally snapped on Wednesday evening.

Alan Shearer thinking that simply being Alan Shearer is enough will no longer be tolerated. Alan Hansen thinking that simply being a parody of Alan Hansen is enough won’t wash anymore. Mark Lawrenson thinking that he just about knows where on earth he is just won’t cut it.

From next season there’s a new Lineker in the studio, a new mantra for Match of the Day:

"It's not about playing in straight lines, it's about playing between the lines. Depth gives flexibility, passing alternatives, creativity."

The mouse has roared.

Cashing in on football's global reach

It seems football’s ability to sail serenely through uncertain economic times continued apace in 2012.

Estimates suggest that, in the year of the much celebrated London Olympics, football attracted $4.5 billion in global sponsorship. Other sports continue to flounder in the wake of the global game.

Football sponsorship as business sense remains high on corporate agendas and big deals are still being signed. Arsenal have reportedly joined forces with Puma in a deal worth over £150 million across five years, snuggling up to their £150 million, five year deal with Emirates.

Exactly the sort of figures that might make a trophy hungry boardroom feel a little less famished.

Meanwhile Manchester United still lead their English rivals in commercial earnings, sponsorship drawn from a global roster of sponsors that extends to over 30 partner organisations.

United are the trailblazers for the wealthy elite, pairing off with other global brands, football carrying the message of airlines and beers, car firms and energy giants to every corner of the earth, providing the perfect ambassadors for multinational globalisation.

Others might have eclipsed his talent but it’s likely that David Beckham’s ability to sell underpants across continents will survive the end of his playing career.

In football’s brave new world success can still mean trophies but it can also be measured by global brand profile and a marketing strategy to crack emerging markets.

In the 150th year of the English Football Association maybe none of this should surprise us too much.

A more regulated game at home gave those Britons travelling the world, for Empire and for trade, a platform to spread the word of football.

Those early football missionaries often travelled in the hope of getting rich or adding to their existing fortunes. For them football was a sideline, but might they recognise something in the motivation of these big clubs, along with UEFA and FIFA, as they find new fans ("consumers") using the power of corporate globalisation and the potential of modern media channels?

Greed might bind the generations but our modern day footballing missionaries are at least less destructive than many of those that went before.

Maybe this is just another stage of football’s evolution, a concentration of wealth on a global stage, destined to exist above more mundane and impoverished local leagues.

There is at least one sobering thought for those of us in Scotland: while football enjoyed $4.5 billion in marketing revenues last year, the SPL was unable to replace a sponsorship deal that would register in the very low millions annually.

Same sport, different game.