Just for info - Graham Spiers in the Times

[Jam Tarts 1874]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/article4888025.ece

 

From The TimesOctober 6, 2008

 

The Scotland manager is revealing a knack for coming through storms

 

Graham Spiers

George Burley grew in my estimation once more last week. Having been a Burley doubter to start with following his appointment by the SFA, not least due to the complicated stories that had tended to dog his career in club management, my admiration has grown for the Scotland manager as he has weathered this or that tuppence-ha?penny storm to build a decent Scotland squad.

 

On Saturday Scotland face Norway at Hampden Park and a win still seems imperative for Burley and his team if qualification for the World Cup is to remain plausible. Yet this is a football manager who has a habit of spiking his enemies? guns.

 

Not the least reason for wishing Burley well, apart from natural patriotism, is because of those who, for whatever perverse reason, had been hoping to witness the Scotland manager?s swift and embarrassing decline. After the Macedonia nonsense of a month ago and all the rubbish surrounding Lee McCulloch, it was perfectly obvious that a scent of blood was in the air, and that some believed ? it turned out mistakenly ? that they were about to have their ?Berti moment? with Burley.

 

A ?Berti moment?, just for clarification, is when some of us in the press get to mercilessly kick a defenceless little guy before having him run out of town. It is held to be quite good fun.

 

So do you remember the script? After Skopje, Burley was hopeless, the players were in turmoil, and there was imminent anarchy in the squad, apparently. Give it a few days, it was being confidently averred, and we?d soon be tearing Burley limb from limb as another Scotland manager bit the dust. Well, Burley duly took his team to Iceland, and put out a tactically brave selection to win 2-1 on the night and, amid quite a bit of simpering, the knives had to be put away.

 

On Thursday past Burley announced his latest Scotland squad. With some innovation, there was the name of Chris Iwelumo, causing raised eyebrows all round, until the Scotland manager came forth to utterly justify the Wolves striker?s inclusion.

 

It wasn?t Burley?s fault, frankly, that some of us are a bit insular and parochial in Scotland when it comes to English football, not least English football that is played beneath the Barclay?s Premier League. But Burley knows his subject well, and knows English coaches and managers all over the place, and had also known about Iwelumo for years from his time at Derby County and Southampton. There was nothing earth-shatter-succeed or fail with Scotland, but there are moments when his Manager of the Year award in the old English Premiership in 2001 suddenly has great clarity. His work at Ipswich Town was consistently good and finally excellent for seven of eight years there and it brought him the ultimate accolade in the British club game.

 

Now, with Scotland, he faces a very different task, with a lot of moderate players, but glimpses of Burley?s talent are recurring. Even amid that Macedonian darkness, when his second-half substitutions were swift, clear and bold in application, you thought this is a guy who absolutely backs his own judgment.

 

By now Burley will know Age Hareide?s Norway side inside out, having used a number of scouts to watch their progress. Some bleat about the way Burley has brought in figures such as Tommy McLean, his former manager at Motherwell, yet that is how football works. It seems reasonable and sensible to have such as McLean as a sounding board.

 

At the end of it all, Burley still needs a win on Saturday, and I think he will get one. The Scotland manager is revealing a nice knack for coming through storms.

 

And another thing...

 

There is only one cure for racist blight: education

 

In the diplomatic walking on eggshells that so often passes for relations between Rangers and Celtic, not many have chosen to put their heads above the parapet in the way that John Reid did last week.

 

The Celtic chairman issued a blunt statement in which he condemned Rangers supporters for singing a song about the Irish famine which he labelled ?racist? and ?deeply offensive?. The statement by Reid certainly represented a break with the policies of both clubs.

 

Rangers and Celtic have had a habit of shying away from comment about each other?s ?tradition? ? I use this word loosely given its routine abuse on both sides.

 

Sir David Murray, I know from personal experience, has plenty to say in private about Celtic ? some of it jocular, not a lot of it complimentary ? but will rarely, if ever, come out and say it in public.

 

Murray is only complying with a sort of unwritten rule among Old Firm officials which holds that, while both sets of fans can be as bonkers and disparaging as they like about each other, the club?s directors will always hold fire.

 

Peter Lawwell, the Celtic chief executive, from what I can see adheres to the same policy.

 

So what John Reid said last week about the Rangers support had quite a resonance to it.

 

?We should condemn racism and sectarianism wherever they arise,? Reid said. ?Both Rangers and Strathclyde Police have acknowledged that the content of The Famine Song, which is directed against the community of Irish descent living in Scotland, is in breach of race relations legislation.?

 

It wasn?t hard for Reid to pick his target. The Famine Song, with its racist and bigoted content, is the latest in a long line of supporters anthems which have made the Rangers hierarchy cringe. Commendably, Rangers plug away behind the scenes trying to root out such themes among their support, but so far with limited success. There is a Rangers hardcore who remain highly agitated by Celtic?s Irish heritage.

 

Frankly, I can?t see Strathclyde Police, despite their warnings, wading in and making arrests over the song. I just think that, like The Famine Song?s predecessors on the Rangers hymn-sheet, it will drone on and on until something equally offensive is found to take its place.

 

There is only one cure for the white underclass which has attached itself to Rangers. If I may quote Tony Blair (otherwise no great hero of mine): education, education, education.

 

Sock it to ?em, Rangers

 

I must say I have savoured the appearance of those great Rangers red-and-white socks which have abruptly made a comeback this season. Now we are talking!

 

These were the socks I was weaned on as a kid, the socks which carried Rangers to their European Cup Winners? Cup win of 1972, and which Tommy McLean, Lord Alfred Conn and Colin Stein wore in their prime.

 

At the mere sighting of such socks I want to suddenly recite: ?McCloy Jardine and Mathieson... Greig, Jackson and Smith... McLean, Conn and Stein... MacDonald and Johnston.?

 

For some reason football teams in the 1970s were reeled off like this, with those strange rhythmic breaks, almost like musical punctuation, between the names. Anyway, in those Rangers red socks with their white tops, His Eminence, Sir William ?Bud? Johnston, was in his trouble-strewn pomp.

 

From one Rangers-supporting press colleague last week I was horrified to hear these great socks being referred to as ?the socks of failure?, on account of Jock Stein?s Celtic racking up nine-in-a-row during their use at Ibrox.

 

This is nonsense. As sure as Stein?s Celtic were, this McCloy-Jardine-Mathieson team of Rangers was one of the finest in the club?s history, and the red socks will forever attest to it. They are among the iconic kits of football, so keep using ?em, Rangers.

 

Always worth reading what Spiers has to say, on this occassion Spiers' reference to the "white underclass" that attaches itself to Rangers should be a warning that there are a few similar individuals who attach themselves to Hearts. I say boot them out at every opportunity! Don't give them a foothold.

[I.J]

Absolutely excellent article.

[bone]

I could name approximately 70 of such persons attached to the club. They continually give the Chick Youngs of the world and the other west coast press the excuse to compare us with the twisted element attached to the Old Firm. It really does take other Jambos to stand up and be counted but too many "don't want to get involved".

[Colonel Kurtz]

I could name approximately 70 of such persons attached to the club. They continually give the Chick Youngs of the world and the other west coast press the excuse to compare us with the twisted element attached to the Old Firm. It really does take other Jambos to stand up and be counted but too many "don't want to get involved".

We should now refer to them as The WU ...white underclass

[Big D]

I thought Derek Johnstone was at centre half for the CWC final, not Colin Jackson.

[sandy hearts]

Absolutely excellent article.

 

I dont agree.

the article lacks direction. I cant tell if hes condeming john reids statement or appluading it?

[Chester™]

I dont agree.

the article lacks direction. I cant tell if hes condeming john reids statement or appluading it?

 

Maybe he is doing neither to highlight the point further down? Thats how I read it.

 

Has to be said I enjoyed it, as I do with most of Spiers' articles. He is certainly the top journalist who writes on Scottish football for me.

[h-e-a-r-t-s]

I dont agree.

the article lacks direction. I cant tell if hes condeming john reids statement or appluading it?

 

his job isn't to tell you what to think. he doesn't even need to make clear his opinion. he just tells the facts and lets you decide.

 

how refreshing to hear somebody speak openly and truthfully of David Murray and the other old firm hierarchy.

[rememberwilliegibson]

fantastic article by a courageous journalist