Stephen King would struggle to write scarier horror story.. I’d love to say it was a case of Keep Calm & on but reality is football in this country is ... DEAD
The Dead Zone – not the Stephen King horror story but a spinetingling, chilling closing of the book for Scottish football.
It’s an obituary written with ghosts from the past, the great players, juvenile teams, working- class grafters and even school janitors, all buried within our national game’s graveyard.
The flashbacks tell a shocking story of the decline ... the once-packed playing fields that now lie empty, a time when football was for all. It was once fun, free and didn’t come with a direct debit.
A time when the Tartan Army weren’t lost souls destined to wander foreign lands in a state of permanent purgatory.
When a kickabout or a game of kerby could be seen in every street. Now it’s ‘No Ball Games Allowed’ and young heads buried in an Xbox or smartphone.
Gordon Strachan had a haunted look as he tried to explain away Scotland’s failures against Lithuania and Slovakia.
He’s been pilloried by many who claim yet another World Cup qualifying campaign is falling apart due to his selection choices and tactics. But Strachan’s not to blame for the latest chapter of misery. In many ways he’s just another victim.
It was novelist King who said: “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
Ain’t that a fact when it comes to all of the words that have been written about where we’re going wrong.
Scottish football isn’t just going through a talent bypass – it’s in a state of shameful neglect and idiotic governance and, sadly, the decline appears to be terminal.
It has got so bad that maybe we should be employing Mr King to write Scotland match reports. Keep Calm and Carrie on? Oh the horror of it all.
The rubbish about a lack of players coming through is a case in point. The truth is there has never been so many, given the Pro-youth set-up, SFA performance schools and bloated football academies.
It’s another cruel irony to claim this is the greatest time to be a young footballer in Scotland. There is no money and fewer imports so greater opportunity.
It’s also coincided with socio and economic reasons why Scotland has ceased to be a football- orientated country.
It’s drifted from the streets to become a middle - class sport and al l the characteristics that allowed us to rear gifted performers, with drive and will to win, have been lost to a non- competitive culture and robotic coaching.
There’s not one single player in the Scottish system who is equipped with the tools to become the special talent that Strachan craves – a world-class performer.
It’s also the reason Scotland are technically inferior to most third- seed nations and why our Under-21 side scored
just eight goals in 10 qualifiers and sit second bottom place of their European Championship qualifying table.
Oliver Burke’s emergence offers some encouragement but he’s been schooled in England and it’s his physical attributes – power and pace – that set him apart rather than his ability with a ball.
The development sides at our clubs are churning out mediocrity in large numbers, the evidence can be seen at their games up and down the country.
Our game’s awash with young players but what’s lacking is a technique, skill-set and mental strength that can take our international side to unchartered levels.
It’s been a slow and painful death for our game. It started with the end of a dusk- til- dawn approach to playing football in council schemes.
The rise in technology saw other countries adopt coaching systems that could counteract new childhood past-times and distractions of a changing world.
Our game’s still talking think tanks, the fabled Rinus Michels manuscript and the Henry McLeish memorandum.
Brian McClair has left the building as the SFA’s performance director and it appears he’s taken the latest blueprint with him.
The rich seam of talent from our boys clubs, school football and the likes of juvenile side Campsie Black Watch are all by the wayside and amateur teams are folding faster than seaside deckchairs.
Sir Alex Ferguson recently took a walk down memory lane and said: “I remember going to Saltcoats with my ma and da and my brother Martin.
“My da would get the ball out and we’d be at it all day, using both feet.”
Both feet? He surely can’t have been serious.
To compound matters, our game is under enormous pressure from other sporting pursuits within the leisure industry.
There’s an ethos in Scotland that size and speed matter more than mastery of the ball when recruiting young players. But if a kid hasn’t gained the touch, control and the ability of self-expression before he’s into his teens then he’s already missed the boat.
It was a horror show last week but the writing’s been on the wall for two decades. Let’ s hope someone at the SFA is working on a manuscript to trigger a resurrection– it should be a best seller.