The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Soft Scotland needs a major lifestyle change
Sir,– If by “genetics” Gordon Strachan actually meant we just don’t have enough footballers who, from birth, were well fed, well behaved, disciplined and motivated, I think he is spot on.
The problems of Scottish football are a metaphor for Scotland in general.
Our education system is in crisis: 40% of our teachers wanting to leave the profession and citing pupil and parent behaviour as a big reason, and no wonder when there were 600 attacks by pupils on school staff in the North East last year.
Our health, and health system, is in crisis: we have one of the highest obesity rates in the world and five times as many people – 250,000 – with Type 2 diabetes than 50 years ago.
This is almost totally down to poor nutrition.
We have a mental health crisis, especially in the young.
Recently Hibernian manager Neil Lennon described many young footballers as “snowflakes”.
And we have a skills crisis: our politicians (where the biggest lack of skills exists), just like our football managers, are desperate to bring in foreign workers because the local workforce doesn’t want the jobs or isn’t skilled enough.
Things 50 years ago were arguably worse: we smoked a lot more, diets were more frugal and we were poorer.
But we had an education system that was the envy of the world.
In 1967 Celtic won the European Cup, Rangers lost in the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup, Kilmarnock were in the semi-final of the Fairs Cup and Scotland famously beat world champions England.
The teams were full of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The current squad has a lot of good players, big and small, well brought up, and they and their manager did their best.
Our society has a lot of good, skilled people.
But to produce a Baxter, Law, Johnstone, Bremner, Logie Baird, Clerk-Maxwell or Watson-Watt requires a bigger pool of talent.
Politicians refuse to face reality for fear of alienating voters.
Two years ago Nicola Sturgeon could walk on water.
If she had spelled out the need for better diet, parenting and work ethic and copied policies from around the world we might be getting somewhere.
The demise of Scottish football is the demise of Scotland.
We have gone soft and no one’s prepared to say it.
The big difference between Scottish players and genetically similar Germans, Lithuanians or Slovenians is not their size it’s their lifestyle, self-discipline and the confidence that gives. Allan Sutherland. Willow Row, Stonehaven.