THE GAME’S UP!
Enjoy the title drama while it lasts... before the usual suspects at Hampden find a way to spoil that, too
BUCKLE UP, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride from now until the finishing line. How could it be anything else with the likes of Clare Whyte, Rod Petrie, Neil Doncaster and Ian Maxwell sharing the driving as the old charabanc careers down Scottish football’s potholed boulevard of broken dreams?
Not so long ago, it looked like dodging the shattered Buckfast bottles hurled around by those ever-exuberant Hibernian fans would be the greatest impediment to the national game coughing and spluttering its way to the end of another campaign.
That was, until Hampden compliance officer Whyte, presumably locked away in the luggage compartment for her own protection after sending everyone round the bend last season, somehow slipped the cable ties and regained control of the wheel on Friday.
Even by the SFA’s stellar standards, the handling of the last Old Firm game has been a thing of wonder. As for Whyte, there cannot have been such a spectacular return to the smell of the greasepaint and roar of the crowd since Pam Grier strutted on screen in that air hostess uniform in Jackie Brown to the sounds of Bobby Womack.
Unfortunately, the reappearance of Whyte has been played out to the more familiar soundtrack of foam-flecked invective, paranoia and conspiracy theories. Warpaint more appropriate than greasepaint, really.
Celtic already wanted her guts for garters thanks to Ryan Christie being banned for that spot of jockstrap billiards with Alfredo Morelos.
That doesn’t hold a candle to the reaction of Rangers supporters, though, when it became clear the additional yellow card given to Morelos for his throat-slitting gesture after being sent off was hushed-up by the SFA as speculation over further action being taken against him raged.
That the truth coming out dovetailed with the Ibrox club being carpeted over the behaviour of players and staff in December’s games against Celtic and Hibs — played three weeks ago and more — just fed into the narrative that the national association really is run by Parkhead chief Peter Lawwell, sitting in his office wearing a diamond-studded eyepatch and stroking a white cat as he turns his disco lights on and off and cackles loudly.
It’s ludicrous, really. I mean, who in their right mind would give credence to that kind of scenario actually existing?
Well, there’s the former St Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour for one.
Oh, yes, and Stewart Milne, who waited until he was on the way out as Aberdeen chairman last month before alleging Lawwell has way more power than he should.
‘I wouldn’t go as far as saying that he runs Scottish football, but Peter does bear a considerable influence,’ he conceded. Thanks for that, Stewart. Better late than never, I suppose.
The good thing, of course, is that Rangers are not the types to use all this to stir up the lowest common denominator with scattergun statements. No, sirree. Not for them the unsightly business of praising their fans for fighting on the park during a cup final riot that no one ever did anything about and aiming the blunderbuss at Nicola Sturgeon instead.
Not for them the chairman stating that the titles Celtic won while they were on ‘The Journey’ up the diddy leagues don’t count, that Derek McInnes is a coward and that there is an ‘underlying issue’ with referee Willie Collum that needs addressed.
That stuff is all in the past. After all, everyone knows Rangers’ energy is now focused purely on painting anyone who dares suggest Morelos may still have one or two issues to work through as the modern-day equivalent of Oswald Mosley.
In truth, all this talk of antiColombian xenophobia inside Glasgow’s great divide has been a breath of fresh air. Sectarianism and singing about Irish terrorism just gets so, well, same-y after a while, particularly when the authorities make it clear they can’t and won’t do anything about it. Just like missile-throwing. And pitch invaders.
SFA chief executive Maxwell and board member Doncaster — also earning £388,000-a-year as the SPFL’s top banana, don’t forget — put their big plan for addressing disorder to Holyrood last year and had it laughed out of court.
They have bigger fish to fry now. Like figuring out what to do with an outdated Hampden after cobbling together cash to buy it — in the way you might visit a junk shop in a quaint English village after a few pints and wake up beside an expensive antique typewriter or a mangle.
SFA president Petrie hardly inspired confidence when admitting ‘we are not sitting here with a grand plan’ for the national stadium. Or any plan at all, really, outwith hoping a Home Nations World Cup bid coughs up public money.
A bit like the entire game’s approach to Video Assistant Referees.
Maxwell revealed in December 2018 that he was off with Doncaster to do the research on VAR.
We’re still waiting for the big verdict. Yet, we know the SPFL’s leading clubs will vote it down anyway. So it doesn’t really matter.
I mean, it’s not like our referees need help, is it? Is it? That question is probably best answered by studying the showpiece games. The ones in which performance really, really matter.
Like last season’s Betfred Cup final when Andrew Dallas and his team awarded Celtic a penalty against Aberdeen for a questionable offence that took place two yards outside the box.
Or this term’s last-four meeting between Celtic and Hibs in which Bobby Madden and Co failed to spot a handball inside the area by Paul Hanlon at 0-0 and allowed a goal from Callum McGregor to stand despite Odsonne Edouard being miles offside.
Or even the final, where Rangers lost to Celtic thanks to a goal scored when there were three players standing the wrong side of the last defender.
The post-mortem on Kevin Clancy’s display at Celtic Park on December 29, meanwhile, is about to enter its fourth week and is showing no signs of stopping.
There’s a new head of refereeing, of course, in Crawford Allan, who has offered no ideas publicly yet over how to spruce things up.
Maybe he will. He most probably won’t. As the bubbling, ill-managed hatefest that is the first proper title race in years boils over and consumes him, he’ll likely end up looking for shelter in the luggage trunk beside Whyte when she’s safely bolted in again.
Of course, if the prospect of several months of Old Firm rancour is not enough, we’ll also have the anger of an entire nation to roll around in when Scotland, the team no one seems all that bothered about playing for, fails to get to a finals tournament that, in a cataclysmic climax to 22 years of hurt, we will actually be hosting.
It’s not all bad. The UK government plans to bring a halt to gambling advertising in the beautiful game, meaning, erm, Scottish football will lose most of the little money it has. And Under-12s will soon stop having to go in for headers.
By the time they reach 20, those kids will be lucky to have a national sport worthy of the name left.