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Before: It’s no secret that the SFA called for a ‘42 Club Gathering’,. Firstly Shhh they don’t want it to ever be called a ‘Summit’. That word ‘Summit’, has previous. Just about all we do know is that as ‘Custodians of our Game, (run, they oft say when it suits, ‘for clubs by clubs’), they are trying to find and implement a better national pathway for young Scottish talent into our sides. We also now have a new team fighting the good fight from the 6th floor. Craig Mulholland

The SFU has been working to support the football authorities and help promote the women's game by bringing together women's clubs' fans from across Scotland. To that end, we’ve held a number of meetings with representatives of women’s fans’ groups and have also recorded a unique and inspiring, joint interview with both Celtic and Rangers’ supporters’ groups leaders. More recently, we've added more people - from all over the country - to our women's team and are working to g

After a ‘Bloody Awful’ week for Scottish football it’s easy to fall into the active, very much ongoing, and indeed all- consuming media trap of ‘blame games’. By ‘Bloody Awful’, I mean two things in particular. Firstly, our 5 failures in Europe preliminaries, some abject. But for me, even worse, our kids football nadir that has all its roots from what’s acceptable at the top of the game. Both are wake up calls. Kids’ Football is the future. It quite simply is the foundation s

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn

I know which floats my boat. I turned on the radio on Wednesday lunchtime-ish to hear Scottish Footballs very own ‘Reg from Life of Brian’, spouting forth about an announcement and plan announced that day by Craig Naylor HM’s Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland. Reg was railing against and casting dire, dark warnings about Polis Scotland’s plan to belatedly utilise ‘Facial Recognition’ technology to fight against things like mass fan disorder as witnessed recently by us all

The screenshot below contains the review of prolific Scottish football historian David Allan's latest book, subtitled, "A Brief History of Fife Junior Football and the Cowdenbeath Cup." It is reproduced by permission of John Litster, editor of the Scottish Football Historian, where it first appeared.

Three short weeks today, somewhere nice in St Andrews with good coffee and posh biscuits, the SFA will hold a meeting for and exclusive club. The 42 Scottish current SPFL members of the much larger Scottish Football Family. I’ve been told it’s a closed meeting, invited clubs only. Certainly no riff raff like fan groups of our ilk, and while I welcome the fact that Scottish Football seems once again to be thinking on a macro scale about its own future that alone raises so man

An optimistic prediction but for now, how on earth did we get to where we find ourselves? After what the Fifa beancounters and PR people are still trumpeting as their most financially successful World Cup ever we all viewed our dominant, omnipresent, media-savvy Fifa President relishing the quite amazing soapbox he has created for himself. In his world football is riding high and he, alone, is the main reason why. Sadly in reality football is at a crucial crossroads and what

Last Wednesday, the Scottish Football Union invited some of our members, with a few guests from our friends at ATAC and Supporters Direct Scotland, to meet with Willie Collum, the SFA Head of Refereeing, at Hampden Park. To be more accurate, it was Willie himself who issued the invitation, because, as he said, “We (that is the referees) want to engage with fans more than we have in the past and help them understand what we try to do, week-in, week-out, so they can enjoy t

All 55 member Associations, including the SFA, have acted decisively. Good. That's Part I of the battle. Now, how do we take this further and stop the desecration of our game by those - and yes we mean you Mr Infantino - who think that fans don't notice that 'hydration breaks' are actually advertising breaks, or that it doesn't matter if ordinary fans can't afford football because others will pay top dollar or that half-time lasts half and hour. Now is the time to ramp up

“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes it extremely seriously. So should every national football association. So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game. “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to s

I'm delighted to announce a new member of our Disability Team. Tommy Mackay is a striker for the Scottish National Amputee team and is famous for scoring a memorable goal in a half-time challenge at Tannadice, which you can see at this link on YouTube. In fact, this goal was SO memorable that it won the SPFL 'Goal of the Month' and the trophy for this sits proudly on Tommy's side-table in his living room. On the international front, Tommy was the first person to score an i

A lot of people think that England ‘invented’ football. Unless you have entirely cut yourself off from UK media, you may have heard more than one reference to “football’s coming home.’ Spoiler alert, after Thursday it’s not. However, may I admit that it’s a great song (that should get some below the line abuse) but the conceit that England somehow ‘invented’ football is one that needs to be taken with a large pinch of salt. Or possibly even a quarry full… Now there are so

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 5: The power of football … and a surprise In the fourth part of our interview Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, talked about the cost of hiring facilities and how that impacts on the work they do. This time, I asked her to tell us something surprising about the Foundation and also how they communicate their work to the wider Buddies’ fan-base? “Well, I’m don’t know if it’s a sur

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 4: Making use of the North Stand, and the cost of five-a-sides… In the third part of our interview Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, explained about the importance of assessing the impact of their team’s work. Today, she tells us more about two key issues that face the Foundation… “The first is the facilities available to us, or to any equivalent Community Trust at another club.

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 3: How does Charlton Athletic help the St Mirren Foundation? In the second part of this interview, Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, told us about the five key pillars that form the basis of their work, these being: community connection, health & wellbeing, education & empowerment, mental fitness & resilience and inspiring our youth. She then explained just how vital it is that the

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 2: the five pillars… In the first part of the interview, Gayle Brannigan, the CEO of the St Mirren Foundation, talked to us about how they began and grew from a very small starting-point. Our conversation then moved on as she described the five pillars upon which the Foundation is built. These are: Community Connection – Bringing People Together Health & Wellbeing – Movement Is Medicine Education

An interview with Gayle Brannigan, CEO of the St Mirren Foundation Part 1: getting the Foundation up and running… Gayle got into the Third (charity) Sector after an impressive career at a very senior level in the private sector. As a result, she brings a pragmatic, business-orientated approach to the very real challenges that face all football clubs’ Community Foundations/Trusts, tempered with real understanding of the issues that they all face and the ways in which they ca

Following our recent, online meeting with the CEO/MD/Chair of the women's game in Scotland and various fans from clubs across the country, we're delighted to say that two of those who attended that (very productive) session have volunteered to join the SFU's women's team. Let them introduce themselves... Loran Taylor My name is Loran Taylor and I first got into women's football, specifically Elgin City FC Women, in March 2025. I knew nothing of the team prior to this or ha

Isla McMillan is Chair-person for Rangers Woman Collective. She first started attending the games after getting tickets via Scottish Power (who are one of the biggest sponsors of the SWPL) and has been following Rangers Women FC for over five years now. To say she is a committed fan is a wee bit of an undestatement. Isla attends all home and away games with her 11 year old daughter, who is not just a fan but also now plays for Gartcairn. However, while Isla and her daugher s