Andy's Sting

Headlines can be misleading and this is maybe at first not what it seems. Not quite what you were thinking about. The three negative quotes actually refer to ‘Andy’s Album of the Week’ which as normal I talk about at Sting’s sign off. This week it’s Iain Matthews, ‘Go For Broke’ and it is fair to say it ‘bombed’ in the press at release in 1976. Lousy overviews and stinging put-downs from all the ‘experts’. Why? Because Ian Macdonald, (real name), broke out from his Fairport-i

Our doses of Uefa induced realism keep coming. Most observers would know Ferencvaros are no European patsies or mugs to be underestimated. Yes, their current League table might say they are a mediocre 5th in the Hungarian top Division but if they win their one game in hand they could be top and indeed they are the league’s only undefeated side. But we also collectively know the European fortress that was Parkhead should not fear them. So last night’s result was first for me a

A lousy expression because nothing is ever easy till it’s easy. We’re a week from last week’s St Andrews Summit and the Football team at the SFA are following up last week’s now public plans for changes to cup competitions as a major part of the answer of blooding kids. The big number they shared of £40M more into the Scottish game if we get our kids system right flew right over the chairmen I have spoken to so far. It’s a nice to listen to, but only a remote possibility for

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

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

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

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