Andy’s Sting In The Tale (02/10/26) "Ill Fated, Lacklustre and Lightweight"
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-induced folkie mould, created some music he liked and the resultant collection of gentle tracks on this album somehow challenged and offended music pundits.
Poor dears.
A public musical offence like the electrifying Dylan at Isle of Wight, or Paul McCartney’s wonderful post Beatles solo album, Ram.
Unexpected product castigated by rigid chattering classes.
But time has brought different perspectives as it often does.
I have always loved today’s album, maybe because I didn’t read the reviews.
And I think Dylan electrified his career post The Band.
And Ram was great back then and has improved with age.
So In a week where there are three concurrent huge football stories:
Uefa v Infantino and wherever that will end up,
Man City and their extremely sneaky £900M+ Plus of extra but illicit funding,
And a challenging start for our current Scotland Head Coach, here’s a question.
Will time change what we think?
I think as far as Scotland are concerned we do indeed have to break out and “Go For Broke’.
Trouble is we don’t seem to know which way to point and how to start the real change of style we need.
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. Andy Thinks Infantino Will Be Re-elected in Morocco
2. Doesn’t Every Football Club ‘Fornicate’ Their Numbers?
3. The Wrong Management?
4. Uefa Croatian Nonsense
1. So What Will Happen Next?
The Swiss head of Fifa is well down the road of getting his financial ducks in a row.
Yes there is stuff to deal with like today’s Swiss FA withdrawing ‘support’ for his re-election, because of leadership issues, governance, transparency and more.
(He is even said to have known Man City and indeed PSG were ‘at it’ as far back as 2014, which they were).
Infantino’s Long -Planned Power Broking and all that.
And now toady a highly regarded and well-followed ‘leaker and whistle blower’, Rui Pinto, the man behind the big Uefa investigation back in 2014 has come out and called him, Infantino, ‘a cancer on football and a man who should have no future in the game’.
Uefa’s Sandy Ceferin this week used Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ analogy saying, “Our emperor is naked and convenient words cannot change uncomfortable realities”.
Jahnnie in the meantime is campaigning remorselessly and promising more and more money to supporters.
He’s clever and his money will win the votes he needs in Rabat on March 18 and then it’s all about what happens next.
Let’s say the 55 Uefa associations hold the line; the one country one vote will see them outnumbered.
But after the stand-off there is one reality.
The real money and commerciality worldwide comes from Europe.
Infantino holds the majority of cards, sure, but Ceferin has all the important ones.
In the meantime Fifa have hired Martin Sorrel the ex-Chair and very well paid leader of WPP, Wire and Plastic Products, to try to raise Jahnnie’s popularity.
It’s messy and we have a way to go.
2. I Think They Do
The Man City news this week is a dipstick into something we all know deep down.
Footballers, almost to a man cheat to gain advantage on the pitch and so do clubs on and off.
But what happens when they get caught, like during this last week?
When they get caught ‘cheating’ on a global scale?
The game needs rules.
Everton and Notts Forest got smacked hard a few years ago for much less, but titles were not at stake.
They are with City.
And City don’t live in a league who actually needs them because other ambitious clubs and owners are already lining up to fill any void.
Not like when we all remember the sad days we had our own wee parallel back in 2012.
It was the aftermath of the Murray Regime’s ‘turbo-charging’ his Glasgow club.
It won him trophies for sure and yes, the short term glory they brought too, but when reality caught up the cheating just hurt the fans and created forever issues that Scottish football didn’t know how to deal with then or now.
So we handled it badly.
I don’t think that will happen down south.
Because it’s different in England, the book will be thrown, the punishment will be very real and the appeal lodged yesterday will be forensically and transparently dealt with and punishment will be appropriate .
As of now Man City have 40 pages of damning report with 115, maybe even more, charges already upheld and probably over £1 Billion of extra funding into the club in the open.
And maybe it’s still happening with more digging a certainty to find more.
And yes, they will appeal again and again but they will be properly punished by the League and then the FA are next in line to dispense their own justice.
3. So is it Time to Think and Act Differently?
Two games down in the tenure of our new manager.
What have we learned?
Two truisms.
It hasn’t been a great start and we as a nation are always over-optimistic.
Fan goodwill and pundits talking Nagumbi, for hours doesn’t cut the mustard or score goals on the park.
We’re also just now less than 25 minutes away from an unwanted ‘record international goals drought’.
You will all know I never thought our problem was Steve Clarke.
It always was and is the conveyor belt of kids that fails our clubs our leagues, and eventually our national squad.
We’re not good enough because our production processes are constantly failing.
I don’t want the SFA to panic, and hope Andy Robertson has a successful 100th cap, but I would like to see a two level approach in the future.
The first is support our manager fully and make our team as good as it can be, even if we are dour.
The second is more important.
It’s a root and branch review of grass roots and with a few changes including proper analysis, planning and funding.
Yes it’s ultimately about elite kids but every top player starts out in ‘street football’.
We’ve lost the spontaneity that used to be our best asset.
We have an elite programme where kids, usually the bigger, slightly older ones, join football teams at stupid ages like 4, and get over-coached.
Put simply we pick big kids over-coach them and wonder why it fails.
Our SPFL clubs constantly ‘poach’ the best, and then burn them when at 20 they are not ready.
It’s not rocket science and that I find frustrating.
And deep down I don’t have confidence in our governance having the will or the power to reset.
4. When is Closed-Doors a Sell-Out?
Engerland play in Croatia tomorrow.
A closed doors game because of racist chanting and Nazi salutes by Croatian fans.
A deliberate counter-move by the Croatian FA will see the game played at a ground with an 8,000 capacity which will be filled with 100 lucky Engerland fans and an estimated 7500 noisy, supportive screaming kids plus adult escorts.
A total nonsense.
An open two fingered salute that shows Uefa the organisation can be just as daft and indeed as corrupt as Fifa.
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Money has become such a factor in all decisions that our game is collectively but progressively changing for the worse.
It has been forgetting its core fans and foundations.
Like any ecosphere the game has to remember its roots and environment.
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Andy’s Album of the Week: Iain Matthews Go For Broke
The man with three names as well as some lousy reviews in 1976.
‘Iain Matthews.’
‘Ian Matthews’.
And originally ‘Ian Matthews Macdonald’ from Barton-upon-Humber in Lincs and then sunny Scunthorpe where he played with local bands till he escaped to London as an assistant in a shoe shop in Carnaby Street.
From memory the change was because King Crimson already had an Ian Macdonald so he differentiated his name and career.
I know of at least 4 other Andy Smith’s in my own football journey so maybe that’s where I got it wrong.
I never worked in a shoe shop either.
Back to the album, Darkness Darkness is a good opener, I love his laid back Brown Eyed Girl, Lonely Hunter and the rest are just a nice snapshot from a different but more optimistic time.
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