Andy’s Sting in the Tale (03/04/26) "Managing a Self-Made Decline?"
- Andy Smith
- Apr 3
- 7 min read
AKA When Chatter is Easier Than Change?
So the countdown continues and we’ve now had 2 friendlies against higher rated World Cup Qualifier teams and lost both.
Scotland players walked off at the end to some boo-ing from fans who wanted better results and felt justified that their entry money gives them the right to vocalise the displeasure they felt.
I understand that but would have preferred that their energies were focussed on the realities rather than media created over-hype and a better future too.
What has to be done if we want to be a more successful football nation.
The hard fact is we are not and never will be the best international football side in the world.
In the cold light of day our last 3 internationals vs Denmark, Japan and Cote D’Ivoire have shown we can compete.
that’s good.
But they all also demonstrated that our skill levels are not our strongest asset and our conveyor belt of talent isn’t conveying.
Perspective
The best performance by our Scottish Team at a World Cup was in Germany 1974.
We drew with the much fancied world power and holders Brazil, drew with the formidable Yugoslavia (Think Croatia plus, plus, plus, and were eventually eliminated undefeated because we didn’t score enough goals against Zaire.
(Although that Free Kick still makes me laugh)
So we reached the last 16 were undefeated and if you didn’t know back then in December 1974 we were ranked 9th in the world, 34 places higher than now which is 43.
This year we as a nation are already elated, over-elated, to be in the last 48 and our ambition is hoping to ‘get out of our group’.
And yes for the first time.
But to improve on Germany ’74 we will have to do way better than that and get to the last 8 in the land of King Donald.
That would mean qualifying and then winning twice more after the group stages.
Perspective and all that.
The dominant football cohort of our whole media industry survives and gets renumerated by commenting rather than questioning or thinking.
It’s overwhelming focus is on the now and dominated by totally irrelevant, but very intricate and hollow gossip.
Gossip and expertise that achieves nothing other than filling the ever constant emptiness with constant emptiness.
What Did We Do Better back in 1974?
That for me should be driving us all.
What can we learn?
And more importantly start to do?
Let’s start by looking at our ’74 team against Brazil.
10 Scots-born and one from Leeds who had a dad from Ayrshire, and was also voted ‘Goalkeeper of the Tournament’.
What a list of football giants.
Harvey, Jardine, McGrain, Holton, Buchan, Bremner, Hay, Dalglish, Jordan, Lorimer and Morgan.
No team or club dominates the make-up of the line up they were from the them conveyor belt of top talent.
So let’s look at the similarities.
All the players had played Schools Football up to under 15 which was ubiquitous and incredibly fertile, as it could be again.
All joined real clubs as young as 15 and first learned to skivvy at the bottom of the pecking orders.
Some were farmed out to Juniors to ‘toughen them up’.
All played reserve football and were nursed by a mix of old and young pros.
All started playing with jerseys for goalposts and progressed slowly across a myriad of routes.
Volunteer networks were the foundation stone of all their football journeys.
OK, The World Has Changed
We can’t just recreate what we used to do and there is no simple, single panacea.
But we have to change.
I get no Nobel Prize for saying if we had a flourishing schools and youth pyramid we’d be in a better place.
But I also know the very hard fact is Scottish Football, run well enough by clubs for clubs, concentrates on the here and now rather than the future.
Because it has to.
The football world is by definition insecure because it’s about survival and that takes every last brass razoo it can muster and sometimes more.
My constant frustration is we should all be collaborating and discussing and demanding change.
What we’re doing isn’t working.
So my response to The Tartan Boo Boys is stop for a minute guys and think where the real criticism should land.
And do something positive.
Steve C Can’t Magic Up a Conveyor Belt
Without real change, he and future managers will have to make do with what the game delivers.
Our place in the rankings will continue to tumble and we’ll be a backwater.
Yes, we have a current golden generation but it is growing older and McTominay was an unplanned and happy accident, good fortune that we can’t rely on.
It’s a fact that decline is potentially inherent in all businesses.
It has to be outthought and outflanked.
For that we have to constantly ask 3 questions.
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
How the hell are we going to get there?
We’ve all seen writ large what not asking the right questions, addressing the core needs, not thinking properly ahead, and constantly ‘winging it’ has done to CalMac.
So whatever happens in the USA, in early summer our long term future needs real thought, reorganisation and investment.
Otherwise we will continue managing our Long Term Decline.
And deep down I think that’s what’s going to happen.
We’re maybe going to America but to use a medical insight, “All our critical blood markers suggest we’re heading the wrong way”.
And for that I heartily join the chorus of Tartan Boos.
This Week’s Sting
1. A 4 Way Finale
2. Still Anybody’s
3. The World FA’s Collective Silences Have Been Deafening
4. Ever More Microscopic Interventions?
1. All to Play For
After an entertaining League Cup Final last week Glasgow City slipped a little in the midweek league and now any one of 4 teams, maybe even 5 can really be Scottish Women’s Premier League Champions.
They all have each other to play and the delight is we have BBC Scotland and BBC Alba showing the top matches live.
Any full review and prioritisation of kids football that I talked about in the intro will only make our Women’s Game even stronger and it is needed too.
Will the league go down right to the wire when Glasgow City host Rangers on May 24th.
You know I think it might and Celtic, Hearts and Hibs will all have their ups and downs between now and then.
A great league.
2. The Blue Momentum Might be Crucial
If we go back to the departure of Russell Martin on October 10 and then the replacement 10 days later with their ‘second choice’ you’d not have given Rangers a hope in hell of the title but they have built up a head of steam and will be there till the end.
The 3 top clubs will all take points off each other and others outside the trio will also cause nuisance.
And while I’d now make Rangers slight favourites based on the results and mathematics since Rohl arrived I think any one of the 3 in the dog fight can win.
Our Uefa co-efficient might be going to the dogs as a nation but what an exciting league finale.
3. Wanted, FAs That Understand What’s Going on and Fight for Their Fans
It’s really easy to criticise aspects, most aspects of Trump and Infantino’s World Cup.
Jahnnie is running the football world ragged to fuel his own future and Trump’s America has collective dollar signs spinning in their corporate eyes.
A ‘greed is good culture’ exploding all over.
Across it all with daily disgrace outranking previous disgraces there is a parallel cacophony of silence so loud it is truly deafening.
It is the collective voice of the World Cup Qualifying FAs standing up for their fans and ensuring never again.
There is no collective or even individual voice fighting our corners and that makes me ask so many questions of them all.
Why are FAs including those in the UK keeping so schtum?
Is it a Fifa Omerta?
It’s certainly unhealthy.
I was delighted this week to see what might be the start of a counter balance with the plans for Uefa’s Euros here in the UK.
Put simply they have proposed a return to not screwing ordinary fans.
I don’t say this lightly.
Our FAs are all complicit in all the shit that has turned this year’s World Cup into an ongoing economic crime.
And they all know they are.
4. Roberto Rosetti Speaks Sense
He’s the Uefa head of refereeing and there is a summit soon looking at VAR.
With 75% of English Premier Fans telling the FA they want rid of VAR there are issues.
My personal view is it has reduced the largesse that big crowds have given to our largest clubs but takes too long and will never replace bad rules.
And while I’m talking about things refereeing I was personally delighted to see Motherwell’s Callum Slattery get a 4 game ban for simulation against St Mirren.
It was ugly and our game is better off without it.
But retrospective punishments if they are to become a thing have to be consistent and that is not something we’ve excelled at in the past.
Worth the watching by us all.
Andy’s Sting Blog
Written each Friday by a fan whose life was influenced by the lessons outcomes and friendships football opened for me.
I try to see beyond the ephemera and look at the bigger picture.
As such I fear for the future of our game, it is not in good hands.
It has forgotten so much of what made it so special.
I’m also the chair of The Scottish Football Union and if you’re already a member, thanks, if not we need your voice so please join because collectively we make a real difference/
And as always feel free to write to me about anything in football or beyond.
Andy’s Album of the Week
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
I was arguing in my head, as you do, about whether it should be Bowie’s ‘Man Who Sold the World’ dedicated to Jahnnie, or Dark Side of the Moon for the brave astronauts somewhere up there.
It was no contest.
I love this timeless album.
And the tracks all take on meaning in these miserable times.
My favourite has always been The Great Gig in the Sky where a session singer, Clare Torry, was asked to improvise a vocal with no words.
She did.
Makes the hairs on my neck tingle every time too.
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