Andy’s Sting In The Tale (30/10/26) "Excitement Weekend"
This weekend we have two wonderful Hampden semis and the final is just 6 weeks later.
Yes it’s a minor trophy but all four teams need the boost it will bring.
I can’t make either but will be glued to the box.
But you know me well enough to have knowledge that I’m a big picture thinker.
The cups come and go.
Bragging rights for an eon at best.
And deep down, despite all the noise and passion drummed up by our well corralled media chattering classes, I think they are called pundits, it shouldn’t suddenly confirm that all is rosy North of the Wall.
By the way, did you know the origin of the ‘pundit’ word was/is the Hindi word pandit and it means:
Learned scholar, teacher, or revered spiritual leader.
There is no mention in the script of having to be an ex-Rangers player or the use of ‘done’ rather than did and other verbiage colloquialisms.
How did we survive back in the day without all the wall to wall, meaningless, and some would say one-dimensional quasi reportage?
Good job if you can finesse one.
Anyway, Rangers will be fired up tomorrow, see it as theirs to lose and Hearts will have to somehow learn to juggle their player-pool pressure with their Conference League and other commitments and the tight two game Nations League schedule from 12th November, just two weeks away.
Hibs and Aberdeen are there for free, and dangerous with nothing to lose.
Sting in This Week’s Tale
1. Chinese Walls and Mbappe.
2. Do Uefa Have a Cunning Plan?
3. Why I love the Early Scottish Cup.
4. Following The Lawman’s Steps
5. Failing Appeals
1. The Power of the Yuan
Kylian is the French footballer who nearly won the Ballon D’Or.
He probably now trains even harder all day in an attempt to become as good as Gareth the winner.
So therefore, I guess, he’s too busy to know that La Liga had huge financial plans for and revenue streams from China, and indeed have had an office in Shanghai since 2014.
The runner-up last week probably has no knowledge or any interest in The Chinese Media Group buying bigtime into live Spanish Football, nor how important the vast Chinese market is to key ambitious global club businesses like Real and Barca.
But I guess he is aware of and likes the money from his own personal sponsorship links to various Chinese brands none of us have heard of.
So, the other night on a TV prog, when the graphics team had put his face on an image of Chairman Mao, for humour, the striker made an innocent historic remark about ‘Chinese Dictator’.
An immediate stooshie erupted and he overnight lost lucrative personal sponsorships despite an ‘apology for what was called ‘an error of judgement,’ and not just grovelling from the footballer but also from the very top coordinated by a very scared Javier Tebas, the head hombre at La Liga.
Mao Zedong’s long been sterilised by the current political rulers and is now a revered saint to all in the nation.
So that’s that.
Just thinking.
It was lucky Kylian hadn’t mentioned even more contentious stuff many of us witnessed and therefore know about.
Like the Tiananmen Square Massacres which are no longer recorded or ‘official’ history.
And there is no doubt that the current single party in power like the sportswashing possibilities and soporific effects that football can bring to their nation.
2. If They Don’t Hell Mend Them and US Too
Infantino’s rearguard action is well underway and has actually become offensive.
Maybe it always was, but now it’s offensive in the full light of his saved-up community-owned revenues buying votes and loyalties.
This week we heard this summer’s dynamic pricing extortion will deliver $5 Billion which is 5 times the previous amount.
Jahnnie thinks he is home and dry.
And he will be if Uefa don’t have an alternative plan which is bolder than just a rival candidate to be defeated.
They have to realise they won’t scratch the surface if they don’t use their one big gun.
And it’s not doing the decent thing and being the good guys in a righteous democratic argument.
It’s money.
Simply because without Europe Jahnnie loses his surpslush funding.
There are growing rumblings too from sponsors, one of the other legs of his wee stool.
This week McDonalds said they were ceasing their links with Fifa’s World Cups citing it all happens in too short a period.
Maybes aye maybes no aa to the real reason.
So I think Uefa need to do the Baden Powell prep and `be prepared’.
And that might mean walking away with the Countries, the sponsors and the bulk of the potential future revenues.
I’ve done that in business and it has to be more than an empty threat
It really is that simple and all the rest is foreplay and circular nonsense.
And as an aside, I don’t like the way our administrators seem to be taking a back seat and following the line of least resistance with no public debate or fan involvement.
Waiting for the pay-out and a reward for the recently forged closeness to the man perchance?
As always I hope I’m wrong.
3. What Wind?
I love the early rounds of our Scottish Cup and the minnows who see it as the name of the Ally McCoist 2000 football movie, ‘A Shot at Glory’.
The glory of Kilknockie and Robert Duval the manager with the bunnet.
The cup, the cup, the cup.
I well remember playing in a 10-0 hammering on the wrong side at Borough Briggs, being asked about when I was playing under another Andy’s registration, playing against a very juvenile but fast and free scoring Duncan Shearer when he was a Clach youngster, the Spartans amazing win at East Stirling in 1979 was also a harbinger of what an ambitious wee club can become.
Last week saw Scotland bathing in 36 hours of 50 plus mph winds but the cup went on.
Well done to all.
Third round is drawn and kicks off on November 28th.
Largs Thistle v Ayr, Ross County v Brora, Dumbarton have either a Formartine or Johnstone Burgh banana skin, and my late Dad’s team Clach are at far away Stranraer.
I also travelled with Caley to Stair Park for a cup replay a long, long time ago.
It was a crazy journey back then and in reality still is.
C’mon the Lillies.
There are arguments pro and con for regionality to avoid the sheer cost of fulfilling fixtures.
4. ”Winning Never So Much As Came into My Head”
That was our very own Lawman’s reaction when he defeated Europe’s top players in season 63-64.
46 Goals drove his award, a much smaller trophy back in the day, but the man’s groundedness shone through.
Kane’s humility last week was inspiring in a time of big egos who take, take, and take and don’t realise that all good ecosystems put stuff back too.
5. Poor Dears
The appeal against closed doors games, and a £100K payment has failed.
I think fans at our two most entitled clubs have to realise that their actions can indeed have unintended consequences and self and team punishments.
I hope the next time it ratchets up in geometric progression because our game doesn’t need the negative publicity and the grief.
It is damaging commercially too.
Glasgow tax payers should not have to fund the polis required to make kicking a ball safe for the communities subsumed in the carnage.
That should be Scottish Football’s knitting and cost.
The enigma is how can the Tartan Army behave, (mostly), and self-police?
Sting is: Andy’s Friday Night Blog
Unless it comes out on a Saturday.
It’s just a comment or two on some of my football consumption across the days, weeks, years.
If you enjoy it tell your friends and feel free to share it.
I get regular and occasional email responses from 22 different nations and growing, and have some funny sub dialogues with kindred spirits who see the good football can do.
Fans mostly start off team daft, or just plain daft, but eventually we want to leave the game in a better place.
Do your bit and join The Scottish Football Union.
Andy’s Album of the Week: Bad Company, Bad Company.
A good title and an amazing debut album.
I was thinking of a different black wheel till I listened today to Bob Mortimer’s Desert Island Discs and he reminded me of the wonderful Newcastle Band, Free, from the 70s.
I always liked them, from a distance, but wasn’t quite in tune with their quite defined blues until they split, semi reformed and Bad Company exploded on to the scene.
Softer , less sharp and more balanced.
Albums were expensive then, no streaming, no YouTube with annoying ads but there was a very good Saturday Morning, Stewart Henry, and Sunday afternoon, DLT show on Radio 1 that went big on the band at the time.
I bought the album and Paul Rogers is up there with the best rock vocalists.
The album has aged a little and softened but like a nice bottle of red and I love the title track
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