Hampden Park, 3/3/10.

Totally meaningless for the future qualifying campaign of course, but a win’s a win and especially welcome for being the first in a home friendly for umpteen years.

Craig Levein may make us hard to beat again.

Can’t see us being easy on the eye, though.

Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Spain.

The last two in this list mean we’ve virtually no chance of qualifying.

Barring a miracle.

Africa Cup of Nations, Final, 11^th November National Stadium, Luanda, 31/1/10

A forgettable first half, followed by an upturn in the last twenty minutes as Ghana started to push forward having restricted Egypt and making them resort to handballs and falling over in the penalty area.

The goal when it came was a beauty, though; exquisitely taken by Gedo.

Ghana may be dark horses in the World Cup if they forsake the caution they showed here. They’ll have a fair few experienced players back by then.

Strange that Egypt are so strong in the Cup of Nations and can’t seem to qualify for the bigger event.

Africa Cup of Nations, Semi-final, Ombaka National Stadium, Benguela, 28/1/10

Well: if the first sending-off ruined the game, the second killed it as a spectacle.

Full of incident of course:-
four goals, three sendings off, a player seeming to try to headbutt the ref. I’ve never seen that before. (But I don’t frequent the parks much.)

Egypt were the better team in the first half but only because Algeria were happy to sit back and not take the game to them. The last ten minutes of the half were something else.

Seems like refs are refs the world over.

The first sending off was harsh as the booking before had been for nothing. It was compounded by the way the penalty was taken, though. I was under the impression that the taker could not stop in the run-up to the kick; which Hosny did. The Algerian keeper appealed for the infringement which wasn’t given, while the goal was. (He should have played to the whistle of course.) I’ve looked at the law relating to penalties on FIFA’s site. No mention of the taker not being allowed to feint in the run-up. Did they change this sometime recently?

The keeper lost the heid, which he then tried to put on the ref but he was only booked.

At the start of the second half Algeria were looking quite good to make a game of it, pushing forward in a way they hadn’t at eleven men apiece, but the Egyptian second goal – lovely finish by Zidan – obviously made Belhadj lose his cool. At nine men and two goals down there’s not much hope. The game was done.

By the end it had degenerated into farce with the ref making up for not sending the keeper off by …… sending him off.

“Football. Bloody Hell.”

Carling Cup, Semi-final, second leg.

Actually I only watched the second half, but that was profligate enough. Aston Villa 4-2 Blackburn Rovers.

This game illustrates exactly why goals ought to be difficult to score. When a game is like this it’s almost as if every time a team goes up the park there will be a goal.

I’ve seen some dire 0-0 draws but some exciting ones. Yet the worst game I ever saw was a 5-5 draw. That’s one goal every nine minutes – like the Villa-Blackburn game. The fact that Blackburn had only ten men contributed to this. Had it been a league game it might have finished 2-2 or 3-2. Being the deciding leg of a Cup tie introduced a certain abandon, and in Blackburn’s case, necessity.

High scoring – and ease of scoring – is one reason why I can’t take basketball seriously. It’s also why Rugby Union should reduce the value of the penalty goal; tries are so much harder to score. Cricket is an unusual case: while runs are relatively easy to score this is balanced by the difficulty of taking wickets. To win you have to achieve both. I believe something similar applies to baseball.

Carling Cup, Semi-final, first leg.

This is what you’re reduced to when the weather puts off match after match and you’re feeling withdrawal symptoms. (I would have been at Brechin on Saturday to assuage those but the thaw and heavy rain put paid to that.)

It was one of those games that starts with one team so on top, scoring, you think that there’s only one winner. Then of course, they lose.

Despite the commentators’ and pundits’ attempts to talk it up the match was turgid. City did little in the way of attacking and United had no cutting edge. It only really brightened up in the last ten minutes when United began to show interest. Wayne Rooney is a player, though.

It’s nice to know English refs are as error prone as ours.

(Actually it’s not. It’s depressing. It means there’s no hope of improvement.)

Christopher Brookmyre, one of whose books I am reading just now, says he has been a Buddy since 1976. Given that, I found it a little surprising that the novel contains an extended riff on the vicissitudes of being a Rangers fan (otherwise known as Bluenoses, Teddy Bears or – by the uncharitable – Huns.)

Like they would know anything about the trials and tribulations of being a football supporter. When was the last time they went decades without winning anything? When were they ever in danger of relegation; or suffered such a fate? Their only contact point with the perennial disappointment of being a fan is in the European arena – and even there they mostly refuse to acknowledge the fact that they usually punch above their weight.

Brookmyre gives himself the best excuse by making his main character a season ticket holder at Ibrox. Perhaps making her a St Mirren supporter would have been too much of an exposure of private grief. And it does give him the opportunity to lampoon the less analytical supporters of both of Glasgow’s ugly football sisters.

But did he perhaps fear the book’s sales would be smaller if he’d made her a fan of a wee team?

The attack on the Togolese national team bus in Cabinda, Angola which has triggered their government’s decision to order them home is, of course, shocking. My sympathies go to those who have lost their lives or been injured, and to their families.

The shootings do, though, raise a question about why Angola was chosen as the host nation but moreover why, when that country was given the nod, Cabinda was allocated as a venue for some of the games.

It seems that, while elsewhere in Angola is more or less trouble free, Cabinda was well known as a dangerous area. Would it not have been wiser to avoid it?

Still, the milk, not to mention the blood, has been spilt now.

What I will say is this. The absolute necessity after any such event, whether it be terrorist attack, a criminal endeavour or even an act of foreign enemy is to carry on regardless. This is what Londoners did during the Blitz, what Birmingham, Manchester, Warrington and London did after IRA bombings.

Despite the fact that they would not perhaps have been in the correct frame of mind to take part in football matches the Togolese players may have wished to do this. Their government, as is its right, has taken the view that they should not place themselves in more danger.

(Aside:- where does this rate on FIFA’s dictum that governments should not interfere with the affairs of their footballing authorities?)

Togo’s government’s position should not be that of the tournament organisers, however. If the tournament had not gone ahead it would have sent a signal to any group of nutters that they could prevent international sporting events from occurring – or even being scheduled. That is surely not an outcome to be preferred.

The suitability of South Africa to host this summer’s World Cup ought not to be affected by any of this. Yes, Angola borders South Africa but I believe that border is hundreds of miles from where the matches are to take place and security ought not to be unduly affected on that score.

PS. Unlike the past few occasions the African Cup Of Nations does not seem to be available on any of the BBC channels.

Pity. I had been looking forward to it.

Later edited to add:- Angola does not have a border with South Africa. (I was confusing it with Namibia, which does. They’re both up the left side a bit.)

It seems Bolton Wanderers fans by and large want their new manager, Owen Coyle – a Sons legend, well, a fond memory – to usher in a new era of bright, expansive football to expunge memories of Gary Megson’s grafting and Sam Allardyce’s pragmatism. (We draw a veil over Sammy Lee’s tenure.)

While I’m all for bright, expansive, expressive football – Dumbarton have a tradition of being a passing side, not just lump it and run merchants – I don’t want it to be at the expense of our divisional status.

Allardyce managed to establish Bolton firmly in the Premier League and even qualified for Europe. Surely that, and the odd cup run, is the most a club of Bolton’s size and history can aspire to? It is arguably, overachieving (Nat Lofthouse and the 1950s FA Cup win notwithstanding.)

The style Coyle promoted at Burnley is by no means guaranteed to ensure their survival and might, indeed, still entail relegation.

Be careful what you wish for, my friends.

Both clubs may well be in the same division next year.

But which one?

So Craig Levein has been given the poisoned chalice of Scotland manager.

Quite why he, or anyone, would want the job is a mystery considering the unrealistic expectations of press and public as revealed by their treatment of George Burley.

Yes, in the past Scotland qualified for five World Cups in a row (1974-1990) and six out of seven up to 1998 and haven’t managed that feat since even though the number of available places is now larger.

But don’t forget that a Scotland side littered with players we’d die to have now – Baxter, Law, Crerand, White (1961) and their successors four years later who beat Italy at Hampden when Greig, Murdoch, McNeill etc could be added to the roll call – failed in the attempt even though qualification was less lengthy in those days; albeit the 1961 vintage lost to the eventual World Cup finalists.

That run of six out of seven World Cups was an anomaly. A country the size of Scotland has no divine right to sit at the top table. Arguably even being in Pot Three in Europe is an over-achievement.

Look at the players listed above: do we nowadays have anyone fit to lace their boots? It’s no surprise we can’t qualify for anything. We’re simply not good enough. Organisation will only take you so far.

Times have changed. Time also to adjust expectations.

No matter who the new boss is (or was) he’ll have an almighty struggle returning Scotland to tournament participation.

Let’s just bask in being top of the list of unofficial World Champions. (Even if that’s only because back in the day we could beat England quite often.)