Carling Nations Cup, Aviva Stadium, Dublin, 29/5/11

It was almost inevitable the Republic would win this. They were at home after all.

Again I’ve missed the goal, but I’ve heard this game was dire – not even a patch on the English League 1 play-off between Peterborough and Huddersfield. People just lumping the ball forward; no passing, no Barcelona style passing anyway.

In that case neither of these two sides will trouble the 2012 European Championships.

Champions League Final, Wembley Stadium, 28/5/11

Apart from the first ten minutes there didn’t look to be a chance of one team (United) winning, since Barcelona were so much in control. Even the equaliser didn’t change anything: all that did was restore the status quo ante. Had United scored first things might have been different.

Barcelona reminded me a bit of playground bullies who would snaffle your ball and just play about with it among themselves. It’s unfair really. Give the other side a chance, can’t you?

The result was we did not witness a classic. I doubt I’ll remember this by the end of next week.

A memorable football match requires both sides to be on a more or less even footing, for both to be in with a shout. When one side is dominant, all the tension, the necessary uncertainty, is drained away. We are left with a steamroller, remorselessly flattening the opposition.

Barney Ronay in The Guardian put forward a similar view on Saturday.

The Barcelona juggernaut is impressive. But somehow it manages to remove all the excitement.

UEFA Europa League* Final, Dublin Arena (Aviva Stadium), 18/5/11.

Another disappointing final – as they so often are. Why do teams approach a one-off game as if they are going to get a second chance?

Okay, Braga managed to defeat Benfica in the semi-final by dint of not attacking very much but this was not a two-legged tie and they weren’t going to have home advantage for half of it. As it was they waited till they were one goal down before making any effort to attack.

In the second half they were more than able to hold Porto. Who knows? Had they gone at Porto from the start they might have got something from the game. If you’re going to lose anyway why not try to win instead?

It wasn’t much of an advert for the Europa League, which usually has more entertaining games than the utterly turgid Champions League the final of which, a week on Saturday, will in all probability be another dull watch.

*Like EUFA’s so-called Champions League this is another “league” which isn’t.

While looking up Eddie Turnbull’s career for my post on his death I noticed something remarkable.

Hibs won the league three times during Turnbull’s playing career; in 1948, 1951 and 1952. Not only that: in the seventeen years spanning their first win till Kilmarnock’s sole league title in 1965 no less than five different non-Old Firm sides won the league. Apart from Hibs and Kilmarnock, Hearts (1958, 1960,) Aberdeen (1955) and Dundee (1962) are on the roll of honour. That beats even the early years of the Scottish League when in its first 14 years Dumbarton – 1891 (shared with Rangers) and 1892 (outright) – Hearts (1895, 1897,) Hibs (1903) and Third Lanark (1904) all were champions of Scotland.

Can anyone imagine that sort of thing happening now?

The Old Firm duopoly is so entrenched that the mere thought is instantly dismissable.

The only team to upset the Old Firm domination of the league between the two World Wars of the last century was Motherwell, in 1932. (See here for the full list of winners.) The 28 year run from Third Lanark’s title in 1904 till Motherwell’s is the longest such period of unbroken Old Firm hegemony. So far.

At present it is 26 years since anyone but Rangers or Celtic won the league. (Aberdeen 1980, 1984 and 1985) and Dundee United (1983) are the only provincial sides to win a championship since the 1960s. Neither look likely to repeat the feat soon. Barring extraordinary circumstances, circumstances that are unforeseeable, to me at any rate, that 28 year record will be broken in 2014.

The Scottish Cup has always been a more likely prize for a “smaller” club to win but even so that 1950s and 60s period saw no fewer than seven non-Old Firm clubs lift the trophy. Aberdeen in 1947 (and 1970,) Motherwell (1952,) Clyde (1955 and 1958,) Hearts (1956,) Falkirk (1957,) St Mirren (1959) and Dunfermline Athletic (1961 and 1968.)

Of course, in those days the playing field was a bit more even as each club shared its gate money with the away team. Since the introduction of the system whereby each club keeps its own home gates the imbalance between the Old Firm and the rest has grown bigger. This is merely exacerbated by the Champions League money available to Celtic and Rangers nearly every season. (Though none of that stopped Rangers getting into substantial debt recently.)

The other clubs are simply not in a position to compete. It’s a sad and unhealthy situation.

I was saddened today to hear of the death of Eddie Turnbull.

Since his heyday as part of the great Hibernian forward line known as the “Famous Five” was in the 1940s and 50s I never saw him play. During that time he won no less than three league championships in five seasons. Imagine a Hibs player – a Hibs team! – doing that now. Turnbull was also the first Scottish player to score in European competition (Hibs were pioneers in the European Champions’ Cup.)

I most remember him as a manager of Aberdeen and Hibs in the 60s and 70s when he guided those teams to the Scottish Cup and the League Cup respectively. He had previously managed Queen’s Park. The Hibs team of that time may not have achieved quite the heights the Famous Five did but were a formidable presence in Scottish football.

As I recall Turnbull was of the old school and something of a disciplinarian – you’d probably not get away with that as a manager now.

Edward Hunter Turnbull: 12/4/1923 – 30/4/2011. So it goes.

UEFA Champions League (sic) semi-final, first leg, Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, Madrid, 27/4/11

This season’s quarter-finals notwithstanding, matches in the so-called Champions League are frequently sterile affairs with teams tending to cancel each other out. There is perhaps too much at stake for the football to be anything but efficient and relatively unimaginative.

This exemplified the trend. This was unedifying watching at best, ugly at worst. A petty, ill-tempered, niggly, fractious affair. A playground tiff interrupted by flashes of football. The residue of too many games between these two in the recent past I suppose.

The play-acting was reprehensible and the questioning of the referee’s decisions went too far; not to mention him being mobbed at times. And as for players asking officials to show cards – red or yellow – to opponents, well it’s about time this was made an offence in itself. If I was a ref I’d be tempted to treat it as dissent and act accordingly. But then I suppose a ref who did this would not stay a ref for long.

In the end we got three sendings off – one of a player who, due to a fight among the subs at half time, never even set foot on the pitch!

The home side played defensively – and still lost. They might also have lost if they had tried to attack but the spectacle would have been more bearable. Whether the imbalance of numbers made the telling difference to the result is of course difficult to assess.

As it was Jose Mourinho’s tactics were far from what the name of Real Madrid is supposed to stand for, a betrayal of the club’s attacking traditions.

The beautiful game this was not.

Except for one flash of genius which wasn’t enough to redeem what had gone before.

A friend of mine who was born in the town let me know an amazing statistic about Arbroath.

It seems that Arbroath FC’s title win on Saturday is the first time they have ever won a Division.

This is astonishing since thay have played in the upper echelons of Scottish football fairly often and indeed for many a long year had never finished below sixth in the old Second Division (the two Division era) which meant never worse than 24^th in Scotland.

You’d think – I did think – that in all their 133 year history (including their famous 36-0 win against Bon Accord) they had managed to win a league before but all their promotions have come as a result of finishing second (yes, I remember 1972) or winning the play-offs.

Congratulations to the Red Lichties. (It’s about time!)

On a stranger note, and also at a Scottish football ground on Saturday, we have the behaviour of Dunfermline Athletic mascot Sammy the Tammy before the crunch match with local rivals Raith Rovers.

Sammy marched out dressed in a cardboard tank and proceeded to make sweeping gestures with his “gun” in the direction of the massed ranks of Raith supporters. These were accompanied by the sound of machine guns from the club’s PA system! A You Tube video can be watched here. Unfortunately the sound quality is inconclusive as regards the machine gun noises.

The police have interviewed “Sammy” but will take the matter no further.

I am left wondering what the reaction would have been had a similar incident occurred at an Old Firm game….

Carling Cup; Final. Wembley Stadium, 27/02/11

This game showed that dodgy offside decisions are not restricted to Scottish lower league football. Even in real time, on television, it was obvious that Lee Bowyer was onside when Zigic played him in very early on. The television replays only confirmed it. A penalty and sending off would have been the sure result of a correct decision.

Had Arsenal gone on to win this game it would have been an injustice for that reason alone. But then maybe if they had gone down to ten men they would have rallied and Birmingham might have relaxed. As it was Birmingham stuck at it and reaped their reward through another Arsenal defensive mix-up.

Arsène Wenger seems to have a blind spot as far as defence is concerned. At Arsenal he inherited a good one but he doesn’t seem to be able to construct one himself.

Now that I’ve said that they’ll probably win the three trophies they’re still contesting this season.

I see the changes those in charge of the SPL wish to push through seem to be closer to coming to pass.

The only difference to what most fans have overwhelmingly rejected?

That the SPL 2 will have 12 teams instead of 10.

Is that not just entirely typical of the cynical nature of these proposals?

What could be the reason (the only reason?) for increasing the projected number of teams in the SPL 2 in this way? Surely it can only be to try to persuade the present SFL Div 1 clubs to vote for it.

It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic, nor so transparent.

These bullies still appear to miantain that only a top ten is financially viable.

Well; it was tried before and found wanting. It will be so again.

With the same stale old suspects on display time after time with four games against the same opposition every year, not including possible cup ties, attendances will continue to fall, the “product” (the football on offer) continue to decline in quality – even the much vaunted Old Firm games, the last one I hear was very poor; I had not the slightest interest in watching it – and the attraction of the SPL to TV companies will wane. Then the top ten will be stuck in a deeper bind than they are now.

Here’s a thought. Why don’t they just cut their coat according to their cloth, balance their books and forget about trying to compete with the top European clubs? We, and they, live in a small country on Europe’s periphery. Scotland is no longer a football powerhouse. (That it once may have been is a historical accident.) It’s time the SPL, especially the Old Firm, came to terms with that.

Note we have no indication of what promotion/relegation arrangements there will be between the new expanded SPL and the rump SFL the changes will leave behind.

Rest assured the access to the new SPL from the SFL will be restricted. The SFL clubs will be left to wither on the vine.

The SPL 2 clubs may wither faster though.

Come on SFL. Tell them to stuff it.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that anyone who did not have the stoniest heart could not read about the death of Little Nell in Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop without laughing. (For possible Wildean phrasings of this aphorism see here.)

I confess I feel much the same way about the current position of Liverpool Football Club.

Their supporters bayed for the previous owners to sell up and for the previous manager to go, or be sacked.

Having got both their wishes they immediately set to complaining about the new manager, Roy Hodgson – who had just won the Manager of the Season award, don’t forget – for not being their darling, former player and manager Kenny Dalglish. Effectively they never gave Hodgson a chance.

It is as if they believe they have a divine right to success and to a winning team. Despite their club’s trophy laden history they do not.

I think it is this sense of entitlement that makes me anti-pathetic towards the club – as I am to the similarly deluded fans, and the overweening behaviour, of the Old Firm clubs.

And now Hodgson has gone, in that telling weasel phrase “by mutual consent,” and replaced – for now – by Kenny Dalglish.

Admittedly Liverpool’s results have not been good this season – in the Premier League at least.

Yet how much of this is really to do with the manager? Can a manager really turn around several seasons’ worth of decline in six months? Liverpool’s current position stems in large part from the mistakes made by previous manager Rafael Benitez; mistakes in signing certain players and mistakes in alienating and then in letting go others.

It is evident from the scantiest perusal of their games on television that the present players are not performing. Whatever their affections for the old manager and whatever they may think of the new it is their job to do what he asks of them. Surely some of the blame ought to be placed on them.

Okay, Fernando Torres has an excuse. He has been injured, then not match fit and also probably suffering a reaction from Spain’s World Cup win in the summer.

Steven Gerrard is a more complicated case. He is clearly not playing as effectively as he once did. That may be due to an overall decline in the ability level of players around him. He is also probably trying too hard. And here’s a thought; actually he may not be quite as good a player as everyone made out. Or he may simply be in decline.

There is another problem with him, though. I think he has too much of an influence on the team in that the other players defer to him. When he’s on the pitch they look to him to drive things on – they even get out of his way when they are actually better placed to play the ball. His shadow hangs over them even when he’s not playing as they seem to believe that without him they are not as capable of achieving a win.

Changing the manager is a desperate throw of the dice. My own club Dumbarton did precisely this just before the recent snows interrupted the fixtures. Whether that was a wise move only time will tell. As in Liverpool’s case it may have been too late. It was for Newcastle United two seasons ago when they appointed Alan Shearer to try to avoid relegation; a strategy that did not work. His unheralded successor, Chris Hughton, then performed miracles to restore the club to Premier League respectability – and got the sack for his trouble.

But Kenny Dalglish as saviour?

If I were a Liverpool fan I would not count on it.