Scottish Football Roundup

With only a few more rounds of games to go before the frankly absurd league split in April, Celtic and Rangers took some time off from putting even more points between them and the rest of the league by competing in this years Scottish League Cup final, also knowns as the 'Co-operative Insurance Cup'.

As always between these sides, it was a mighty stramash with the two goals that won it for Celtic coming late into extra-time. Darren O'Dea got proceedings off to a start when he looped a header over Alan McGregor in the 94th minute, and Aiden McGeady settled the matters from the penalty spot after he was brought down by Rangers' Kirk Broadfoot, who was also sent off for his troubles. The win earns Celtic their 14th League Cup (only 11 wins behind Rangers now in this competition) and some much needed good news for manager Gordon Strachan who had been on the receiving end of criticism from his own fans.

And while the cats are away, the mice do play. With neither of the Old Firm in league action, the teams chasing those all-important third and fourth places where having their day out. Of the teams that make up the top-half of the table, only Aberdeen won this weekend. They eased their way past Hamilton Accies, Chris Maguire getting on the scoresheet on the half-hour mark in a game played in blustery north-east conditions. Aberdeen remain undefeated at home since October of last year, while for the Accies their terrible away form continues - they've recorded only two wins on the road so far this season. They'll be wanting to get themselves into the top half of the table to assure themselves of survival in their first season back in the top flight, but their performances in the league so far have surprised many.

Third-placed Hearts lost out in the Edinburgh derby, going down 1-0 to a Hibernian side desperate to regain some form and remain in the running for that sixth spot come the league split. It was an exciting encounter, with both teams reduced to 10-men before the break. Hearts keeper Janos Balogh was first to the dressing room, if not the ball, as he slid in on Stephen Fletcher - missing him by as much as 30 feet if the Hibs forums are to be believed.

Not long afterwards the red card made its second appearance of the day as Hibs defender Souleymane Bamba was dismissed for bringing down Christian Nadé on the edge of the box. The winning goal for Hibs came courtesy of Stephen Fletcher; the Scotland international attempted a header but he only managed to get his shoulder to it, looping the ball over Balogh's head and into the net. Hearts remain in third place, while Mixu Paateleinen can enjoy his first ever Edinburgh-derby win since becoming manager of Hibs.

Elsewhere, Dundee United's slump continues as they lost 2-1 away to Motherwell. United's season had been going well, the Terrors recovering from a woefull start to the season to fight their way into third spot. But with only three wins from their last ten matches (and all of those coming against teams from the bottom half of the table), United have slipped back to fifth spot, level on poins with New Firm rivals Aberdeen.

For Motherwell, the season is finally beginning to pick up after a poor start and early elimination from European competition. John Sutton fired the Steelmen into the lead on the half-hour, Francisco Sandaza equalized for United after the restart, but the points where secured when Dave Clarkson, Motherwell's top scorer this season scored with a header from close range.

Terry Butcher continues to do what he does best, namely saving teams from impending relegation. Since taking over at Inverness Caley Thistle, he's steered the club out of the relegation spot with wins over Hibs, Rangers and, now for the second time, Kilmarnock. All the goals where scored in the first half; Foran and Black put Caley 2-0 up with only 20 minutes played. Simon Ford got a goal for Killie just before the break.

That's it for now, results and table are here.

If there's a topic about Scottish football you would like us to cover, whether it's a team or player profile, a season in review or just anything to do with the game north of the border, drop us a comment and we'll get right on it!

The Old Firm Derby, #382

There are many great derby games in the world of football.

In Portugal, there's the Lisbon derby between Benfica and Sporting. In Italy, you have AS Roma and Lazio. Argentina's Boca Juniors against River Plate is always a fiery encounter, and there's no love lost between Rio's Flamengo and Fluminense, or for that matter, between the two giants of Turkish football, Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.

But it is in Glasgow that you'll find one of the oldest, and most fiercely contested derby games in world football today. The two teams involved are no longer the power they once where in world football, when, in the sixties and seventies, Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers won European silverware to add to their already impressive collection of domestic honours. That's not to say that the rivalry that was created in the earlier part of the century has in any way waned over the years - there's no such thing as a meaningless fixture between these two sides.

What makes the Glasgow derby stand out from the others is that the rivalry is based not just on economics (such as the Flamengo and Fluminense derby), or politics (right-wing Lazio against left-wing Roma) or culture (CSKA Sofia, the team of the intellectuals against Levski, the team representing the working man), but a combination of some of those, with a dash of religion thrown in. Celtic, the team with the poor Irish Catholic background, against the staunchly Protestant, unionist, prosperous Rangers.

Its hard to believe that from the very first fixture, played in 1888 in such good spirit that one commentator at the time was inspired to write that the teams "got on so well that you would believe that they were old firm friends", the game has somehow mutated into the tense affair it is now. The teams certainly started out with quite a close relationship, playing many friendlies in front of huge gates. But like all good things, this relationship came to an end as the games became bitter, hard-fought encounters with pitch invasions, mass brawls, arrests - even deaths. An activist group that monitors sectarian activity in Glasgow has reported that on Old Firm weekends, admissions to hospital emergency rooms increase nine-fold over normal levels, and journalist Franklin Foer noted in his book, "How Soccer Explains the World", in the period from 1996 to 2003, eight deaths in Glasgow were directly linked to Old Firm matches.

Season 2008/09
In the first encounter between the two sides earlier on in the current season, it was two goals from Kenny Miller, a former Celtic and Rangers player back in his second spell at the Ibrox side that helped Rangers win 4-2 at Parkhead. Celtic got their revenge in the return fixture just after Christmas - a single goal by Scott McDonald proved enough in a game played in treacherous conditions.

There's a lot to play for - as always - in tomorrow's fixture: whoever wins, goes top of the Scottish Premier League. Celtic and Rangers lead the table by 15 points from the team in third, Dundee United, so let there be no doubt that one of these two teams will win the league.

Players to watch
Normally it is the league's top scorer Kris Boyd who gets all the focus, but should he play on Sunday, it's 17 year-old John Fleck who may well be the one to make the headlines. He's only played a few games since breaking through to the first team last year, but already he's been widely tipped for a glittering career. There's even talk of a Scotland call-up against Holland next month. An attacking midfielder, he follows in the footsteps of his uncle Robert Fleck, who also played for Rangers before moving south to Norwich. Manager Walter Smith reckons Fleck is ready to make his Old Firm debut, but it's a lot of pressure to heap on a player this young - this is no ordinary game.

Prediction
Predicting the outcome of any Old Firm Derby is tricky; the first thing to do when trying to work out who will win is to throw the form guide of out the window and hope you've got a decent referee who can handle the pressure. We predicted a Celtic win in our 'Four To Follow' competition if only for the fact that Celtic are at home and that Kris Boyd, for all his 20 goals cannot seem to score in the big games. So, a Celtic win - but only just.

Celtic v Rangers
Sunday 15 January 2009
Venue: Celtic Park
Kick-off: 12.30 GMT

Tommy Burns (1956 - 2008)

It's with great sadness that we bring you the news today that Tommy Burns, legendary footballer and later manager of Celtic, has died aged 51 from skin cancer.

Burns had been receiving treatment for the condition since 2006 and despite early signs of improvement, the cancer returned in March of this year.

Tommy Burns will forever remain one of the greatest players ever to pull on the hooped jersey of Celtic following a career that lasted fourteen years. As a midfielder for the Glasgow club, he made his debut in 1975 and went on to play 352 matches for them, scoring 52 goals.

Having ended his playing days at Kilmarnock between 1989 and 1994, Burns returned to Celtic as manager where he developed a side renowned for playing attractive football. With Rangers dominating the Scottish Premier League at the time, Burns was to move onto Newcastle United where he worked alongside manager Kenny Dalglish and then to Reading where he became manager in his own right.

In 2002, Berti Vogts appointed Burns as assistant manager with the Scottish national team, a position he retained when Walter Smith succeeded Vogts in 2004. In more recent years Burns returned to Celtic again, working in Youth Development before becoming First Team coach under Gordon Strachan.

Among the first to pay tribute to Tommy Burns, Peter Rafferty, chairman of the Association of Celtic Supporters' Clubs, said:

"I knew Tommy very well both as a friend and obviously through his connections with Celtic. I got to know him over many years. He was a true gentleman and a big family man.

"Celtic was a big part of his life but the biggest part of his life was his family. He became a grandfather a few weeks ago and that is the biggest tragedy.

"Legend is a word that is used quite a lot these days but he was. He was a great player with Celtic first and foremost. He was a manager who played football the way Celtic supporters like to see it.

"All these things pale into insignificance this morning. He was a very nice person, a very religious person. If you needed anything, Tommy Burns would always be there for you."

We send our condolences to the family of Tommy Burns and share our sympathies with all Celtic fans on this sad day.

A ban of two halves

With all the tenacity that could earn them jobs in the UN Peacekeeping Corps, representatives from AC Milan have successfully negotiated with UEFA to ensure that the two game ban on goalkeeper Dida is halved with immediate effect.

Dida, you'll remember, did a fine job of acting out the part of an assassinated bystander when Celtic played AC Milan recently. As the game ended, a Celtic 'fan' ran onto the pitch following what turned out to be a winning goal for The Bhoys and tapped the Brazilian lightly on the side of the face. Dida gave chase before falling to the ground in dramatic fashion whereupon he received 'treatment' and was stretchered off clutching an ice pack.

To my mind, this shows nothing but weak, lily-livered administration on the part of the UEFA officials dealing with the matter. I think they've also missed a trick here. Had I been negotiating with the AC Milan representatives, I'd have said "Sure - we'll cut Dida's ban by half... as long as we can:

a) ...cut Celtic's fine by half"
b) ...cut Dida's match fee by half"
c) ...cut the number of hands Dida's allowed to use in his next game by half"
d) ...cut the number of points AC Milan accumulate in the group by half"

...and so on and so on.

What kind of message does UEFA think this will send out to anyone else who thinks they can bring bad fortune on their opponents by embarking on a career in acting? Dida will now only need to sit out tomorrow night's game against the mighty Shakhtar Donetsk before taking his place back in the side again, so how much of a punishment is that? Nothing short of a ban from the entire competition will do as far as I'm concerned and that's that.

Just keep this little incident in mind the next time you hear about UEFA's Fair Play initiative. If you prevent yourself from laughing openly with derision when you do, congratulations.

Yes Sir, No Sir...

Great Britain is a funny old place. We have a head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who, when her mood takes her, gives a knighthood to a small selection of people born within her Commonwealth.

In modern-day terms, being made a Knight is a sign that you have achieved something extra-special - that you have done something few other people have done to elevate the stature of the Queen's realm.

If you're a male and you've been given a knighthood, you're allowed to put the word 'Sir' in front of your name, like 'Sir Paul McCartney', 'Sir Elton John' or 'Sir Robbie Williams'. (OK, so that last one was made up...) It's therefore a title that demands great respect among those people that know you or know of you, but you don't have to be alive to qualify for one. If you're unfortunate enough to have died at any given time in the past, those that survive you can apply for a posthumous title to be decreed as a belated way of showing how important you were to Queen and Country.

And it's exactly that process which is capturing the imagination of a few large pockets of football fans in Britain as we speak. It all started a few years ago when a bunch of Tottenham Hotspur supporters began a campaign to get an honorary knighthood awarded to Bill Nicholson, Tottenham's manager between 1958 and 1974.

Nicholson's achievements at the North London club are many. He helped them win the FA Cup three times, the League Championship once, the European Cup Winners' Cup once and the UEFA Cup once and also re-wrote the record books as Spurs became the first team of the modern era to win the English 'double' of FA Cup and League in one season in 1961.

It was arguably the greatest period in Spurs' history, and yet despite a long campaign to make him 'Sir Bill Nicholson' posthumously, its objective is yet to be reached. Knighthoods, it seems, are not so easy to come by.

Despite such a frustrating trend being set by this exercise, two more campaigns have begun recently to give other iconic British football managers from the past their rightful place in British history.

Bob Paisley led Liverpool football club for nine years from 1974 and in that time steered them to six League titles, three League Cups, one UEFA Cup, one European Super Cup and most significantly of all, three European Cups. Many British MPs have signed a House of Commons motion to gain Paisley a knighthood eleven years after his death, and a government e-petition has seen almost 45,000 members of the public support them in a similar vein.

North of the border, Jock Stein, the man who helped Celtic become the first British team to win the European Cup in 1967, is also being recommended for the same honour by two Labour MPs. As well as the European Cup, Jock Stein's Celtic side also won ten Scottish league titles, nine Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups, but are his achievements likely to be overlooked just as Bill Nicholson's have been thus far? Will fans of Bob Paisley become the latest in a long line of disappointed football fans who just want to repay the happiness their idol gave them so many years ago?

And as another government e-petition is launched to gain Brian Clough, European Cup-winning manager of Nottingham Forest, a posthumous knighthood, are campaigns like this being cheapened by their sheer proliferation?

Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson was awarded a knighthood thanks to the abundance of silverware he brought to the club, including one European Cup, one European Cup Winners' Cup, eight FA Premiership titles and five FA Cups. Maybe it takes this much to earn a football manager in Britain a knighthood, but why not treat each club and their successes in proportion accordingly?

The answer: there'd be a tidal wave of petitions flying around from supporters everywhere asking for their hero to be given the royal seal of approval, and that's simply counter-productive whichever way you look at it.

There is, however, another way - another method that can be used to ensure the managerial greats from your team's history are locked in the hearts and the minds of its fans forever.

We're not talking about entry into a football Hall of Fame. We're not talking about a bronze statue outside your team's stadium.

All you need to do is to tell your children about the Paisleys, the Steins, the Nicholsons and the Cloughs that your team played under, and if you have no children, tell somebody else's children. Tell them about the joy they gave you and the way your team played when they were in charge. Tell them how much of a difference they made to your team and the transformation they brought about while they were there.

Those children will grow up with a great respect for the icons you enthused about, and they'll go on to tell their children and their children's children. Legends don't have to be knighted, just remembered, so forget signing petitions - just keep their memory alive when you support your team.